I reminded him that many of my own family members, people that he trusts, work in scientific endeavors; a marine biologist, for example, who has dedicated his life to the wellbeing of the various Pacific salmon species, for the sake of our food supply and forest health. He just lumped me into the second category, insisting that salmon are only managed for profit. That the funding for wild salmon research was being redirected towards improving the yield of fish farms, to the detriment of both the forests of western Canada, and to the detriment of the families and communities that live off of the wild salmon fisheries.
We don't talk much anymore. In order to convince people like this to support science, instead of attacking it, we must convince them of two things: that "real, working" scientists have a conscience, and that they have the power to follow their conscience without losing their status as real, working, scientists.
The more effective strategy, which Trump employed, is to find people on the edge of indecision in opportune areas and tailor your message to their interests.
Well, that's disgusting. What you're intimating is that if you cannot convince someone that they're wrong, you want nothing to do with them. Horrid.
Instead of always being right, how about you try tact? Ask non-related questions, and show interest in his chosen hobbies or field of study/work.
The above is no reason to /disconnect/ from another human being. It's reason to get to know them better. Lead by example, not by force-feeding them your dogma.
You'd probably benefit from some light reading:
How to Win Friends & Influence People: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H38S9FY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
Sure it is; finding out another person is incapable of rational thought is a great reason to remove them from your life. You can't fix stupid and why would you want to be connected to someone whom you're only ever going to continually disagree with because they lack the ability of reason?
> It's reason to get to know them better. Lead by example, not by force-feeding them your dogma.
You can't fix those people or lead them anywhere, they're the ones stuck in dogma, not him.
Sun Tzu's philosophy of "taking whole", of carefully manipulating your opponent into aligning their goals with yours, is the best strategy that I can come up with. But, because of the communication barrier between us, I am unsure of how to apply it.
They aren't going to impeach the president for doing things they largely agree with.
No way. Republicans would burn down this country rather than admit they have a bad president.
There is enough of an argument that he's violating the emoluments clause that if congress wanted to they could almost definitely use that as grounds for impeachment.
Grounds for impeachment are whatever the House decides are grounds for impeachment.
I wholeheartedly agree that we need to work together to wield whatever power we have, using all of our creative resources.
We need a cultural change. This is good news in that we know the long tail of society's critical judgement is, well, very long. Cf ads for pointless junk. "All we need to do" is provide something more compelling than what the machine is providing. We need new art. We need new music. We need new mainstream values. And by "values" I mean what is esteemed, and what is reviled. We'll never solve this as long as teachers are not paid and regarded as professionals. (This is about "convincing people," right?) We need to "fail 90% of the time" 10 times a day at trying anything that could possibly work. We need an Uber for activism. We need to forge a world where it's imaginable that a hunter in rural south Louisiana can be a globally-minded environmentalist without risk to his social standing. We need to suck it up and dump Facebook, or at least turn it against itself. The anti-intellectuals have changed normal, and we need to change it again. The good news is, we know how fast normal can change. If we can indeed claim the mantle of rational truth, then we need to use that to our advantage in every thinkable way. Break your bad habits, and help your friends break theirs. Eat better. Sleep better. We'll never win this if we're leaving anything on the table. I'm sick of feeling powerless and letting this go on. I know I'm not alone. We need to figure out how to channel this feeling into useful, radical action, and fast. And by radical I mean, unexpected, lateral, risky, uncomfortable. Conservative people like me (and I'm very risk-averse) need to get over ourselves and think of our children. I have two. At this point, we are leaving them a weaker democracy, a meaner society, and a metastasizing corruption. We make systems, we have resources, let's effing Xerox PARC this thing. I'll write code, I'll pay for hosting, I'll canvass. What? What do we need to do? How can we get together and change this game?
Every administration has pressured the EPA to get the "right" results - or equivalently, to do the right studies - for the administration's political agenda. Hopefully this spurs people who believe in science, like you and me, to protect future science from nutjob politicians.
If you want politics and PC agendas out of research and scholarship, you have to fund it yourself.
There was plenty of opportunity 6 months ago during the election, when Trump presented it as part of his platform. Are you surprised he is doing what he said he would do to the environmental agencies? What makes you think the people who voted for him are not happy with his policy implementation so far?
There may be some surprised faces come midterms...again. I'm not a Trump fan, but he's doing some interesting things re: the economy (free trade only works if everyone plays fair, so he's trying to bully people). If the economy takes off (which could happen despite his economic policies) it will "trump" any of the terrible things he does to these agencies. Remember, standard Republican playbook is "government is bad", so the base doesn't really mind seeing the EPA things gutted.
Remember, standard Republican playbook is "government is
bad", so the base doesn't really mind seeing the EPA things
gutted.
The GOP has turned into a permanent opposition party, incapable of governing. IMO, anybody who earnestly casts a vote should vote for a Democrat, or some candidate willing to caucus with Democrats. Even if you're a classic small government, low taxes kind of person. Even if you're libertarian. Even if you're a conservative culture warrior.
Americans who vote for the GOP are like Venezuelans who vote for the United Socialist Party (of Maduro and Chavez). Both parties have crafted a political narrative that effectively immunizes them from criticism, even as they sink the country into political chaos. Anything they do wrong can be blamed on the opposing side, and the base largely accepts it, or at least acquiesces. Things won't turn around until the leftists in Venezuela hold their noses and vote for the capitalist "elite". Likewise, things won't turn around in the U.S. until those on the right hold their noses and vote for the leftist "elite". And in both cases they need to do so for as long as it takes for the broken party to re-internalize notions of compromise and power sharing.
People need to put their ideology on the back burner for a few election cycles and focus on rebuilding civic society. If you agree with that then I think your choice in the next election is an easy one. Don't listen to the rhetoric or campaign promises: focus on the past 30 years of legislative outcomes and political strategy. One major American party more than any other has systematically worked toward destroying, both rhetorically and in actuality, efficient governance and the legitimacy of political compromise. To do so they've had to attack the fundamental legitimacy of science, but science is just one of many victims along their path to power.
Why is that the ONLY rational response? What removal mechanism do you propose?
This is baseless fear-mongering.