"The rational in that post made no sense at all. Knowledge must be based on fact, "
Thats because YOU don't know the science... is your mind in a position to know what the facts are? Your post demonstrates your overwhelming illiteracy with regards to the brain sciences.
"Even if this conclusion is wrong, what do you think the proper method is to deal with the irrational nature of humans? Set up some sort of inner cabal of "great minds" to run the world (ignoring the fact they're just as human, therefore just as irrational, as anyone else)? Try to find some inhuman ("angelic") agent to run the world, and hope their goals remain humanly comprehensible? Or just give up and go back to the caves?"
Say me and you don't have time to figure out enough while we are alive, we can agree there is a reality out there that we need to know to survive yes? Our main problem as human beings as there is no consensus as to what 'reality' is, or who's judgement is functioning properly (aka people feel left out, hurt feelings, 'fairness',etc). Plato explored this problem, since it is in no way new.
So let us up the stakes, let's say there's a nuclear bomb and we know there is only a tiny number of educated people that can diffuse it. (This is why we have education after all). Now probably even the most (insert political label here) takes physics seriously provided they as an animal have a deep respect for science and evidence over their feelings. AKA survival and truth comes before politics, and politics has to change if it gets in the way of survival in this case. So when push comes to shove we want someone who is scientifically informed about the laws of nature, we don't want joe sixpack (aka chances of disarming the bomb go way up and that is a good thing).
Survival being something everyone can agree on and usually when someone tries to be a dumbass we get rid of him from our society/tribe, yes?
So we'd develop a system of reasoning related to long term survival, now in the ancient world... it would make sense anyone who disagree'd with it we'd get rid of (either by prison or killing depending on the situation). Since if you don't survive, there isn't really any room for debate now is there?
Now in our time, the "good" half of the elites in the corporate world and upper classes believe in the dictatorship of the best and brightest (aka the smart over the stupid). The downside is that there is not enough of them and there is no guarantee that they are mature (just look at the bailouts).
Bailout vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Basically it would come down to us developing techniques to ferret out our own lies and illusions, there must be a method that we just haven't discovered/come up with yet (consider you reading this right now, you know that you 100% exist in order to read this text, so we begin with the brute fact that we exist, and try to figure out the relationships that are connected to this one brute fact of existence which we can base our knowledge upon). Since even if our brain is flawed, there still must be stuff that works 100% or else we couldn't have survived. So the answer MUST be in our biology. Just what is the ruler the mind is using to measure the universe, at the foundation of mind there must be an absolute idea/concept from which to build a theory of truth regarding long term survival. (aka the door is open or closed, if we couldn't know, we couldn't decide and hence hurt ourselves).
Now the utlimate rule by which people stay or go is: People who have respect for truth, survival and the laws of nature and people who don't. Our problem comes with giving respect to people who just don't value these things. These people need to be mocked/shamed/whatever'd. We'd have to find some way to deal with them.
That's what this comes down to in the end, those of us who are adults and the rest of mankind who are teenagers/childish. Since a respect for what is true is respect for your own survival (aka the highest value, since it is the foundation of everything else we value).
Tragically you are uneducated and uninformed.
What you're stating would be great in a RATIONAL non superstitious world, where peoples brains worked according to enlightenment ideals but they don't.
If we took most of the people who voted 'against' global warming in the general population, how high do you think their scientific literacy would be? Human brains aren't blackboards, once bad information gets inside a persons mind through media it's damn near impossible to get it out. Think of it in terms of entropy, the energy you need to transform that brain back into a state where it has what is reasonable is overwhelming, especially when you're considering millions of people and let's say they don't trust you because you are black or for some other stupid unconscious reason.
Most people are not in a position to understand themselves and their own thinking, that's what the science says, aka, the average person is not qualified to 'scientifically debate' things like climate change. Or would you disagree with that assessment?
If you doubt it, look at the science:
"So the answer to the grandparent's question is "Yes, I do fly off the handle much.""
Flying off the handle suggest I had an "over reaction", rather than a justified reaction to pseudo-intellectual geeks and fake nerds that comment on slashdot.
"Your post is self-defeating. First you claim no one is an authority on what he or she knows, then you claim to know something "
No it isn't self defeating, there are people who CAN reason through natural unconscious superiority, not that they are able to take credit for that. Because smart people are unable to justify why it is they know what they know because it simply takes too much time. i.e. our brains simply do not work like we think they do. Consider if I asked you how much a given representation of really boring bits of your everyday visual field cost in biological terms (how much does it cost to perceive a door, a car, etc). You would have no fucking answer, yet you are able to do it. So we are capable of knowing things and not being able to explain why we know them. The hard part is trying to explain to OTHER PEOPLE not because they are stupid but because they are unaware that they are flawed (aka it's a time vs resources vs what is that animals modus operandi problem). Human beings are locked in their brain circuitry, you search whats in your memory to make a judgement, the problem is you can't see the contents of your own memory. Most of the information you're using to make judgments is not available to your conscious awareness.
I'm interested in truth for no political reason, I just want to know how the universe works, but for others they see it as an attack on their religion, politics, etc.
The problem is to find truth you have to take the attitude to rip it apart all the time (how can this be wrong? etc?). The problem is you wouldn't be able to know if you were in a position to do this unless you already possessed that unconscious superiority. Now this doesn't mean it's impossible for you to learn, it just means you'd have to spend an inordinate amount of time with a fine tooth comb going over what it is you know to find the contradictions.
Most of this is really just a lack of time in one's life to ferret out one's own hidden false premises that are just beyond the edge of your conscious awareness.
And I know you've never done it, to really find what is true requires unreal dedication few people have and you have to do it not in an argumentative environment or mode of operation because you want to not deceive yourself. When you're trying to "win" you're not trying to understand. The natural world is an unfolding process and that is the approach you have to take.
You are just as scientifically illiterate as the prior poster. Your brain doesn't literally live in reality, and science has discovered that *people are not* good judges of what they know and what they don't know about themselves and reality. So that means everyone is affected. So a good thing to do at this point would be to try to destroy what you think it is you know by going and asking people who are experts in the topic and I know you and the prior poster have not thought about this.
"You're irrational."
Actually it's you who are irrational, because I KNOW you are scientifically illiterate about how your own brain works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Your brain DOESN'T live in reality, it lives in it's own abstract representational space which has some bits of reality, but you are not in a good position to understand what you don't know and science says so! Of course that would require education you are lacking.
"It isn't real democracy when the government gets total control with only 30-some percent of the popular vote."
While democracy is rule by corporations, there are BETTER and WORSE corporate parties that have negative effects on everyone. It just means it's a lot of hard work to change the world.
"Democracy is far from a perfect system, but it beats the hell out of whatever's in second place."
"There's no room for real science."
Ummm the real science has been done and it's overwhelmingly in the favor of climate change. The idea that "two sides" are equal is bullshit, the same way you wouldn't treat a creationist who believed the earth and life was 6000 years old on an equal level with evolution of life on earth.
The idea that "both sides" deserve consideration is just fucking nonsense.
"I don't get it, after reading the comments here, why is there so much resistance accept that man is causing climate change?"
See the science on human reasoning:
"This is why its better to have elections"
"And you use it as a time to get angry at people who believe in God."
When people believe in gods that can't invent wireless camera phones and used the most inefficient method to communicate "his" message regardless of religion (christianity, islam, etc). People have every right to look down at believers in old gods with their ancient texts (which are full of errors).
If gods of our ancestors were so all powerful, why do they seem to have a messaging problem? Note that there are over roughly 30,000 different sects of Christianity alone. If a divine being fails so badly at communication, it's 100% certain that the person claiming that failure as evidence of divinity is gullible and lying to themselves.
"And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." -- Spaceballs
