Podcast Episode Details
Back to Podcast Episodes
405: No, It's Not Just a Piece of Cloth
Episode 405
No, it's not just a piece of cloth
• Context
◦ Mark Meadows and Ben Carson tested positive
◦ US is spreading virus maybe most in world. White House more infections than Vietnam
◦ In fact there are more people in Ben Carson with covid than in Vietnam.
◦ Masks halt spread.
◦ People say tragic that it's become political, but even so, it's just a piece of cloth. Just wear it.
◦ "A mask is not a political statement, but it is a good way to start bringing America back together," Biden said on Monday. "The goal is to get back to normal as fast as possible."
◦ From leadership perspective, couldn't be more counterproductive or for that matter insensitive and insulting
◦ Leading people, influence, and persuasion depend on the person being led. You have to go where they are, not where you think they should be, where you are, where others are.
◦ Requires empathy, which saying just a piece of cloth shows none of. On the contrary, generally shows the opposite -- you imposing your values on them despite not knowing theirs. Nobody likes their values misunderstood and then told what to do against those values.
◦ Let's consider someone who views them as freedom issue. Have you considered their perspective?
• Science
◦ They know science works to some degree. They drive ICE cars and use computers.
◦ They also know scientists make mistakes, that scientists and their results have been used for nefarious purposes, and that people retract their results. Even when right, scientists change opinions and regret past decisions.
◦ Whatever your confidence in science, I have PhD in physics, several patents, I helped launch a satellite, and I work on sustainability. I like science.
◦ I also know its limits. It doesn't give you answers. It gives you inputs that inform your decision-making process based on your values. Math and logic take you from your starting points, your axioms, to conclusions, but those starting points start outside science and math. Euclid started with a few axioms about points and lines. He can't prove them. He only shows what they generate. In fact, when they thought to change one, they got non-Euclidean geometry, one of the great advances of math.
◦ My point is that you are using science as an input to your decision, but ultimately you're acting on your values. So are they. If you act like it's just science, you're neglecting that you are trying to impose your values on them.
◦ Let's look at some things science has gotten wrong. Again, you may think now is different, but the scientists at the time didn't.
◦ There's eugenics that supported racism, phrenology, thinking the earth was flat, thinking the earth was at the center of the universe. Even someone who rejects evolution knows that evolution evolved from Lamarck, which was wrong.
◦ Einstein regretted that his work helped create the atomic bomb. Many scientists regretted or at least had second thoughts about contributing to the Manhattan Project. Even fighting Hitler and Imperial Japan, they got swept up to do something beyond what they realized.
◦ This "beyond what they realized" is important. Many scientists and engineers don't consider the consequences of their work.
◦ This neglecting to realize unintended side effect is a major thrust of my sustainability work. Most efforts at efficiency are net increasing pollution and waste.
• Their perspective
◦ I consider it a totally fair starting point, even if someone agrees with the science, to say "I see the science, but that's not the final word. It's an input to a decision-making process. Let's see where it leads."
◦ From that perspective, someone saying it's just a piece of cloth sounds ignorant.
◦ Where could it lead? If I don't empathize I get nowhere. If I empathize I see many concerns. One is that leftists want power. They don't do themselves what they tell others to do, eve
Published on 5 years, 1 month ago