I thought we'd bottomed this correspondence a while ago but alas
scientists do not confine their activities to the ivory towers of
academe. Quite a few, indeed a great number have sought the dubious joy
of working for the military-police industrial complex...a nice little
earner and hang the ethical considerations.
I remember when we first started the debate on the forum as either a
platform for change or social astronomy, I was deeply concerned that the
climate change issue would fail to be resolved politically or indeed
environmentally and that the military would field test all sorts of area
denial and perimeter exclsuion technologies against those attempting to
migrate across borders because of climate change.
Curiously this debate re ignited just days before Pentcho's email
arrived..the pentagon announced they field tested their new ray gun on
over 10,000 volunteers:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6300985.stm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2565312,00.html
Most of the independent comment workldwide came from the Yorkshire based
Threshold group which was set up to ask searching technical questions
about the assertions made by scientists and military personnel that the
technology was quite safe. Here is a role for scientific expertise. We
don't need to be white collar mecenaries, we can call to account and for
me, increasingly that is what our forum is orienating itself to do.
Let's co-operate in challenge but reflect for a moment in the hope of
wisdom in choosing the most legitimate targets to focus our dissent.
Steve Wright
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pentcho Valev
Sent: 29 January 2007 07:09
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ANGELS ON A PIN?
On Sat, 9 Sep 2006 13:25:17 +0100, Wright, Steve
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
___________________________________________
>How many angels can you fit on a pin? Why even pose such a silly
>question?
Well it can effectively distract people with overlarge brains from
focussing on this world rather than the next.
>
>Jonathan is of course right. Why are we focussing on the speed of light
when we are a climate crisis forum? What we can be sure of is that our
collective mind will not solve climate change at the speed of light. The
rest is infantile.... ______________________________________________
I am afraid the "speed of light" (that is, fundamental) problems are the
only problems scientists should try to resolve (besides, you are not
just a
climate crisis forum, judging from the initial description). The
destruction of human rationality through science education should stop.
Only in university auditoriums scientists' voices may be heard. Any
other
activity, including shouting slogans at politicians, is inefficient. For
the moment the slogans I am shouting at scientists are also inefficient:
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/discussion.asp?id=2645
Pentcho Valev
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