Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#21

Post by croon » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:17 PM UTC

ysr23 wrote: post #9

croon wrote: post #2

Great! I get the appeal of non-career politicians voted into office, but I'd much rather take reasonable, well-educated scientists than the opposite.

Great? Angela Merkel, Maragaret Thatcher, Frauke Petry. Whatever your political persuasion there is, i'm sure at least one of those you would not describe as 'great'

I'm not sure what your point is, regardless of my view on those examples.

It wasn't an emphatic "This is great in every single scenario", but I very much think that it has a much larger chance of being great than the alternative, which is the long form of what I wrote.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#22

Post by maverick_iceman » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:17 PM UTC

mkaziz wrote: post #15

hueving wrote: post #11

>For now, 314 Action will only back Democratic candidates. Great. When you're being accused of being partisan, the best way to come back is to form an organization backing potential political candidates of just one party. What a joke. This is a squandered opportunity to try to get scientific minded people into running for the republican seats, which is how you would get real change in the discourse. Anyone who thinks…

Considering how anti-science republicans tend to be, I'm not surprised.

You forget that Bernie Sanders wants mandatory labeling of GMO foods. That's also anti-science scaremongering.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#23

Post by mjolk » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:17 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #14

hueving wrote: post #11

>For now, 314 Action will only back Democratic candidates. Great. When you're being accused of being partisan, the best way to come back is to form an organization backing potential political candidates of just one party. What a joke. This is a squandered opportunity to try to get scientific minded people into running for the republican seats, which is how you would get real change in the discourse. Anyone who thinks…

When science is a partisan issue, what else can you do?

This is delivered a bit to dry for me to know if I should laugh.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#24

Post by jonwachob91 » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

mkaziz wrote: post #15

hueving wrote: post #11

>For now, 314 Action will only back Democratic candidates. Great. When you're being accused of being partisan, the best way to come back is to form an organization backing potential political candidates of just one party. What a joke. This is a squandered opportunity to try to get scientific minded people into running for the republican seats, which is how you would get real change in the discourse. Anyone who thinks…

Considering how anti-science republicans tend to be, I'm not surprised.

Yes, b/c republican's aren't allowed to believe in climate change and scientist aren't allowed to believe in small government, power to the states, and that the constitution is not a living document...

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#25

Post by wnevets » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #11

>For now, 314 Action will only back Democratic candidates. Great. When you're being accused of being partisan, the best way to come back is to form an organization backing potential political candidates of just one party. What a joke. This is a squandered opportunity to try to get scientific minded people into running for the republican seats, which is how you would get real change in the discourse. Anyone who thinks…

With facts now being banned by the current republican white house, is this really a surprise?

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#26

Post by justinlaster » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

jonwachob91 wrote: post #24

mkaziz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how anti-science republicans tend to be, I'm not surprised.

Yes, b/c republican's aren't allowed to believe in climate change and scientist aren't allowed to believe in small government, power to the states, and that the constitution is not a living document...

No one said they weren't allowed. It's just exceedingly unlikely that as a scientist you would align yourself with a political party that has had a staunch anti-science platform for the past two decades.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#27

Post by jackmott » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:22 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #11

>For now, 314 Action will only back Democratic candidates. Great. When you're being accused of being partisan, the best way to come back is to form an organization backing potential political candidates of just one party. What a joke. This is a squandered opportunity to try to get scientific minded people into running for the republican seats, which is how you would get real change in the discourse. Anyone who thinks…

The republican party is simply unacceptable on many levels for any intelligent, honest person.

I realize that you, like many people, simply do not see it that way, and imagine that there is some kind of equivalence or near equivalence in how corrupt and crazy both parties are, but most of us don't. What we are seeing is horrific, a party that is against reason and goodness and civility at almost every step. They picked a rapist trust fund baby autocrat as their leader. He is now our president.

So yes, we are going to be partisan. We wouldn't be allowed to run as a republican if we were 'fiscally conservative' but felt that gays should be treated as people, refugees with compassion, women with respect, the environment with car, and that religion was crazy.

Furthermore anyone with a scientific bent would look at the empirical evidence provided by other nations with good standards of living and economic freedom and NOT BE fiscally conservative in the way the republican party is. It has no evidence supporting its efficacy!

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#28

Post by maverick_iceman » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #13

jasode wrote: post #6

The article doesn't mention the word "technocrat" but the wiki seems relevant even if the scientists only have modest goals of participating in government rather than grand ambitions of controlling the government from the top down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy

I'm not sure it applies. You can still be well educated and greedy/egotistical and not work for your constituents. But within elections, what else SHOULD we vote for other than merit? What really bothered me when Obama was elected was people throwing the word "elitism" around, because he was smart, eloquent and well educated, like that was somehow a bad thing. I sure as hell hope that the people elected are smarter t…

The idea that smarter people will be better at government is a fallacy which was conclusively disproved during 20th century. Since Plato's time there was this hypothesis that philosopher kings would somehow bring utopia or at least be better than the average ruler. Alas, the experiences of the 20th century belies that assumption. Communist parties were invariably led by formidable intellectuals (e.g. Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot) but they only left utter hopelessness and destruction in their wake.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#29

Post by virmundi » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #14

hueving wrote: post #11

>For now, 314 Action will only back Democratic candidates. Great. When you're being accused of being partisan, the best way to come back is to form an organization backing potential political candidates of just one party. What a joke. This is a squandered opportunity to try to get scientific minded people into running for the republican seats, which is how you would get real change in the discourse. Anyone who thinks…

When science is a partisan issue, what else can you do?

First, realize that science is not just a partisan issue. The liberals in the United States hate science just as much when it's not on their side. They don't reason things through.

I can't find it but there was an NPR story about a teach whose black students performed worse than the white students. The school's response, "Racist test!" The teacher reviewed the test, found nothing racist and looked further. The school was a bit peevish, but couldn't stop him since he was doing it on his own dime. The end result? The black students were all lead poisoned from their homes. The teacher worked with local clinics for free treatment and local rehabs to mitigate the lead in the houses. At the end of the year, the black students dramatically improved. That is science. Test a hypothesis with data.

You need to look for people in ALL parties that will listen to you. I could be such a person in the Republican party. I haven't been an official member since I ran a campaign for Coroner in South Bend at 18. I agree with them far more the Democrats. I also think that the party has left its core tenant of "Do what you want, but not on my lawn or public."

Publicly attacking half of the voting populace by explicitly excluding them from any consideration is a) impolite and b) un-fucking-scientific.

Re: Scientists Are Planning to Run for Office

#30

Post by cderwin » Wed, Jan 25, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #14

hueving wrote: post #11

>For now, 314 Action will only back Democratic candidates. Great. When you're being accused of being partisan, the best way to come back is to form an organization backing potential political candidates of just one party. What a joke. This is a squandered opportunity to try to get scientific minded people into running for the republican seats, which is how you would get real change in the discourse. Anyone who thinks…

When science is a partisan issue, what else can you do?

Even if you don't expect any scientists to want to be on a Republican ticket, why refuse to support prospective scientists who would do so? There might not be many conservative scientists, but I'm sure they exist.

The only answer that seems feasible to me is that they're not really interested in getting scientists elected, instead they're more interested in scientists who are willing to abuse their authority to promote progressive causes.