Einstein versus Trump*

10 comments on “Einstein versus Trump* ”

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1. Pat 1

   18 April 2021 at 9:20 am

   Would that be the same Einstein who may or may not have said "doing the same shit over and over expecting a different result is the definition of insanity"?
2. Sabine 2

   18 April 2021 at 9:23 am

   these guys said it best and they sad it quite some time ago

   released 2004 under G.W.Bush ….such a long time ago.
3. ghostwhowalksnz 3

   18 April 2021 at 11:31 am

   Its sort of common now to put Einstein on a pedestal of knowledge thats always correct

   But even by 1927 he was 'out of date' with the newer paradigms covering his area of quantum physics

   'Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to th'e secret of the Old One. I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice." Letter to Bohr

   In a different area of knowledge Im much more glad to see the traditional paradigms of economic theory tossed on the bonfire of reality.
   • Poission 3.1

     18 April 2021 at 12:21 pm

     Einsteins arguments were from the implication that we do not live in a deterministic universe,and problems arise in the interpretation of the statement (by the observer)

     Eg (the author of the Forbes article)

     I'd probably need to turn the subtitles on, but I would 100% watch this https://t.co/quoPgRaH9O

     — Chad Orzel (@orzelc) April 17, 2021
   • Obtrectator 3.2

     18 April 2021 at 10:59 pm

     Einstein most certainly was not always correct. He fudged his own equations in the General Theory of Relativity when he didn't like their implications. (But he did have the grace to acknowledge later that he'd been wrong to do so.)
     • Peter 3.2.1

       19 April 2021 at 10:51 am

       On his rightest days did Trump get near to Einstein on his wrongest days?

       (Accepting of course that Trump was so bright he realised he was that dumb he'd have to get someone to sit his school tests.)
4. Stuart Munro 4

   18 April 2021 at 1:00 pm

   You cannot make a horse drink from the wisdom well

   Wisdom is out of fashion at present – what passes for contemporary academia seem much more fond of iconoclastic conflicts than the difficult and possibly compromising syntheses that, by accretion, build the sum of knowledge.

   Thanks to an irresponsible media culture, our society is balkanised into groups that prioritize money, the environment, freedom from government interference, community, and various special interests like firearms or identity politics or hydrofoil yachting. This paralyzes the political process and rewards those who benefit from the most egregious failings of the status quo – sectors like private healthcare or migrant worker exploitation.

   Wisdom is acquired, if at all, by making mistakes, and since Rogergnomics our citizens have been presented with more potentially enlightening material than most. There is little or no evidence of learning however – political responses to chronic failings remain distinctly pedestrian.

   And it is the pedestrian adoption of often doomed policies (like hydrogen), that is one of the biggest drivers of populism. The public waits for the powers that be to get off their gluteuses and actually do something. Some, like Trump voters, will be satisfied with absolutely anything – even a wall. Anomalies like the unprecedented Covid response could not help but be popular.

   At a time when as a country we need both stimulus measures and meticulously thought out long term transport and carbon and housing planning, the government ought to be every bit as active on those fronts as they are on Covid.
   • Incognito 4.1

     19 April 2021 at 10:04 pm

     Sound judgement is considered a defining aspect of wisdom. Judgemental hyper-critical negative people do not demonstrate sound judgement and are therefore unwise. The worst ones, IMO, are the evil do-gooders who believe they are justified in their morally and/or intellectually righteous put downs of others. The more I hear or see from them, the more I want to tell them STFU, against all good judgment 🙁

     BTW, thank you for your comment; you were the only one who seemed to get the gist of the OP.
     • Stuart Munro 4.1.1

       19 April 2021 at 10:30 pm

       I might, in better times have been less critical, and sometimes feel some guilt for it – but I'm also trying not to deny the reality of my lived experience, which moves me to some scepticism of the civil service, which, in the pre-neoliberal times when I worked for it, might not have been the case.

       One of my political theories is of multiple communities of experience, in which both those that have the latitude to consider the good faith efforts of contemporary civil servants, and those on the bleeding edge of the failures, who do not, must somehow be heard and understood. It's somewhat akin to the artist's paradox, of keeping two contradictory ideas in one's head at once, at which I can claim no particular success.
       • Incognito 4.1.1.1

         19 April 2021 at 10:55 pm

         Very interesting comment!

         I think it’s ok to be sceptical of the Public Service and hold them to account at each and every level although our personal dealings tend to be limited to front-line staff and figureheads in the media – the invisible mush in between largely remains a mystery to us but we know it is there, it must be, even though we sometimes prefer to draw a straight line from front-desk staff to Minister and back. However, with many, healthy scepticism has made way for stone-cold cynicism and even downward hatred. WINZ staff were killed for no other reason that they were working for WINZ; they were not criminals or gang members, but ordinary people doing an ordinary job to make a living and earn a mediocre salary to pay their bills and feed their children and pets. People are not treating each other as humans anymore, but as cases and case-workers.

         Our experiences of these encounters and media reports, for example, are influenced by our views and vice versa. We are not free neutral or objective observers; we interact with-influence the system and the system interacts with-influences us. This is another nod to Einstein.

         You mentioned neo-liberalism and that’s an angle I’m currently working on; many of the comments so far in my other post are missing this crucial dimension, IMO.

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