Comment by WhompingWindows | Hacker News Reader

Comment by WhompingWindows | Hacker News Reader

WhompingWindows

In my opinion, the main crux is this: there are moneyed interests who are motivated to generate mistrust and otherization based on political parties. In the USA, Fox News has a strong incentive to inspire hatred and fear of Democratic policy, and MSNBC has a strong incentive to inspire hatred of the GOP. The same is true for Twitter, FB, NYT, WSJ, WaPo, literally any media outlet. Hatred, fear, outrage, worry, anxiety: they all drive viewers to advertisements.

One major example, these media groups facilitated making a huge rift on climate change belief. The fossil fuel industry saw in the GOP, and some moderate Dems like Manchin, an opportunity to create doubt and slow the transition off their fossil fuel products. Now, the GOP has leaned into anti-scientist, anti-elitist sentiment, fed by Fox News and others. They're not totally anti-science, they still use abortion science, ivermectin science, and all the wonders of modern life...but they ARE anti-scientist, anti-elitist, anti-university.

And Why? We're hating each other so media companies can make a few measly cents.

We do not live in a society with two equal sides. The GOP has made destroying democracy/hating "the media" core to their platform, as opposed to centering their platform on some sort of policy goal. Do democrats hate the GOP? Sure, but their coalition is not nearly as structurally oriented around this fact.

I appreciate that you drew a distinction, because being anti-science and anti-scientist are not the same thing at all.

The current way that science, i.e., research, is being funded has very little to do with the Scientific Method and seems very broken.

That seems to be the GOP stance; that huge funds are flowing from big corporate interests into universities. It seems quite simple to purchase nearly whatever research you like.

The US is not the only country though. And while some small bad research may get bought, these are usually easy to spot by experts in the field, or even by simply looking at the methodology which may be bad even from a statistical point of view.

I didn't say it was. Studies are funded by corporations globally.

> Now, the GOP has leaned into anti-scientist, anti-elitist sentiments, fed by Fox News and others..

I wouldn't fault them for your view of their broad sentiments on this trend but I think if you went back over the last twenty years, these sentiments were more often aligned for the left-wing.

"The real conversation has to be about what solutions we're in favor of." -- Dan Crenshaw, on the Daily Show

https://youtu.be/HWsS7N8KmYY?t=1141

The last twenty years gives us a few administrations from which we can asses policy making decisions: Bush; Obama; Trump; and now Biden.

Of those four, I don't think it's possible to make a good-faith argument that Obama and Biden administrations have been more anti-science than either Bush's or Trump's. A single sound bite from Dan Crenshaw talking about shifting the focus of conversation towards solutions doesn't refute the fact that Trump had directed the EPA to remove statements about climate change from their website, withdrew our participation from the Paris Accords, and made public statements drenched in falsehoods about how climate change is a hoax. Similarly, Bush rejecting the Kyoto Protocol and allowing Exxon to have an active role in making climate change policy goes completely against your assertions.

Could you provide some sources to substantiate your viewpoint? I'd love to know if I'm just being overly biased here, or if we've fallen prey to disinformation campaigns.

The viewpoint you're responding to is the GOP strategy, not a viewpoint derived from facts. The strategy being, pretend both sides are equal and that any suggestion of difference in respect to valuing science or democracy is actually a bias.

Pretending both sides are the same when their differences are plain as day is both foolish and damaging.

> The viewpoint you're responding to is the GOP strategy, not a viewpoint derived from facts.

I wondered about this too but wasn't aware this is a "GOP strategy". In contrast, I only responded because I'm still wrapping my head around a Michael Malice quote:

"Conservatism is progressivism with speed limits."

This is GOP strategy in practice, I’m not sure if there’s a party document anywhere that outlines it though.

I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say with your comment.

I don't think I'm creating a false equivalence between the respective parties; their differences are certainly clear - one of those differences being a closed-ears approach to scientific evidence.

Could you elaborate or clarify what you meant?

I'm trying to support your comment, and my comment was meant to describe GP not you. I can see how its a bit misleading.

> Could you provide some sources to substantiate your viewpoint?

I cannot as I'm only learning of this now and reflecting on what I've known from before. Trump directing "the EPA to remove statements about climate change" is largely irrelevant (to me personally) when there are active industries apart from politics that are striving for "greener" technologies.

Take for example the transition from Toyota's hybrid vehicles to Tesla's or, solar array proliferation seen from Google Maps timeline.

It's also good for the people in power. It's a pretty straight forward divide and conquer strategy. The US public want probably 80% of the same thing (economic), but we won't get it because we bicker about the 20% (cultural/wedge).

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