“No data, just vibes” perfectly describes how the conservatives and the Republicans have done science for decades.
Not just science: economics, diplomacy, ethics, health
Just a few hours ago I had a small side-discussion about Alex Jones; one commenter claimed that the alt right made him worse, but another said that it was the opposite: he pushed along the rise of the alt-right and helped create MAGA as we know it.
The by now common recipe “if there is a valid counterargument, abuse the person bringing it up and generally just shout your FUD louder” - he was one of the trendsetters.
I can remember when Lil’ Alex was an amusing character to a lot of us. Around the same time, I enjoyed reading RAW and dipping into the conspiracy theorists once in a while and trying on their “reality tunnels” for a bit, just for the exercise.
Heck, I remember spotting Lil’ Alex in A Scanner Darkly and being amused at the cameo. I thought he was doing it for the grift, meaning all of it - his Prison Planet movie, etc…
But a lot of this got very dark and metastasized over time, that’s for sure. And, just as predicted, the right wing conspiracy theorists that were spending decades projecting their fears onto people like Clinton and Janet Reno are the ones that welcome the very worst transgressions of “Big Government”, surprising almost nobody that has been paying attention to these types.
Hear hear.
I remember spotting Lil’ Alex in A Scanner Darkly and being amused at the cameo.
Indeed. I wonder if he was hired as an actor - i.e. to speak a script - I mean he does have an interesting voice - or if he somehow played himself?
That said, I never really got that movie. Not interesting for me, too preachy.
The Midnight Gospel otoh…That said, I never really got that movie. Not interesting for me, too preachy.
It came at a really good time for me, since I had just finished reading most of PKD’s stuff not too long before.
I think it was one of the more faithful interpretations of his work, IMHO. It might be the book itself was rather preachy to some, I don’t know. I think he had experienced a lot of things when it came to drug use in his own life in California, and that is 100% reflected in the book…it seemed a rather unvarnished view of things.
Didn’t PK Dick write straightforward novels most of the time? Is that his one “psychedelic” book? I remember a similar book by another author, and that one didn’t click for me either.
PKD, straightforward? Most definitely not.
The term Dickian (or Phildickian) is a thing because he did not write all that straightforwardly. Kind of like the way “Lynchian” is used for certain movies…
https://philipdick.com/literary-criticism/essays/phildickian-a-definition/
I guess there’s a reason why I never finished one of his books then.
But no disrespect, just a matter of personal taste.
Like everything else, “facts don’t care about your feelings” was also projection.
This reminds me of the way the USSR did science with Lysenkoism, etc.
