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22 Oct 2009 13:52
October 21. Extra post since I'm going to the land tomorrow. I've been thinking about the sociology of different subreddits. Just now I saw a post about a town's reaction to the death of its only homeless guy (link). Because it was posted in offbeat, I knew the town loved the guy. If the town hated the guy, it would have been posted in politics. And earlier today, I saw this fascinating link about the possibility that the large hadron collider is sabotaging itself from the future. It was submitted multiple times, and the conspiracy subreddit loved it, even though it has nothing to do with conspiracy, while the science subreddit didn't like it much, even though the speculation came from serious physicists. This is why I didn't make a career out of science: because I sensed that the culture of science is no longer about exploring and having fun, but about protecting your reputation and credibility. You know, there is nothing in the scientific method that says the burden of proof should be on anomalies, or that the dominant theory should get the benefit of the doubt. Those rules come from the conservatism that science has fallen into. I prefer to slant it the other way, give the fringe theory the benefit of the doubt, and assume that every anomaly, unless explained away with full evidence, offers a doorway to something we don't understand yet.
But I will overrule this habit if there are high practical stakes, as with climate change. If one theory says we have to be very careful or something terrible will happen, and the other theory says fuck it, we can do whatever we want, I'll go with caution. You don't wait for proof that you're going to crash before putting your seat belt on.
, plus a lot of crops. And it's possible that climate change will increase the severity of hailstorms. (Link via
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