Scientific Progress

[juan]

On Mon, 24 Oct 2016 17:36:30 -0400
Kevin Gallagher <kevin.gallagher at nyu.edu> wrote:

> Hello all, "scientist" (PhD candidate) here in the field of computer
> science and cyber security.
> 
> Most of the scientists I have encountered are not totally malicious,
> just oblivious to the moral, ethical and political consequences of
> their work. They are blind enough to believe that their "advances"
> help society, despite them actually shifting the balance of power
> away from the people.
> 
> There are a few, however, who do what they can to shift power back
> into the hands of the people. I was greatly influenced by a paper by
> Phil Rogaway entitled "On the moral character of cryptographic work,"
> and I try my best to do research that works for the benefit of the
> people, not governments or wealthy power holders. Only time will tell
> if I am successful, but I will do my best.
> 
> There are others who also work with morals in mind. It is not so
> black and white as "scientists are evil people working for fascists."
> They are just unaware of the consequences of their work.


	That lack of awareness is certainly one of the problems but not
	the only one. Even forgetting for a second any moral
	implications, it is a fact that people working in the scientific
	establishment have strong incentives to 'go with the flow' in
	order to keep the grants coming. 

	A couple  more points. I don't think the  majority of people
	working in the scientific establishment deserve to be called
	scientists. Those people are not interested in any fundamental
	truth. They are more like technicians following a manual. *You*
	are aware of the political consequences of your technical work
	because you are interested in truth in a more general sense.
	They are not.

	And what I was getting at is that Tom's view according to which
	a 'conspiracy' involving 'every' single 'scientist' is
	impossible, is a misrepresentation of the actual state of
	affairs. To use internet slang, he's setting up a 'straw man'.

	And lastly, I did mention the existence of dissenters. But by
	definition, dissenters are not part of scientific consensus =P




> 
> On Oct 24, 2016 3:06 PM, "juan" <juan.g71 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 24 Oct 2016 20:58:24 +0200
> > Tom <tom at vondein.org> wrote:
> >
> > > But if all politicians, all employers, all teachers, all
> > > scientists and so on are fascists, parasites,
> >
> >         It's obvious that all 'scieniists' working for the state are
> >         parasites working for fascist states. Perhaps you need to
> >         research the nature of the political system you live in a
> > bit more?
> >
> >
> >
> > > or idiots, who are the sane people
> > > left?
> > >
> > > Only you, the russians and the Juan's out there?
> > >
> > > C'mon, nobody can be that stupid to really think that EVERY
> > > scientist is part of a global multi cultural, multi societal,
> > > multi language conspiracy!
> >
> >
> >         I thought it was clear that any dissenter gets silenced or
> >         ignored. So you could have saved yourself the
> > misrepresentatin. It's not 'every' one, just the majority.
> >
> >
> >         On the other hand, I'm familiar with 'libertarian'
> >         anti-conspiracy bullshit, so you could save it too
> > for...other audiences.
> >
> > >
> > > What next? Reptiles governing us? Earth is flat?  Bielefeld
> > > doesn't exist?
> > >
> > > Fuckers. Indeed.
> >
> >