3 Things You Need to Know About Science

I love science and have tremendous respect for scientific inquiry. I have studied science. I know a few scientists, and I generally like them. However, I know a few things about science, and scientists, that more people need to know, especially now. So today, I offer you a few really important things you need to know about science and scientists.

1. Scientists know almost everything about physics, and almost nothing about life. That’s why physicists can build a reliable nuclear weapon but doctors can’t cure the common cold. Objective science works well for calculating the trajectories and velocities of objects in space and time. Organisms, however, are not objects, and so objective science is completely inadequate for studying them.

Most scientists don’t know this, but it is true. Sadly, many scientists, especially in the US continue to study human beings as though we were objects, or piles of objects called atoms. This has led to a medical system that dehumanizes and objectifies us more effectively than it treats disease or promotes health. It also means that there’s a hell of a lot that doctors don’t know. One thing doctors do know, however, is how to talk down to you in such a way that you won’t question their bullshit.

Physicists know how to blow shit up, and they don’t argue about it. Physicians, on the other hand, barely know what they are looking at, and there’s a lot of disagreement among them about practically everything. Doctors don’t like to let on that they really don’t know what they are doing, so they formed the American Medical Association in order to put up a consistent front that makes it look like they have everything figured out and know what to do in every situation. They do this so that people will trust them, and unfortunately, it works entirely too well. The AMA works very hard to quell dissent within its ranks, and banishes doctors who refuse to tow the party line, but renegade doctors persist, and many of them have better success treating patients than doctors who follow AMA guidelines.

2. Almost everything we know about science, we learned from the pursuit of war. We learned physics in the development of ever more lethal weapons, and we learned medicine from patching up the survivors. Today our weapons kill people far more effectively than our doctors cure disease, and much of the advance in modern medicine has been in improving survival rates of people who suffer the kinds of traumatic injury that only technology can inflict.

3. Plebes worship “Science,” while scientists worship money. You can’t do science without money, and finding money to do science isn’t easy. Unless somebody thinks they can make a lot of money on it, or the military thinks they can kill people with it, you are probably going to have a hard time finding money to study it. On the other hand, if you don’t really care what you work on, as long as it pays well, your opportunities as a scientist multiply. Scientists spend a lot on their education, and they expect to be rewarded for that, so many scientists look for the higher paying jobs.

That’s why, when you need a scientist to do something really terrible, like design a nuclear weapon that kills all of the people in a city, but leaves the buildings standing, or turn a minor statistical anomaly into a smoke-screen argument against global warming, or bio-engineer a bat corona-virus so that it infects humans, you can always find a meek and obedient scientist who is happy to do it for you so long as you have the money.

Plebes, on the other hand, have disavowed the creation myth of their Judaeo-Christian heritage in favor of an even bigger pile of bullshit called the Big Bang Theory, and they now embrace “Science” the great spirit from whom all new technology flows, as a religion. They traded the clerical collar for the white lab-coat of scientific authority. Now they believe anything the doctor tells them, just like they used to believe the priest, and of course they take their vaccines as a sacrament to their faith in “Science.” I hope they’ve at least learned not to leave their kids alone with a scientist either.

People have always believed a lot of stupid stuff. As I’ve so eloquently said before, “Stupid and wrong is the natural human condition, and it has never stopped us before.” That said, the human body is smarter than science can comprehend, and its natural tendency to heal, especially when supported by good nutrition, proper exercise and a non-toxic environment, tends to make doctors look good, if they can somehow take credit for it, but the miracle is you, not the medicine, and your body knows more than your doctor.

That’s why you should be very careful about messing with that miracle, or trusting “Science.” Science is not some noble pursuit of the truth. Science is about warfare, money, power and greed, and any scraps of truth that emerge from it are purely coincidental. Science is a tool of exploitation and control. In fact, psychologists are studying you right now, and the people paying those psychologists intend to use the knowledge they gain to control and exploit you. That’s what you need to know about science.

Humboldt County Knows How to Ignore a Health-Care Crisis

OK, let’s say we lost 10 people to Covid-19 this year in Humboldt County. For the sake of this discussion, I’ll concede the most recent death of an asymptomatic 38 year old man with a serious heart condition as one of those 10, even though his actual cause of death remains indeterminate, but just for the sake of argument let’s say that Covid-19 killed all 10 of those people.

More people than that get murdered every year on Humboldt County pot farms. God forbid you should mention that fact in conversation, let alone publish it in the media around here, and God help you if you try to do anything about it, because no one else will, least of all our Sheriff. Honestly, has anyone suggested that cannabis farmers take a conflict resolution/anger management course as a requirement for getting a cannabis business license? Has anyone around here even said, “You know, we should make a concerted effort, as a community, to prevent and discourage murder on Humboldt County’s cannabis farms because our sheriff’s department is already overwhelmed with unsolved murder cases”?

Why is a dozen or more murders, of mostly healthy young people, every year, in our small community, not front page news everyday, like Covid-19? That’s because we know how to ignore a crisis and pretend that it doesn’t exist. First, we just don’t give a shit about peon workers from out of the area or our whacked-out meth-fiend neighbors for that matter. Second, we ignore the murders when they happen, and finally, we threaten and condemn anyone who brings it up thereafter. Easy-peasy. We do it all the time.

About 40 people commit suicide in Humboldt County in a good year, and this is not a good year. How many extra suicides will happen this year because people were afraid to touch someone who really needed a hug. For too many of us, life was already too hard, and for many, seeing another human being’s smiling face was the best thing that happened to them all day. Social isolation has been recognized by the UN as “cruel and unusual punishment,” for times like these, when common cruelty is just not cruel enough. If you add the forty suicides a year, to the dozen-plus pot farm murders, you’ve got more than fifty deaths a year, for as long as I can remember, that we, as a community, did nothing about.

Our piece de resistance of crisis denial must be, however, the 50 to 60 drug overdose deaths that happen every year here in Humboldt County. With a little work, we could be the number-one county in the entire nation for per-capita drug overdose deaths, and no one would even care. How did we become so fiercely competitive in the field of crisis denial?

In the case of drug overdose deaths, we went the extra mile. We gave it 120%! Not only did we not give a fuck about the people when they were alive, ignore their deaths, and chastise anyone who mentioned it, but we also added that one crucial step that separates the scum from the sludge. We vilified the victims, and treated them like criminals. We criminalized an epidemic, institutionalized stigma, and rationalized cruelty as “tough love.” Then we locked the door and threw away the key.

This could work for Covid-19 too! We hate this disease, and we want it out of our community. Frankly, the vulnerable in our community, the old, the fat, and the sick, are not that attractive either. Getting them both off of the streets will make our community much safer and more beautiful. Why should the rest of us have to cover our faces and avoid our friends just to protect those losers. No one wants them around, so just let them go somewhere else. We could turn this whole complicated health crisis into a simple law-enforcement problem with just a few strokes of the pen.

We could drive Covid-19 underground so that people will hardly see it in our shopping districts or at tourist attractions, where it might impact local businesses. The media will have the good sense to ignore the deaths, make light of the inconvenience that sick people create for the rest of us, and reinforce these winning attitudes. Meanwhile, we can all get back to living our best lives without the dehumanization of masks or the cruel and inhuman torture of social distancing guidelines.

We can do this! Nobody knows how to ignore a health-care crisis better than the people of Humboldt County, and nobody vilifies the vulnerable more vociferously. It’s time to take a stand and say “No” to Covid-19. We will not let it steal our lives. We will not cower from it. We will survive, and we will be stronger for having survived.