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The purge of German science in 1933

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Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#151

Post by shiroiushi »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #46
Terr_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you mean like jetpacks and robots, it would probably look the same as our current timeline, given that "nowadays" is 70 years later plus the global diffusion of technological progress. Perhaps the real question is how much incrementally-better everywhere would be without old wars.

I think the trick is to either get governments to fund basic research for a reason other than national defense, or get them to fund it for that reason but then never use the weapons.

>get them to fund it for that reason but then never use the weapons.

That's basically what happened during the Cold War. Aerospace technology and others were advanced incredibly (e.g., the Apollo moon missions).

These days, we don't get this so much, so we have to rely on advertising companies to give us innovation...

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#152

Post by Vecr »

pasabagi wrote: post #138
EnigmaFlare wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ test have genuine predictive power when applied to large groups. So no, they're not unscientific. In fact, the idea of IQ tests being useless or culturally biased is a now-outdated excuse that people used to use to justify the different results between ethic groups. It's now well accepted that different ethnic groups have different average IQs, and that IQ is a useful predictor of various life outcomes. What the p…

In general the thing people find obnoxious about this kind of argument is that both 'race' and 'IQ' have their origin in eugenics, but are meaningless in genetics. The genetic variation across one race (say black) is much greater than the variation between races. There are no well-established genetic predictors of IQ. So, even if you do find evidence that there is a statistical correlation between these two unscienti…

Can't you train a predictor on skull shape/bone length and IQ and go from there? Yeah there's no causation there, but you should be able to give a percentage that someone's IQ is above a certain number depending on high-rez MRI scan input of skull and bone length measurements.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#153

Post by PeterStuer »

actionfromafar wrote: post #31
xyzelement wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW in the current time we definitely encounter "wrong physics" in places where science and politics intersect. EG - a scientist can easily get smacked down for being "a climate change denialist" or an "antivaxer" or a similar unpalatable label way before the merits of their effort are evaluated.

Funny I was thinking of how so many otherwise intelligent and educated people believe climate change is just a liberal hoax.

I guess it got swept up in the reasonable skepticism that resulted from the exposed overt politisation of science that was already on the rise but went hokystick in 2020?

OTOH climate science as a field did already suffer from siege mentality before, whether justified or not, that did suppress rather than engage disallinged views.

(Fwiw my own not too informed view on the subject is we are heading for real disaster, we will and have postponed any real action until too late, but it will be the geo-engeneering grifters that will put the final nail in the coffin)

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#154

Post by atoav »

perihelions wrote: post #8

One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…

The Nazis have had a strong mystic and esotheric undercurrent which also had to do with the Thule Society. When Hitler came to power German of all walks of life thought they could wield him to reach their own goals. Being correct in the sense of logic isn't what the Nazis were about. Or as my grandfather said paraphrased from Austrian German (who was in the Hitler Youth, like all kids his age — he was 12 when the war ended): "I didn't like the Nazis because in their ranks only simpletons and brutes would get into positions of leadership." So I am not surprised all kind of things have been called "jewish", as this was an easy way to quickly get rid of people you either disliked, envied or who simply did better work than you.

In a sense Trumpism echos that sentiment, where merit or truth doesn't count, but yelling the right thing loud enough does.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#155

Post by boxed »

ctrw wrote: post #148
Daishiman wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever information you're getting, know that you're on the end of disinformation, because the mortality reductions were definitely broad-spectrum.

Is that why the US is the only country to mandate covid vaccines for children when there were no deaths in that group?

No, that's because you are right in that politics got involved so people got super confused. Wearing masks indoors in your own home for social signaling or wearing masks outdoors after it was long clear that was silly.

But the US being overly politicized doesn't have any impact on if the vaccine worked or not. Reality doesn't care.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#156

Post by boxed »

foobarian wrote: post #9
perihelions wrote: post #8

One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…

The depictions of "wrong physics" in the 3 Body Problem show kinda remind me of that. Any kind of thinking that had even a whiff of going against the party line would cause problems for the author. What a weird time. I wonder if it's similar to how we look down on e.g. string theory, except I don't know if that's an apples to apples comparison given that we haven't seen any string theory apples yet :-)

Struggle sessions were full of this stuff yea. Many people were killed during the Cultural Revolution for accepting reality.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#157

Post by silverquiet »

EnigmaFlare wrote: post #125
silverquiet wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Nothing wrong with wanting it, but a research paper is not the place to express personal opinions on how other people should behave. It's not a result they got from their own work, just rhetoric they know they're supposed to repeat, perhaps for safety of their careers, or perhaps because they unethically want to use their platform for activism.

I've accepted that we are going to destroy ourselves and there is essentially nothing to be done at this point, but isn't that generally considered a bad thing? I'm surprised that endeavoring to continue the existence of humanity is so controversial.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#158

Post by littlestymaar »

antod wrote: post #25
xyzelement wrote: post #6

It occurs to me that anti-semitism is a disease that ultimately destroys its host. If Germany "simply" wanted to win WW2, it should have cultivated its Jewish scientists (and by the way, 100K Jewish soldiers served their country in WW1) instead of eradicating them as per this article. Not to mention, diverting scarce wartime resources towards the program of concentration camps and ethnic extermination is not just pur…

You're mixing up the unintended consequences with the intended consequences. Persecuting jews (and others) was an intended consequence and started a lot earlier than WW2. Hitler wanted war, but just to the east - not a world war with the west. He was convinced the French, British and Americans wouldn't care enough to resist him. WW2 was an unintended consequence.

This explanation fails to describe what happened in 1940: when Hitler invaded Poland, UK and France declared war, but they stayed in France and Belgium so if Hitler only wanted war on the East, he could very much have it due to the reluctance of the colonial powers to attack. He deliberately chose to invade France.

(And it was an overwhelming success by the way, his demise came from the betrayal of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (and the even stupider move by the Japanese to attack the US at Pearl Harbor): had the conflict settled, or at least stick to a stalemate, in the positions of May 1940, WWII would have ended as a complete German and Japanese success.)

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#159

Post by silverquiet »

lynx23 wrote: post #126
silverquiet wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Think of the children! > In debate, it is a plea for pity that is used as an appeal to emotion, and therefore may become a logical fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

Yes, I never really got the appeal myself, but I'm told that people do in fact place great value on children which is why I'm so surprised at their willingness to destroy the planet.

Re: The purge of German science in 1933

#160

Post by lynx23 »

silverquiet wrote: post #159
lynx23 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of the children! > In debate, it is a plea for pity that is used as an appeal to emotion, and therefore may become a logical fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

Yes, I never really got the appeal myself, but I'm told that people do in fact place great value on children which is why I'm so surprised at their willingness to destroy the planet.

"destroy the planet" is pretty much an exaggregation which demonstrates nicely that you seem to be alarmist. No point in having a discussion then.
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