Mark Zuckerberg, Where Is Your Spaceship?

Ground control to Major Mark:  You are missing out!  Every other Master of the Universe (well, three of them by last count) has his own spaceship.  Poor Mark.  All you have is a social media empire that is causing a whole lot of people to despise you.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have your own spaceship and just leave all this rancor and criticism behind?

The tech Robber Barons have such a large portion of the world’s wealth that the thought of merely doing typical fat cat philanthropy – endowing universities, building public monuments to themselves, constructing new wings in hospitals, etc. – bores them to tears.  They seek a more universal immortality, indeed an other-worldly one!  And their success in the tech world imbues them with the time-honored arrogance of all the supremely wealthy – the almost religious conviction that they know better than anyone how the world should be transformed and improved.

But Zuckerberg isn’t a member of the cool crowd anymore, if he ever was.  The dweebish, defensive persona aside, his billions and his accomplishments are suspect.  The social media juggernaut is facing hostility from all sides.  Its algorithmic propagation of hate speech, paranoia, disinformation, conspiracy theories and social neurosis has launched a thousand ships of pumped up psychopaths.  Is it any surprise that a platform that only grew meteorically because of Ivy league envy and FOMO would ultimately turn on its master?

Musk, Bezos and Branson have their spaceships.  What more could a God of Industry want in life?  And if they manage to accomplish something worthwhile for humankind in the process of indulging their massive egos, I will tip my hat to them.  But I am not sure that putting most of the wealth on this earth in a few hands is ever a good idea.  And let’s face it, the history of Robber Barons, Pharoahs, Emperors, Czars and other plutocrats is a pretty sad one and doesn’t generally work out well for the world.

 

Confusing Notions of Sin Among Christian Conservatives

It is interesting to observe that conservative Christians, who almost gleefully proclaim and catalog the sinful nature of human beings on an individual level, simultaneously insist on an uncritical celebration of the perfection and glory of the USA, its founders and its history.

The Judeo-Christian world focuses heavily on sin.  Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden and the rest of us have enthusiastically continued the trend.  Christian theology interprets Jesus as our savior from sin, sacrificing himself on the cross so that all of us are redeemed.  If we accept Jesus as our savior then it seems that our sin is forgiven. 

In Christian churches we talk a lot about sin and confess our sins routinely.  We strive to overcome our sinful natures, but we acknowledge that this is not possible and therefore seek the forgiveness of God and the redemption that comes from Jesus’s sacrifice.

With all this sin afoot, it seems miraculous that our nation, composed throughout its history entirely of sinful creatures, should be so perfect and noble in every way!  Our founders crafted a perfect constitution and set of laws that need absolutely no modifications or adaptations. 

Every one of our conflicts and wars was a noble and selfless cause that furthered God’s plan for the world.  Our conquest and development of the land was a God-inspired expression of the manifest destiny of Christian liberty, innovation and commerce!  No other nation in the history of the world has been so successful at overcoming greed, vanity, arrogance, avarice, envy and hunger for power as the USA!

Something doesn’t add up here.  You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t endlessly bemoan the sinful nature of humankind and then pretend that somehow the USA has been more or less flawless in its rise as an empire and world power.

I understand that the pendulum of critical and revisionist history can swing too far in its perception of historical wrongs.  I understand that it is nice to have historical figures that one looks up to and a certain level of pride in a nation’s accomplishments. 

But our national egotism has become an obsession and it deserves to be taken down a notch or two.  Human history has its glorious moments, but it is on average a slow, tortuous climb toward the sun with many a misstep.  We must learn from history to avoid repeating the horrors of the past.  And we do ourselves no favors by idealizing either our forefathers or their actions.  They were no worse than us, but also no better.

The USA is merely another powerful empire in the long history of this world.  It is driven primarily by self-interest, as all nations have been and still are today.  It is certainly no more ‘evil’ or imperialistic than any other empire or nation.  But it is also no paragon of virtue.

It is human nature to want to feel special.  Since our country’s founding many of us have succumbed to the temptation of believing that we are God’s chosen land and people, with all the moral superiority and special purpose that implies.  We do have a special purpose, but as world citizens not just as Americans.  All of us share this special purpose – to build a better world.

GM and the Collapse of the Republican House of Cards

GM’s stunning announcement that it will cease producing gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2035 may have pulled the first few cards out of the rickety house that conservatives have built in their anti-science world.  The announcement is a symbolic admission by the most conservative automaker that the threat of climate change is real.  And once the 'drill baby drill' nonsense is totally discredited, maybe the rest of the republican anti-science universe will start to disintegrate.  It doesn’t bode well for conservative political credibility.

The republican party, now perhaps better named the Trump party, has built a Maginot line of denial against science across several fronts for many years – climate change, COVID-19, evolution, abortion, gun-control, sexuality – to name a few.  It has rallied its followers with absurd claims and conspiracy theories. It has based policy on fabrications and fantasies rather than conducting a good faith analysis of scientific studies. 

The world began to finally recognize the craven duplicity of republican tactics during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Trump and his allies refused to acknowledge the gravity of the pandemic, abdicated responsibility for leading the national effort to respond, and willfully disdained scientific recommendations on mask-wearing, social distancing and shutdowns.  The crackpot theories – just another flu, it will disappear, hydrochloroquine, too many tests, the deaths are over-counted, masks are unnecessary, go for herd immunity, etc. – were debunked one by one but sadly forgotten in the sheer massive scope of the failure.

Perhaps climate change is the hill that the martyrs of republican idiocy will make their last stand on.  The conservative ship of fools is foundering on the rocks of the environmental crisis that it has refused to acknowledge.  When GM and other corporate giants, the former bedrock allies of the conservative movement, abandon ship, that leaves only the rats aboard.

Will the republicans be able to mask this new proof of their ineptitude by a barrage of conspiracy theories, red herrings and social media absurdities, as they did throughout the pandemic?  That ploy may finally be losing its power to delude the masses.  Hopefully only the most extreme and ignorant will fall prey.

Perhaps then the republican party can be led again by people who respect science, data, intellectual rigor and dialogue.  There is a place for a principled opposition that argues for moderation and careful progress in meeting our many national challenges.  But the charlatans who are now in charge need to go.

The Double Orwellian

Conservatives have been energetically condemning the social media and publishing censure of Josh Hawley, Donald Trump and others as Orwellian.  Their use of the term is amusing, as George Orwell would most likely view their Trumpian antics as an excellent example for the formative stages of the dystopian future that he envisioned in 1984. 

Orwell was a passionate opponent of totalitarianism, but he was not at all a conservative.  Indeed, he was a lifelong advocate for the poor and embraced democratic socialism as the ideal political and economic structure for a state.  He detested the British colonial system, spent significant time living a pauper’s life to understand the poor, and fought for the republican side in the Spanish Civil War, nearly losing his life.  The negative impact of the Stalinist-led communists on the overall republican efforts in Spain contributed to his distaste for any form of totalitarianism.

 The true definition of Orwellian is, according to Webster: 'suggestive of George Orwell or his writings, especially relating to or suggestive of the dystopian reality depicted in the novel 1984.'  It is a situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It imagines a society defined by propaganda, surveillance, disinformation, denial of truth (doublethink), and manipulation of the past.  The Trump era lies, fabrications and incivility are perfect examples. 

I am pretty certain that a private social media or publishing company deciding to censure a divisive public figure who is promoting political lies that have clearly led to mass conspiracy theories and violence is not a short step away from 1984.  There are, admittedly, the classic questions of free speech involved, but no one has actually stopped these idiots from talking. And they certainly have large numbers of outlets for their delusions – Fox, OAN, Newsmax, Epoch Times, and the many dark, teeming Internet sites that commercially benefit from fomenting outrage and paranoia.

In fact, by whining about their Orwellian treatment, these politicians have actually performed a double Orwellian.  Like others who accuse liberals of employing Nazi or fascist tactics, they have embraced the kind of doublespeak that is truly Orwellian.  As they rally the most dangerously anti-democratic and ultra-religious nutcases throughout the land for an assault on congress and our election process, they have the audacity to accuse liberals of being fascist and Orwellian and controlled by communists.

Now that is Orwellian.

 

 

The Short Trip from Biblical Inerrancy to QAnon and MAGA World Lies

Did all of humankind descend from Adam and Eve?  Was the world created in 7 days?  Did Noah build an ark that held two of every creature (and plants?) so that the world could start anew after God re-booted it?  Did Jonah live in the belly of a leviathan?  Was Jesus born of a virgin?  Did he change water into wine?  Did he walk on water?

Against all scientific evidence and logic to the contrary, many Christians, Jews and Muslims believe that the Bible and the Koran are inerrant – that their stories are true and historically accurate.  A large percentage of Americans do not accept the concept of evolution, or the geographical age of the world, or the basic truths of cosmology, particle physics and the universe.   

When it comes to matters of faith and religion, people stubbornly cling to a fantasy world that defies all modern science and reason.  Two thirds of white evangelical protestants believe that human beings have always existed in their present form (Pew Charitable Trust survey).  Between 2009 and 2013 the number of republicans that believe that human beings have evolved over time decreased from 54% to 43%.

The rationale for these beliefs is generally that they are a matter of ‘faith’.  Some adherents will attempt arguments to support this ‘faith’ and counter the prevailing scientific views, but most will simply declare their absolute certainty that their beliefs are correct and avoid further debate.  Sound familiar?

If one is able to accept biblical stories that contradict all of the long history of human discovery and accumulated knowledge in the service of protecting one’s closely held beliefs, then the leap to accepting all kinds of fabrications, half-truths, and outright lies to defend a political position is not a big one.  Who needs facts or proof?  If I believe hard enough, it can be true!

The habit of suspending disbelief is easily acquired.  It is very human to want to believe things that support one’s position and we all gravitate toward explanations that fall in line with our way of thinking.  But many of us are willing to reassess our stances if faced with clear, logical arguments that refute what we have assumed is true.

When the lifelong habit of refusing to reconsider religious myths or recognize the ambiguity of theological conundrums confronts the newly minted panoply of political and cultural myths, is it surprising that America’s evangelicals have smoothly transitioned to a new frontier of fantasy?

Is Trump a Godlike warrior with a heart for Jesus?  Is religious liberty under attack?  Is antifa the biggest domestic threat?  Is climate change a leftist conspiracy?  Was the election stolen?  Is communist China in league with the democrats?  Is BLM a Marxist movement?  Was the pandemic an overblown flu?  Did doctors and hospitals exaggerate COVID deaths?  Is there a cabal of deep state cannibal pedophiles?

Let’s face it.  If you can believe the Noah story, then you can believe just about anything.  And that’s where we are right now, despite all of our efforts to educate, inform and teach critical thinking.  Who said the dark ages are over?