John Carlos Baez on Nostr: I find it hard to blog about science where there's a huge gasbag floating over the ...

I find it hard to blog about science where there's a huge gasbag floating over the land dropping turds of evil on our heads every day.

In fact I even find it hard to *think* about science. I spend more time than usual thinking about politics.

For some years now I've been going around telling friends that we need a ‘New Enlightenment’. It would aim at a reboot of civilization, based on sounder principles, which picks up where the so-called Age of Enlightenment left off. It would have a theoretical wing: completely rethinking politics and the economy in a way that takes the biosphere and the patterns of human behavior into account. And it would have a practical wing: fighting for freedom and justice against the authoritarians and billionaires.

Of course I know this sounds hopeless. The first enlightenment probably did too! But they had the advantage of communicating by letters, not in a public forum where some 'reply guy' instantly undercuts any idealism, and even well-meaning people pull each idea in a dozen divergent directions. So the New Enlightenment, if it happens, will have to be a bit careful about communication.

Next I'm going to digress into something very different.

I don’t especially like the term ‘New Enlightenment’. First, think there was something too 'light' about the first one. It seems to have ignored the dark irrational side of human behavior, which came roaring back in the Romantic era, and later Nazism. Second, I don't even like these light/dark metaphors.

So I was surprised when a friend I'd never discussed these ideas with asked if I knew about the 'Dark Enlightenment'.

I don't like it, but it's a thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJISIwit0tk

(2/2)