Quick, dashing post

[silveradept]

...consisting mostly of links to strange things, like Lunchables. Since it was a "class" day, the only deviance from the routine was really that I spent some time giving KKY interviews to our MECs.

Since Red Day is coming up, I thought that bean sprouts with love messages might be worth thinking about.

And since I do claim to give you silly things, this is probably something that qualifies. A different state couldn't get the textbook stickers, so now they’re going straight to the state lawmakers. Why does this place have to look like Jesusland so Goddamned much? Or is that one of those things you can't say? This follows the heels of my subcultures prof saying that lots of high-school age kids have no idea that flag-burning is protected free speech, some saying that the government should be able to censor news publications... it's the school system at work, I suppose. First, they have to be loyal to the State, then they can be whatever. So long as they're loyal to the state and slaves to advertising.

Speaking of, I have to go to work tomorrow - I'm sure there’s an ironic joke there, and I think I might get it, but not fully. Either way, g'night!

Comments

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

So did you just scan my notes today looking for neat links to scam? ;)

Must admit, lunchables article was pretty hard to resist.

[silveradept]

Hey, I couldn't help it. My usual source didn't have anything, and your stuff was actually funny, so of course I'm going to raid your notes.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

It's cool, helps spread the madness around.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Wait? Are you saying I'm usually not funny?

[silveradept]

Well, normally, you're all pissed off and stuff. Takes the kind of person who's in that one song, the one about the guy who laughs at funerals... yeah. So now that you're funny, I'm raiding your stuff.

Then again, even when you were serious, I was raiding your stuff. Just spreading the madness around.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

hey I laugh at funerals. It's not that I'm angry really. I just have apaulling taste. I'll try to be pissed less and funny more.

[tinchen.livejournal.com]

Make it so, I'm actually worried from time to time.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

don't be worried, remember this whole LJ thing was a sounding board anyway.

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

High school kids do worry me sometimes. For the average non-humanities student in my sixth-form, their knowledge of politics was limited to very simple things. Like how Bush is evil and Britain won the second world war almost single-handedly. I was the only humanity student polled who knew two laws of thermodynamics. And yet these people were allowed to vote as soon as they reached 18. Thats not right, somehow.

[silveradept]

Well, sounds like your public ed system's doing about the same thing ours is - turning out flag-waving, non-questioning, advertisement-following zombies.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a questioning statement. Does someone need to see the thought police and go to a re-education center?

[silveradept]

Hee. But if they let me back out to the University where I am, it would probably do no good. Someone else would kidnap me and undo the Thought Police's work.

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. I remember one politics lesson where it turned out almost everyone's long term goal was to own a semi-detached house, have a high paying job and start a family. Wow.

From reading the article on free speech, I must admit that I am part of the problem. During my high school years I supported the laws against incitement of racial hatred and wanted to see a law against incitement of religious hatred. These laws protect the community by limiting free speech. Its not technically the same thing, of course, because we do not have a constitution in the same way that you do.

[silveradept]

Well, we usually make the distinction between free speech that may happen to be inflammatory (the Klan is allowed to have rallies) and inciting someone to action with inflammatory speech (that will bring the police very quickly). Speech is protected, incitement is not.

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

This makes sense. Recently, there was a documentary on TV showing British National Party meetings. The leader of the BNP warned people about what would happen to their wives, daughters and young boys if the Muslims could get their way. Essentially, their goal in the neighbourhood was to spread distrust between Muslims and white people in the hope of causing a race riot, because interracial violence is good for their cause.

In such a situation, I'm quite okay with limiting the BNP's freedom of speech. Its difficult to say exactly where speech ends and incitement begins. The BNP leader was never arrested, as that would make a matyr of him.

[silveradept]

The rule of thumb in these cases is whether or not action happens as a result of speech. If you can link someone going out and clubbing their Muslim neighbor to death because of that speech, they'll haul him up before the Assizes and charge him with hate speech. But if all they do is sit and talk about how much the Muslims are infidels, it'll probably pass.

The real fun gradients happen when you try to infer a discrimination action as a result of the speech. But again, if links can be provided that someone discriminated based on something they shouldn't have, and they have ties to a particular organization, that organization will get some serious scrutiny...

...but until you can prove they're the cause of the action, not the individual, they can still exist. Thus, Klan rallies, even to this day.

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Its a sad case, at least our more draconian measures limit the freedom of the BNP to spread hatred openly. But its one of these problems that will always exist as long as there's hate. So we cannot do very much.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Now wait a second. I went to school and I distinctly remember (mostly from watching Saving Private Ryan) that the US won WW2 single handed. We also invented Democracy and built the Moon you know? Oh yes!

No really, I know what you mean. Most the adults I know, who went to college and everything, are unaware that there ever ARE multiple laws of thermodynamics, and then they claim that it's about how furnaces work. (which is technically true, I suppose)

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

Its amazing how some people in this country completely forget that Russia and to some extent America did much of the fighting after they entered the war. I can't stand that attitude. You get people in this country who believe that every refuggee in the world comes to Britain, and Americans who believe that the whole world only exists because of the charity of the American government and anyone who stands against it hates your freedom.

I have noticed the ignorance in adults too. Over-specialisation worries me greatly, especially how the USA doesn't seem to do religious education, yet elects weird fanatics.

I worry that theology students won't know enough about science to properly consider ideas like evolution and the various moral issues that get debated. And that scientists with no real idea about religion will act smug and superior to pious people, even when its actualy counter-productive to do so. People need a balanced education.

[silveradept]

People should remember that the Cold War developed out of WWII because Russia refused to pull the troops out after they finished the fighting. So who was doing the most fighting? The people that would enter the arms race soon afterward. Don't they teach history these days?

The U.S. electing overtly religious fanatics is a recent development, as best I can tell. They were worried about Kennedy receiving a call from the Pope directing him to do things. Nowadays, they'll elect someone who promises to use his faith as a strong factor in evaluating things like national policy, even potentially overriding facts or evidence that indicates finer nuances to the discussion.

The theology students and the scientists not knowing each other's trades is because everyone wants to read the idea of "separation of Church and State" as "separation of Church from state". So they think that science and religion can't have anything to do with each other, especially in State-run education institutions. People can do religious education, they just can't appear to be endorsing one religion over another. But it's better for the machine if the kids don't think anyone but themselves have the possibility of being right about anything. Why not just start intoning "braaaaaains" while you're at it?

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. Without an understanding of history people get some wonderfully one-sided views. Then they act on them, and get upset when people have a different mythology to them. For instance, every single Europe versus America flamewar about WW2 ever.

Yes. I think its incredably dangerous, personally. In Europe we recently forced out a commissioner because he said that homosexuality is a sin. Blair is a quite pious Christian, but he knows better than to mention it. On the other hand, some people genuinely do care whether he's a catholic or a protestant. Or get upset when royals look into non-protestant religions too much.

That sounds about right. Some days, I bow down and thank the Alien Overlords for the Church of England and its traditional associations with government. The last thing we need is religion being separate from science. Religion at its best is a search for truth. How can we have that if its not aware of everything else?

[silveradept]

I think most of us don't mind if the man in charge of the government is religious - they have been for a very long time - but a lot of us believe that there should be secular justifications for actions taken by an officially secular government, even if one can see obvious religious connections in the result of that action.

So doing something like banning abortion could be accepted if it could be justified in a secular sense (science finds out a strongly positive correlation between abortion and suicide/homicide, for example), instead of "God decreed that you should get pregnant, so it would be a sin to kill the child."

Of course, since a lot of religious groups are also vocal in politics and campaigning, the church and the state do interact with each other. Religion and science should be the two sides of the coin of Truth, as you've said. You really can't have one without the other - they'll lead in interesting directions and discoveries. After all, if we didn't have shamanic trances, I somehow doubt we'd ever understand psychedlics...

[fred-smith.livejournal.com]

I can agree with that. Blair can believe anything he wants, but he should be able to justify his action based on the consensus reality. For instance, I take great offence to religious people laying down their laws on marriage for the whole society. They can never quite justify their viewpoint when pressed either, I find.

I don't think that science and religion are the only two tools we have for understanding truth. But they are useful tools. Imagine what would happen if monotheists could more easily connect their worship to the true glory of the universe. Or if magicians and mystics were more determined to follow the scientific method from time to time, instead of manipulating silly pseudo science to explain their point of view.

In an ideal world, people would integrate human knowledge to achieve their wills, rather than wasting energy on power struggles between competing disciplines like Science and Religion.

[silveradept]

I stand corrected. And I agree with you - everyone, including myself, could stand to apply the things we've learned in our travels to the other bits of our lives that could use them, too. Integrating knowledge to achieve will - I like that idea, especially since it takes the synthesis point of view, one of which I am particularly fond.