Comment by dcow
21 days ago
I don’t agree with the framing of “we are experiencing an assault on objective truth…”.
We are experiencing a challenge to some existing status quo practices, some of which have come out of science in the past.
But nowhere in any conversation has the dialog been “we must question status quo institutional knowledge, and objective truth, to dismantle the institution”. (That’s left speak, actually, and I am acutely aware of leftist circles where that is the conversation.)
Look at RFK Jr. This guy doesn't need power and control. He’s a whacko with some different beliefs about health—who fundamentally believes he’s making humans safer because of his negative lived experience with health policy in the US.
Occam's razor points to there being a credible benign reason for him to be motivated to challenge existing policy. (And if there is one area of science ripe for iteration, it’s nutritional health.) We don’t need to grab for more extreme alarmist narratives to explain what’s happening.
It simply doesn't take some autocratic utopian agenda to question whether fluoride is worth it and advocate for political change.
It’s honestly really disingenuous and disheartening to hear people towing this “the right is trying to dismantle the fabric of western liberal democracy and install fascism” line.
RFK Jr brought roadkill home to cook and eat multiple times.
Occam's Razor says he is a crank.
He is a dangerous crank, but fresh roadkill is a perfectly fine practice.
You have to cook it thoroughly, same as any other game meat. Do not eat the central nervous system, again same as game. But dead is dead, and a car is no worse than a bullet.
That does not alter that we have a dangerous idiot running out health care policy.
Dead is dead but for how long? If you hunt, you know when the animal died and presumably cleaned it promptly. It didn't bake on the pavement with all its guts inside for hours or days.
Sure! Which means he’s either a really effective covert operative, or just a crank. To be clear I’m not arguing in support of crack science. I’m arguing against him being plugged into some broader insidious agenda.
If you've got a broader insidious agenda, installing useful idiots is definitely a way to enact it.
Zoom out and you’ll see that there is a broad attack against science institutions going on right now. RFK is just one aspect.
NIH funding down 60% compared with one year ago: https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/report-us-scientists-...
UMass disbands its entering biomed graduate class over Trump funding chaos: https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/umass-disbands-its-en...
Not to mention the defunding of anything to do with climate change.
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It’s a big jump to assume competence in targeting half of all science funding. As you saw in my link above they eliminated an entire graduate class of biomedical researchers. That’s a few dozen lifetimes of research that won’t be done now, delaying breakthroughs
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Zero effort was put into deciding what is wasteful. They just cancelled everything.
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The Republican party has been trying to squash inconvenient science for a long time.
One of the signature pieces of Gingrich's "Contract With America" in 1995 was the elimination of the Office of Technology Assessment. The office had the unfortunate duty to communicate well researched facts, and these facts contradicted conservative policy positions. (OTA: The planet is warming. R: No it's not. Exxon says it's not.) So the OTA had to go.
There are a nearly endless list of these things over the last 30 years.
The fluoride thing alone wouldn't even move the needle or be too worth talking about on its own, but when you see everything that is happening and you know it's just the public things, it gives a distinctly different context around what is happening. You know we are overtly threatening Canadian sovereignty right? Countries are setting up travel warnings. Plain clothes officers have abducted people in public. People have been robbed of due process. The head of the office of management and budget said he wants to put government workers in trauma. Deleting public data sets... At least two second in commands to the entire US military have said he is unfit. A chief of staff said the president said "I wish I had Hitler's generals." At least 4 prominent republicans have Sieg Heiled in front of a crowd, including Bannon who did not put his hand over his heart first.
> question status quo institutional knowledge
I am in favor of this when its done in good faith, but good faith hasn't been established.
> It’s honestly really disingenuous and disheartening to hear people towing this “the right is trying to take over the world and install fascism” line.
I find it disheartening that people are in denial about it.
What does Canadian sovereignty have to do with even a broader picture argument that the right is using illiberal science to undermine and dismantle political institutions?
“Anybody who wants to debate me must first demonstrate good faith by espousing my political stance before we can continue.” Really now…
People can’t be in denial about something that isn't happening. That’s called crazy.
It’s being premised on tariffs being good for the economy, contra to a century of demonstrated proof they aren’t.
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This is a direct quote from the guy running the Office of Management and Budget, Russel Vought:
We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.
We want to put them in trauma.
Edit: Sieg Heil from Trump's ex Chief strategist in a speech to CPAC (Tea Party/GOP conference): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E9pXCuJnbc&t=10s
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