The Catholic Church’s attitude to scientists for most of its existence is a case in point. And, yes, I am insinuating that the Catholic Church’s motives have been financial for a lot of its history.
COVID demonstrated this quite clearly. The shocking number of people that came out against science because they wanted a hair cut or a beer showed just how shallow and selfish our species is.
Except when it comes to green energy - because there is so much money to be made there.... yet they still cant let go of oil. They rather destroy the planet because "green energy" is too "woke"
Its absolutely true as is w alot of things its all about money never about morals,never about ethics,its never even about whats right&whats wrong.If you dont believe me just take a look at anything&apply it you will see that the only conclusion capitalism only works when it doesnt destroy everything
Part of this is the Dunning-Krueger effect. People think they know more than they do just because they are consuming a lot of information, but most of it is wrong. The internet certainly plays a part too. Lies and disinformation fly around the world and are accepted as fact faster than the truth.
Technology on its own is agnostic to social development. It can be used to facilitate, stall, or even regress social development. What determines that outcome is society’s institutions and culture, as technology necessarily operates within that broader framework.
I read a little book more than twenty years ago.. it was titled, “10,000 Pharaohs, 6 Billion Slaves”, if I recall correctly.
The present day numbers are slightly different but I sense that the facts within & the sentiment it held, would seem as true (& as crooked) as the nose on my face, today.
Much in the same way they use the Bible. Ignore the parts that force you to be caring and understanding, stress the parts that allow you to personify hatred.
I agree and feel compelled to type words of endearment beneath your words, but my brain is a pink smoothie inside a skull and can't formulate anything smart to say so... uh. Hi.
I'm not sure why anybody thought Capitalist societies care about science. They do care about technology, as long as it can be capitalized. Prior to neoliberal economics (aka trickle-down) our government provided minimal protection for the working class but that went out the window with Reagan.
Actually many of the same oligarch families that put Reagan in power are still in power now. Elon, Bezos & Zuck are new but the oil oligarchs go back to the Civil war when oil was discovered on the slave plantations.
I don't think that's accurate. The United States provides more robust Social services for the poor and working class today than it did in the seventies.
Working class people had highly paid union jobs in the 1970s. Almost 30% belonged to unions which were the PACs for average Americans. Unions got workers benefits. Now we have Citizens United PAC for billionaires. With Reagan, China got the jobs & US workers got trickle-down. Study economic history.
Where are you getting that from? Clinton’s welfare “reform” cut it, and states have reduced services and made them hard to apply for. The min. wage hasn’t kept up with inflation, schools are worse, college is unaffordable. ????
Wealth/Income inequality has gotten worse but social programs including Medicare (prescription drug coverage), Obamacare, food assistance, and other programs have gotten more robust.
The sad part is that those programs wouldn't be as necessary if we had a fair democracy. When the people at the top accumulate all the wealth the people at the bottom increasingly reach a very bad position. The oligarchs only agree to these programs to avoid riots but this will change now.
I watched Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” again last night and I swear he based the script of that message. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. It seems even more relative now than ever.
Short-term capital. If we were focused on long-term capital, we would be bending over backwards trying to prevent climate change. The economic impacts of climate change are going to be beyond anything we can even imagine.
Capitalism has never cared about the long term, because consciously or no, capitalists know that they don't HAVE a 'long term'. Capitalism is self-destructive; when it's unregulated, it has almost constant crashes, before there's one MASSIVE one that requires 'socialism' to step in.
The Great Depression is a great example. Even before the big crash, America's economy in particular had gone through several recessions/depressions in quick succession. And after, it took the closest-to-socialist package of economic legislation that America's ever had AND a world war to drag us out.
And that legislation was so popular that the President in charge was elected to four terms, his party had Congress for decades, and since then, the only Republican who became President without being nakedly corrupt and/or sabotaging America's interests was a war hero.
So if capitalism was about the long term, capitalists would be BEGGING for regulation, to keep things stable and thus profitable. Instead, they loot as much as they can as fast as they can, and hope that they're not one of the suckers left in the dust when the whole scheme inevitably collapses.
I remember reading about a theory that intelligence evolved not for solving problems but for convincing others. Given the weight that rhetoric has in our society, how deeply anchored it is in our policies, I think the problem is outside truth or money. The problem is our capacity to care for others
Well, insurers will have to adapt, so will the banks. In the end both will be aligned but unfortunately there's a high chance lots of damage will already have occured then
Oh there is. We wouldn’t have this measure of anti-science and anti-intellectualism if that weren’t true. Think of all the men who have shown they don’t have a clue about women’s healthcare while passing laws on our bodies that kill us. Science & tech is gate kept by the oligarchy- and it shows.
Damn that is deep and true! Carl Sagan said something of the effect before his death:
“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”
I think that the concept of Enlightenment came to be from the fact that THERE ARE SCIENTISTS, and we eventually stoped burning them alive.
But that’s about it.
As a child it's "me, me, me " as we get older it's "us" community and country and world. But when you're breaking your back and barely getting by it narrows your view back to "me."
Not only are you nothing. If you are poor and/or unable to work you are actively hated. And not only by wealthy people, but by brainwashed poor people who enjoy looking down on others. They don’t care if others starve. It’s a soul sickness.
100 percent true. In this case with climate control the “capital” is all based in self interest. People travel everywhere in the world. Every day there are hundreds of planes going all around the world. With all that fuel in the air, we’re never going to fix this. There needs to be a limit.
Unfortunately this is the way. I am saddened by our species that 'how much money it makes' is the measure we use for something's worth. We can print more money but don't because hoarding wealth is a celebrated activity.
It’s not the money alone it’s the will to believe in stories and ideologies and the good old primate thing „ my pack the other packs“. And even though we got brains, we got never rid of that
In communist Russia there was some freedom to do more “pure” research but in the end it was for bragging rights of the party. And you couldn’t do research that might violate party dogmas.
And whatever give the state most glory is usually where they are competing with capitalist regimes.
And this is why GDR and Sowjetunion union did tests on humans for western pharmaceuticals to get valuta as well as medication their science system did not produce?
Here in what you call "Socialist Denmark" the politicians are also lacking behind public opinion and industries will to do something. It seems they're afraid of making decisions that will cost them votes
My hope is that because the climate crisis will literally destroy all sorts of capital there will be a window for science and logic to sneak in and hopefully set up shop at the front of the line.
The dumbing down of Amerikkka when good is GMOed to produce cancer causing foods, lead and other heavy metals incorporated, and let’s not forget there was lead found in protein powder. The FDA really wants you to be a walking science experiment.
Capital(ism)’s use of science as a tool (for profit) is arguably the *cause* of the climate crisis (exploitation of fossil fuels). And capital(ism) will use science to *address* the climate crisis as soon as the crisis impacts capital. I hear the LA fires are a $50+ billion hit…
Well, both civilization and capital are *social* structures, whereas science is an *intellectual* one. So yeah, there is a sorta oil-and-water relationship there.
Or to put it another way, civilization (and capital) were around *long* before the Enlightenment. So while the Enlightenment (and science) depend on civilization (and capital), the reverse is not true. It is a mistake to think it “should” be otherwise.
It's also true that Capital can be made to see that working to save the climate is in Capital's own interest. (Possibly we can't expect humans to organize themselves around science, as wonderful as that would be.)
I'll rephrase what Jason Hickle posted if that helps:
Rich people (capital) use science only when they can profit off of it. The reason we haven't solved the climate crisis is because it would threaten the system that makes the rich richer and the rest of us poorer.
you can say in as many ways as you like, It is no different from what is happening right now. Create a problem, and tell the people it will cost them all their money to solve it.
I can 100% guarantee you that is not what Jason Hickle is saying here. I am familiar with his work though; I suspect you are not (he is kinda niche, so no worries at all). It's honestly really good, and I think you would like it! His book Less is More is a solid read.
i have no reason to disbelieve you. it probably says more about the choice of quote in the op, rather than its original intent and real context.
Just applying what is written with what seems to be happening in reality.
Yea for sure! You're not entirely wrong about the crisis cycle either. With the issue of climate, it's seems to be: ignore it to profit, then profit more with non-solutions, without solving the core problems that got us here. We cannot buy our way out of this problem. That's for sure!
Hottest year on record, second year in a row. The billionaires don't care, they welcome the mass starvation that will occur as they spend a couple generations in their bunkers in New Zealand
The book Merchants of Death describes how Big Tobacco obfuscated the cancer-tobacco link for decades, earning billions.
The same techniques are used by climate change deniers to keep fossil fuel industry profits coming.
"The Petroleum Papers" highlights similar tactics by the oil industry to deny and delay action on climate change for profit. It's a depressing and infuriating read.
Yes, hello, tipping! Systemic racism, no, tip credit states is without a doubt one of the easiest ways to prove America is a fucking joke & has been for as long as the other countries have been saying it. We're choking on our hypocrisy & "freedom."
That is very discerning. As a scientist in the biotech world, the executives clearly only had use for us when we developed a highly profitable product. They had minimal interest in the means we used or the ramifications. It was on us to identify true unmet medical needs and use benevolent design.
There was a decades-long effort on the part of the tobacco industry to thwart medical evidence that smoking caused dangerous diseases. The fossil fuel industry use the very same playbook in order to convince Americans that the climate crisis was bogus.
Small w for science too in the form of mRNA tech, remote working tech and epidemiology. But the flame is shared I suppose. Gotta count the small victories too I guess 😕
I also believe that most humans are disinclined to address issues that take more than one (their) generation to fix. If I'm not going to live long enough to suffer the consequences, why put in the work/make the investment? Climate change and our failing educational systems fall into that category.
Yes. This is the truth. Capitalism serves only capital and uses the base instincts and fears of people to make sure the oligarchs stay powerful and rich.
While I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment, I think it’s interesting that you could replace the word ‘science’ with the word ‘religion’ and it would still be true.
Capital corrupts, and absolute capital corrupts absolutely.
Maybe, if we try really hard, we can imagine a third option: something besides either a rigidly state-run economy or unfettered capitalist rapacity. Maybe something like a representative democracy with the power to regulate capitalist enterprises.
“SSS,” replied the Gerrymander. “Me and my friends, The Electoral College, Voter Suppression and Misinformation Technology, work hard to make sure your democracy will never be anything more than a sham, but we appreciate your willing participation.”
“Harrumph,” added the Corrupt Judiciary, “and WE are here to make sure Capital ALWAYS trumps representation. Hurr, hurr, hurr, did you see what we did there? We do amuse ourselves so heartily sometimes.”
Astounding revelation - the path we are on & always have been on is one of self destruction. Exactly why looking for a savior outside of humanity is a thing
Americans of both parties are almost universally agreed on this and once we hit 90% agreement we will be as powerful as the legalized weed movement. /s
Every catastrophe is an opportunity. We are experiencing the result. Hopefully people with knowledge , expertise and creativity are able to find solutions.
… And this is why and how we are to blame for our own demise on earth 🌍 She will be fine. We humans will not. The aliens are just awaiting their turn in line to live here, watching us circling the drain.
This is absolutely true... That's why our food system is the way it is, that's why our medical system is the way it is, that's why our energy system is the way it is... Gene Roddenberry called us the Ferengi. Indeed we are.
So sad that so many take $$ over people! Do they really believe that they will benefit by their ignorance? Don’t they realize that future generations (maybe even their children and grandchildren) will look back at the stupidity with disgust and disdain? Or maybe they don’t care!
Also true: The climate crisis reveals that our nation has never really been organized around *democracy,* contrary to the Enlightenment narrative. It is organized around wealth.
*Democracy* is embraced when it serves the interests of the wealthy few, and is often ignored when it does not.
This should not be a surprise. Since the dawn of time humans have prioritised supporting themselves whether by hunting for food or earning money to buy same.
Competent leadership harnesses this to achieve a goal.
What is needed is competent leadership.
Not sure what "narrative" means here, but the ideals of the Enlightenment have always been more of aspirational goals rather than a reality, right? A perpetual effort to progress towards. It still is our best way out of the cave.
You aren't wrong, but the question has always been one of "which road best leads us to those goals" and the road we have chosen within that framework has turned out to be faulty and full of potholes
I probably tend to see things comparably a little brighter than most. Are there still many problems to solve? Yes, esp Climate. But not sure we a better 'framework' than Englightment ideals to help us. Thinking of Steven Pinker's book on the subject.
I'm a "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" fan when it comes to enlightenment. Its goals are definitely worth shooting for and I think Pinker does a great job exploring it. Have you read Dialectic of Enlightenment
by Adorno and Horkheimer?
Absoutely true. We long ago gave up everything for profit. If their are aliens in the universe, they are just waiting for us to kill ourselves off before they move in.
There is the myth or story of the ancient scientist who invented unbreakable glass. When he took that idea to the ruler of a land famous for making glass, that was the last thing he ever did.
It what we get when idiots with no education about science are believed about a deadly virus over life long scientists whose lifes work is deadly viruses...and if religous how stupid you must be to ignore the scientists God created-morons
Science should serve the needs of the people...but it's all about who gets to define those needs. I myself trust the unconscious psychology of our species to survive far more than conscious scheming of anyone to "help us."
Either, we band together and make them pay their fair share, give up the resources of our dead ancestors, and rely on new, renewable energy, OR we watch it all burn bc the world will become unlivable in the future.
While there’s something to this, I think there’s another layer below capital that is the true organizing principle. It’s the inherited traditions, now mixed together from a hundred different sources, that shapes even the way capital and self-interested calculation operate.
The science always is organized around a society. Always, not the other way around, our society is organized on the servitude of capital and the imperial core.
Being a chemical engineer, it is deeply depressing how much industry in general doesn’t care about the environment. It is difficult for me to describe the scale occurring every hour of every day. I worked for 20 years to try and reduce environmental impact, but it’s like trying to drink the ocean.
Thank you for the good you DID to offset at least some of the evil.
My daughter is completing a Masters in Marine Biology. Scientists are dedicated to the health of the oceans & those who live within. She's fighting an uphill battle against the greed of humans who delight in destroying our planet.
It may be delight in some cases, but mostly it’s plain old greed driven indifference.
The consequences of tomorrow unfortunately stand no chance against those who insist upon having their capitalistic gains met today.
Greed & obsession with power will destroy us & all other species too. Will our leaders & corporations ever understand that without breathable air & drinkable water, billions & trillions of dollars will become utterly useless.
It is time for blue states to prepare to eliminate federal withholding, if necessary, & it is time for everyone who is antifascist to prepare for a general strike.
The SCOTUS super majority nullified the Constitution on July 1, 2024, replacing it with autocracy.
Or begin “States Rights” (hatriots played themselves) California withholding of federal tax revenue
And as Cori suggested and for some reason was ignored:
This will take a massive amount of organizing, planning & hardcore dedication by We the People who want democracy to prevail. It will be the most difficult task most people will have ever faced but it must be done if We intend to preserve the Republic as a nation of laws & equality for all citizens!
We now face “the most difficult task most (living people) will have ever faced.”
We face autocracy of, by & for the technoligarchy & obscenely wealthy. The Constitution is ashes. Rights have been relegated to privileges bestowed according to wealth.
It WAS a constitutionally guaranteed democratic republic.
“…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”
O well now, let's look back to the time of the Patriot Act, when both parties had to do everything in their power to "protect Democracy" & your right to type 2 diabetes & super size freedom fries. In typical fashion, it's whatever fits the narrative, at the time. That ? Is uniparty.
"Requiem For The American Dream" truly helped me understand the symbiotic relationship between Power and Wealth. They not only feed off each other. They feed each other.
The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
smith, ricardo and chicago-style neo-liberal thinking have always thought of nature as unalterable and unlimited... even today In the accounting books, finite resources are never taken into account. But this is a physical world, and we are increasingly reminded of it.
I think that capitalism offered new notions, new organization principles and progress. And ofc as every system, has reached the end of its useful life.
AI anarchy will contribute to the fall but most of all climate change; since it affects even the most naive citizen's daily life.
I don't think it's possible to unwind religion from the equation. Accumulating power as reflected by capital has always been easier when intertwined with religious dogma. Science & math were advanced with the Greeks before the Catholic Church tried to erase them.
Our society should be organized around the enlightened thoughts of one Jason Hickel @jasonhickel.bsky.social who obviously is more advanced than you peons
100 % Science has been held hostage by capitalism. There's rumors that something big is on the horizon in regards to science and disclosing truths, but i guess that's always the case.
An old truth too... the roman church was all for science in the long ago, but it fell out of favor as it weakened their pockets and power, so became vilified, came into vogue again in the Renaissance, then fell back out beyond industrial uses. Now, awkwardly the solution and problem for all life
Just so you know, (NOT IN FL OR TX) if you go to your local probate court, you can get the gender marker on your birth certificate changed. In Maine, it costs $15.
So when Trump makes it so you can only be referred to as the gender on your BC, youre ready.
Too deep that I sometimes cry when capitalism wins over science. 🤬 This isn't Fallout, science is restricted for a world ending reason. We already fucked up with the atomic and nuclear weapons, let's not let the oligarchy control science like they control the banks.
There are examples to the contrary, it is not all bad. At least from the shipping sector, this is my experience. Small victories are better than no victories.
If the oil companies, with all their R&D budgets and resources, had leaned into developing green tech instead of spending billions lying about climate change, they could’ve capitalized on it. They would’ve owned the patents, tech, etc. And it’s cheaper than drilling for oil that they know is finite.
Periodically, the voters shift attitude and we have a few good decades. After the Great Depression, FDR was elected. Tax rates jumped to 90% after the first five million of income. 1940s and 1950s saw explosive expansion of the middle class. Growth ended after 1980 with trickle down policies.
Not necessarily, it would require them to give up their attitudes about it, about the workers that generate it & think about a bottom line that isn't based solely on the acquisition of profits. This would mean they would slowly acquire less money. We're gonna have to eat them, time is on their side.
I think asking them to give up their attitudes about it is just about the same as asking them to give up their mone,y Cause their attitude is what got it for them.
The essence of capitalism is not science but the belief in money. Without money, there is neither service nor benefit. If you don’t feed capitalism, it will consume you. Humanity has long been busy preparing its own demise.
Are we surprised?
No.
Systems that prioritize nature and humanity ensure survival and preservation. Money should serve these goals, but capitalism often emphasizes wealth and personal ownership, alienating people and leading to a hostile manner. Humans' desire for existences relates to their choices about control limits.
this whole talk about "our society is around science" is and always was a lie, science is not a political force on itself by the contrary, science ALWAYS is submited to the society wants and needs and that can be a good thing.
I like your comment and it makes sense. I remember in middle school they were talking about how the earth was close to the sun and they talked about the ozone layer. That was in the 80's. So this year in 2025 everything going on with the environment it's sad how it's going especially in California.
Sadly too true and to the detriment of the citizens, health safety and prosperity. Prosperity for the wealthy is the mantra and well you know what the rest of us get.
I think we have to ask ourselves if the incentives are directing capital to sacrifice most of us for its own profit, and if so, why we aren't changing the incentives
Comments
The present day numbers are slightly different but I sense that the facts within & the sentiment it held, would seem as true (& as crooked) as the nose on my face, today.
humans are collateral damage for the, ‘almighty dollar’💰
Unions/unionizing is some unspeakable dirty word
The average CEO makes 344 times their average employee’s wage
We’re constantly told the only way we can prosper is to pay CEOs more while suppressing wages and never properly taxing them.
Good things. Citizens United, Trickle-down economics, Entitlement cuts, Austerity programs...
Kind of makes you wonder who's running things around here...
“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”
But that’s about it.
You either serve capitalism or you have no value.
You ask any kid what they want to be and they will say "a billionaire!"
In 1 party states, the ruling party dictates the rules & priorities. In capitalist societies it’s business profit motive.
In social democracies its primarily capital balanced more toward public interest
And whatever give the state most glory is usually where they are competing with capitalist regimes.
https://items.ssrc.org/covid-19-and-the-social-sciences/democracy-and-pandemics/political-economy-and-democratic-capacity-to-respond-to-pandemics/
My hope is that because the climate crisis will literally destroy all sorts of capital there will be a window for science and logic to sneak in and hopefully set up shop at the front of the line.
It's also true that Capital can be made to see that working to save the climate is in Capital's own interest. (Possibly we can't expect humans to organize themselves around science, as wonderful as that would be.)
Rich people (capital) use science only when they can profit off of it. The reason we haven't solved the climate crisis is because it would threaten the system that makes the rich richer and the rest of us poorer.
I hope that clarifies!
Just applying what is written with what seems to be happening in reality.
The same techniques are used by climate change deniers to keep fossil fuel industry profits coming.
Sorry!
But they are merchants of death, too…
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/03/excerpt-from-naomi-oreskes-the-big-myth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Petroleum_Papers
https://youtu.be/oJJGuIZVfLM?si=rKcy4XMe0FzBkdHQ
https://youtu.be/Sdn3O6aaMNc?si=Th0P8n8E20nniKeJ
Education
Employment
Healthcare
Justice
Capitalism has taken over our democracy.
Happy birthday
Science needs to be
boosted ASAP. 🙏
Capital corrupts, and absolute capital corrupts absolutely.
But that’s probably just crazy talk, right?
Otherwise, the work is half done, which isn't great.
https://basicbc.wordpress.com/2023/12/23/climate-action-is-like-a-runaway-dentist/
Tax. Wealth. Heavily
Americans of both parties are almost universally agreed on this and once we hit 90% agreement we will be as powerful as the legalized weed movement. /s
*Democracy* is embraced when it serves the interests of the wealthy few, and is often ignored when it does not.
Competent leadership harnesses this to achieve a goal.
What is needed is competent leadership.
by Adorno and Horkheimer?
Basic science has preached for years that grant funding is fragile and Republicans want to take it away.
So that would tend to agree.
Satan is laughing hysterically.
Quite the dilemma: survival or Death?
Hmm, I might have to think about shareholders
https://youtu.be/ZVOzr70yjv4?si=0rNtY-jAM0LPw1Ex
The science always is organized around a society. Always, not the other way around, our society is organized on the servitude of capital and the imperial core.
My daughter is completing a Masters in Marine Biology. Scientists are dedicated to the health of the oceans & those who live within. She's fighting an uphill battle against the greed of humans who delight in destroying our planet.
The consequences of tomorrow unfortunately stand no chance against those who insist upon having their capitalistic gains met today.
The SCOTUS super majority nullified the Constitution on July 1, 2024, replacing it with autocracy.
No Constitution, no federal tax.
And as Cori suggested and for some reason was ignored:
Water/fuel/food/etc. Make a neighborhood plan.
We should be largely prepared now. This is an overt fascist overthrow of our constitutionally guaranteed democratic republic.
NQNQ247
Also the whole point of a general strike is economic disruption and requires unions to organize, something that the US is pretty drastically short on
Nobody said it would be easy. First it takes a spark.
The Constitution was nullified on July 1, 2024 by the SCOTUS super majority in favor of autocracy of, by & for the obscenely wealthy.
I do not consent to autocracy.
No Constitution, no federal tax.
We face autocracy of, by & for the technoligarchy & obscenely wealthy. The Constitution is ashes. Rights have been relegated to privileges bestowed according to wealth.
I do not consent.
No Constitution, no tax.
“…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”
I do not consent to autocracy.
AI anarchy will contribute to the fall but most of all climate change; since it affects even the most naive citizen's daily life.
The problem has always been religion.
No socioeconomic theory ever attempted in practice has succeeded, because no socioeconomic theory ever devised has adequately accounted for greed.
So when Trump makes it so you can only be referred to as the gender on your BC, youre ready.
Fight back.
Are we surprised?
No.
Actually socialism wants to get rid of money.
Money is seen as an oppressive force of capital in nearly all socialist theorists, even the older ones.
In marxism socialism is the lower stage of communism and communism is the moneyless, classless , stateless society, for example
Oppression is a profession