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.

The Facts of Life about Humboldt’s Cannabis Industry

I heard a report from that stupid conference the HIIMS held last week about the so-called “impacts” of the Netflix miniseries Murder Mountain. From what I heard in the report, people in the cannabis industry worry a lot about their image. Instead of prosecuting the violent criminals in our community, it’s more important to the industry to convict the media for drawing attention to the murders they’d rather sweep under the rug. It seems shocking, but non-events like this recent conference, and the “SoHum Values Conference” that happened a couple years ago, offer incontrovertible objective evidence that the cannabis industry cares a lot about the image it projects. I don’t ever remember having a conference like this to address the problem of violence within the marijuana industry? As I noted last week, the industry obviously cares more about how they are portrayed in the media than they do about real murder and violence within their community.

One should remember that the people who built the marijuana industry, built it on top of an enormous mountain of dead bodies called “The War on Drugs.” To this day, most Humboldt growers refuse to acknowledge that the price they were able to demand for their product on the black market had anything to do with the human costs of the War on Drugs. They’ll tell you that the price they get is all about the quality of their product. This kind of delusional thinking pervades the industry here, and while this denial of reality allows growers to ignore the dark side of this business and helps them cope with the stress of the War on Drugs, it does not help them evaluate their business plans realistically.

Blood stains every single dollar of black-market marijuana money. The bloodbath called “The War on Drugs” makes the Manson murders look like innocent children finger-painting by comparison, and Humboldt County’s marijuana industry was born of it, and in the middle of it. People get killed every day, all across the country, to keep the price of cannabis high, and a lot of those people died right here in this community. The War on Drugs wounded us all in some way. We all lost family members, friends and loved ones in it, and it continues to destroy people’s lives today. At least four people, working in the cannabis industry, were murdered in SoHum in 2018.

Those are the facts of life about Humboldt County’s marijuana industry, because that’s the truth about the War on Drugs. We all know how much blood there is in that marijuana because it is our blood! That’s why the marijuana industry cannot just reinvent itself as “the cannabis industry,” all innocent, clean and new. Anyone who associates the name “Humboldt” with marijuana remembers the War on Drugs. We know! We all know the truth about the War on Drugs in our bones!

 

For us, cannabis is sacrament. That’s why we found it more valuable than gold, and why the risks you took were rewarded so handsomely. Cannabis is more valuable than gold, because only fools worship gold, but cannabis is not rare, nor is it difficult to produce, so there’s no excuse for high prices. We are not impressed by your expensive display cases, slick marketing lingo or environmentally egregious packaging. That stuff just reminds us that you still make too much money from our blood. We might buy your weed, if it’s the best we can find for the money, but we don’t buy your bullshit.

Try as growers might, to “tell their own story,” that story will remain nothing but a fairy tale from Never Neverland if it doesn’t connect to the facts of life, and the facts of life about Humboldt County’s cannabis industry are intimately entwined in the deadly branches of the War on Drugs. The only real option for Humboldt County’s cannabis industry is to face facts, admit to, and take responsibility for the murder, violence and trauma that the black-market marijuana industry brought to our community and the toxic environment it created here, and in communities all over the country. If Humboldt’s cannabis industry wants to lay claim to the back-to-the-land ideals of their hippie elders, they also need to take responsibility for the war crimes of the outlaw black-market marijuana industry that followed.

It’s going to take real effort to make amends, restore justice and heal wounds to show that the cannabis industry acknowledges its origins and stands willing to take responsibility for its past. If the industry did that, even a little, in a tangible way, they could promote those efforts widely, and use them to rehabilitate their image and their heritage.

That is how you show the world that Humboldt County’s cannabis industry has a conscience and cares about making the world, and our community, a better place to live. But it all starts by facing up to the harm that the War on Drugs has done to our community, and accepting responsibility for it.