PAIN, I DON'T KNOW! | 2007-08-20
Pain wants me to be more specific about the future. My point is that I don't KNOW the future.
If you want to just make static here, you can declare that things like my suggestion that Indians MIGHT want Aryan babies is nonsense. You could argue that the Soviet Empire would have collapsed, Reagan or not. I call them as I SEE them, and when I don't think I SEE them, I don't call them.
As I KEEP pointing out, a Prophet of Doom is as silly as any other self-declared Prophet, but while everybody laughs at ever OTHER self-declared Prophet, the Prophet of Doom is NEVER laughed at. It may come from the same place that our absolute worship of stone-faced Chinese and American Indians who babble crap and do nothing comes from.
If you have a frown on your face, people take you seriously. Since Prophets of Doom have no better track record than any other prophets -- take a look at the famous predictions of 1900 of what couldn't be done by top people -- the only explanation is the Chinese one.
The East Indian/Aryan thing was simply a random example trying to get your head out of the latest newspaper. I don't argue it because it isn't my POINT. My POINT is that things will make up the future that sound absurd right now.
No Sovietologist lost a penny by being dead wrong about the future of the USSR. Nobody in intelligence lost anything by 9/11. I am alone in that I CARE about what will happen, not just about my next paycheck and a reputation.
NO ONE ELSE has talked about the GENERAL conflict between science and social science. You are a specialist in one or the other. But the simple fact is that you can't predict the future I you are a specialist. Specialists ALWAYS get blindsided. But it also never costs them anything, so that is not going to change.
One commenter put it perfectly: We are going to have to learn to THINK.
Someone asked me about general guidelines from me about comments I wouldn't bitch about. I can't think of any. Mark is bitching at me right now. I have no idea what he is getting at. I will bitch at you from time to time. If you have a point to make, you just have to live with it.
The points I just made strike me as important. Mark will ignore them and continue whatever jag he is on. Others will concentrate on what Mark is saying.
I'll just go ahead and make my points.