And war is probably one of the biggest spurs for science.
Religion's not bad for starting wars either. Science owes pretty much every to the irrational.
@KlaxonCow : I'd be a bit loath to use Churchill as a touchstone. Put his war record aside and you're left with a pretty plain racist and a strong proponent of the worse of colonialism.
Trump
Re: Trump
Gutenberg's printing press.
Whilst the first thing that came off that press was an extremely expensive copy of the Bible, ironically enough, as the craze for printing kicked off, it got cheaper and cheaper to produce books and everyone was doing it. Cheap enough that the market started catering to women with cheap-and-cheerful throwaway "penny dreadful" types of nonsense. As now, romantic fiction and the like.
This had a catalysing effect. Because, of course, what you were really doing, under the radar, was bringing literacy and, thus, education to women who had previously been prohibited such things.
Women could not go to university. But, through books, the university could come to them, so to speak. After reading their "harmless" bit of silly fiction, a woman could then pull down her husband's history or politics books from the shelf and read those. She could purchase a couple of the "Mills and Boon" equivalent and then also grab a copy of something more educational - were this ever queried, she could simply say that she's doing her husband's shopping at the same time as her own.
Before the printing press, literacy was rare. Not only for women, but for absolutely everyone. Only the rich elite men could afford an education. Indeed, the only way a poor man - because it could only be a man - could otherwise gain an education was to join the Church. The Bible is, after all, a book. To study it, you would need to learn to read and then devote your life to reading it. The earliest librarians were monks and, yes, they did start keeping science and history books on their shelves next to their Bibles. There is truth that early science did come from religious men - but it was their literacy, not their faith, that was the true origin of that.
Women were knocking down the doors of educational institutions long before the war came:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_ ... _education
Women worked before the war. When you're poor, you're hardly going to pass up the opportunity for more income. But these were the shit menial jobs, because without an education and qualifications, that's all you could get.
Indeed, the notion of prohibiting women from working was a rich class-based thing. A means for a man - a husband - to prove his wealth and social standing. Why, he could afford to "keep" his woman idle. That's how rich he was!
The war did certainly change things, though. Because men went to fight - note that this is, ironically enough, based in sexism - then this left the women, the youth, the old men and the disabled to have to run the country, in the absence of men, themselves. Which, of course, pragmatically proved that the (religiously-based) lie had been a lie all along, as the women did a perfectly stellar job of this. They did "men's work" and showed - not just to the world, but also themselves, which is an important psychological step - that they were more than capable of the task.
This is not just my opinion, by the way, as it's broadly considered by historians that Gutenberg's printing press was the catalyst for immense social change. The thing that kicked it all off. Political pamphleteering. The translations of the Bible into the Common Tongue, which meant that ordinary folk could read - and, thus, interpret - the Bible for themselves and weren't reliant on their Latin-speaking holy man to do the interpretation for them (there was a corresponding explosion in alternative interpretations, including, after all, Protestantism - it began with Martin Luther publishing his protests against the "corruptions" of Catholicism).
Books brought us towards the near-universal literacy we have today.
Indeed, many feminist and poverty campaigns purposefully focus on improving the education of girls because it can be statistically shown that this has the most profound effect on raising people out of poverty across the board. Because it's not just about raising the women out of poverty themselves, but they (most typically) care for the children - both boys and girls - which raises their chances too. When Mum is more than capable of helping you with your maths homework and can correctly tell you exactly why the sky is blue - which is light scattering in the atmosphere, by the way - then this provably makes all the difference in the world. The earlier you start your education, the better it sticks within the developing mind.
Okay, yes, when I say "science" then I am broadening it to mean - as I touched on - "science, technology, engineering and mathematics". I consider all of these to really be science. It's just historical accident that we often categorise, for example, maths as being a separate thing to science - just because maths was discovered first and established itself, before we later came up with the philosophies of science. But it obviously is a science. Indeed, I'd argue that it is THE science which underlying it all. Physics is applied mathematics. Chemistry is applied mathematics. Biology less so, but the important bits of genetics and natural selection and the statistical analysis of medicines are mathematical / logical. Engineering is applied mathematics. Programming, as I mentioned, is applied mathematics. Forensic history and archaeology adheres to scientific principle (and when it doesn't, it's usually later proved wrong by that which is). And so forth.
Education, education, education.
Whilst the first thing that came off that press was an extremely expensive copy of the Bible, ironically enough, as the craze for printing kicked off, it got cheaper and cheaper to produce books and everyone was doing it. Cheap enough that the market started catering to women with cheap-and-cheerful throwaway "penny dreadful" types of nonsense. As now, romantic fiction and the like.
This had a catalysing effect. Because, of course, what you were really doing, under the radar, was bringing literacy and, thus, education to women who had previously been prohibited such things.
Women could not go to university. But, through books, the university could come to them, so to speak. After reading their "harmless" bit of silly fiction, a woman could then pull down her husband's history or politics books from the shelf and read those. She could purchase a couple of the "Mills and Boon" equivalent and then also grab a copy of something more educational - were this ever queried, she could simply say that she's doing her husband's shopping at the same time as her own.
Before the printing press, literacy was rare. Not only for women, but for absolutely everyone. Only the rich elite men could afford an education. Indeed, the only way a poor man - because it could only be a man - could otherwise gain an education was to join the Church. The Bible is, after all, a book. To study it, you would need to learn to read and then devote your life to reading it. The earliest librarians were monks and, yes, they did start keeping science and history books on their shelves next to their Bibles. There is truth that early science did come from religious men - but it was their literacy, not their faith, that was the true origin of that.
Women were knocking down the doors of educational institutions long before the war came:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_ ... _education
Women worked before the war. When you're poor, you're hardly going to pass up the opportunity for more income. But these were the shit menial jobs, because without an education and qualifications, that's all you could get.
Indeed, the notion of prohibiting women from working was a rich class-based thing. A means for a man - a husband - to prove his wealth and social standing. Why, he could afford to "keep" his woman idle. That's how rich he was!
The war did certainly change things, though. Because men went to fight - note that this is, ironically enough, based in sexism - then this left the women, the youth, the old men and the disabled to have to run the country, in the absence of men, themselves. Which, of course, pragmatically proved that the (religiously-based) lie had been a lie all along, as the women did a perfectly stellar job of this. They did "men's work" and showed - not just to the world, but also themselves, which is an important psychological step - that they were more than capable of the task.
This is not just my opinion, by the way, as it's broadly considered by historians that Gutenberg's printing press was the catalyst for immense social change. The thing that kicked it all off. Political pamphleteering. The translations of the Bible into the Common Tongue, which meant that ordinary folk could read - and, thus, interpret - the Bible for themselves and weren't reliant on their Latin-speaking holy man to do the interpretation for them (there was a corresponding explosion in alternative interpretations, including, after all, Protestantism - it began with Martin Luther publishing his protests against the "corruptions" of Catholicism).
Books brought us towards the near-universal literacy we have today.
Indeed, many feminist and poverty campaigns purposefully focus on improving the education of girls because it can be statistically shown that this has the most profound effect on raising people out of poverty across the board. Because it's not just about raising the women out of poverty themselves, but they (most typically) care for the children - both boys and girls - which raises their chances too. When Mum is more than capable of helping you with your maths homework and can correctly tell you exactly why the sky is blue - which is light scattering in the atmosphere, by the way - then this provably makes all the difference in the world. The earlier you start your education, the better it sticks within the developing mind.
Okay, yes, when I say "science" then I am broadening it to mean - as I touched on - "science, technology, engineering and mathematics". I consider all of these to really be science. It's just historical accident that we often categorise, for example, maths as being a separate thing to science - just because maths was discovered first and established itself, before we later came up with the philosophies of science. But it obviously is a science. Indeed, I'd argue that it is THE science which underlying it all. Physics is applied mathematics. Chemistry is applied mathematics. Biology less so, but the important bits of genetics and natural selection and the statistical analysis of medicines are mathematical / logical. Engineering is applied mathematics. Programming, as I mentioned, is applied mathematics. Forensic history and archaeology adheres to scientific principle (and when it doesn't, it's usually later proved wrong by that which is). And so forth.
Education, education, education.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Trump
WW1 was a pretty important step forward for women.
Manning the home front meant women entering the workforce en masse and gaining much greater autonomy in their lives.
Women's rights were largely static during the 19th century weren't they despite it seeing a massive proliferation of print and the ability to read it.
Manning the home front meant women entering the workforce en masse and gaining much greater autonomy in their lives.
Women's rights were largely static during the 19th century weren't they despite it seeing a massive proliferation of print and the ability to read it.
Re: Trump
True enough.gravy wrote:@KlaxonCow : I'd be a bit loath to use Churchill as a touchstone. Put his war record aside and you're left with a pretty plain racist and a strong proponent of the worse of colonialism.
But as you might imagine - "Nullius in Verba" and all that jazz - I don't personally believe in any "argument from authority" anyway. It's a logical fallacy, after all. A quotation like that, to me, is about what's being said, not who said it.
Really, I quote Churchill there just because he's right in that instance, I feel. Because he's famous then his words were recorded. I can easily call them up in Google to get the quotation right. But I personally wouldn't care if the quote came from some bloke called Bill Bloggs, as long as I could see that the argument he's making is self-evidently true.
For example, my signature quotes John Maynard Keynes. I'm not generally a Keynesian, though. But with those particular words, I like what he's saying (and, yes, it also acts as a bit of a disclaimer because I am prone to a touch of "wild words" on occasion, so it just helps make clear my underlying intention - I challenge, and sometimes play Devil's Advocate, just to get people thinking and enhance the discussion, not to just have a fight for the sake of it or anything).
Mind you, I'm sure he's not the only one to have ever expressed such sentiments. But he's famous enough that it gets quoted often enough, that I stumbled upon it. I'm not arguing from authority, though. But "authority" does tend to own the public speaking podium more often than anyone else. It's just a statistical thing, really.
Last edited by KlaxonCow on Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:54 am 0, edited 1 time in total.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
-
Little stoned kiwi
- Baaaaaa!
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Re: Trump
Kate Sheppard is a well regarded New Zealander. She was a suffragette who was instrumental in women being given the right to vote in 1893. Intelligent, independent, and educated.
Any positive changes that came from the social upheaval of WW1 and WW2 were because of seeds planted by people like her, not the wars themselves.
Any positive changes that came from the social upheaval of WW1 and WW2 were because of seeds planted by people like her, not the wars themselves.
If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy.
Re: Trump
KlaxonCow wrote:True enough.gravy wrote:@KlaxonCow : I'd be a bit loath to use Churchill as a touchstone. Put his war record aside and you're left with a pretty plain racist and a strong proponent of the worse of colonialism.
But as you might imagine - "Nullius in Verba" and all that jazz - I don't personally believe in any "argument from authority" anyway. It's a logical fallacy, after all. A quotation like that, to me, is about what's being said, not who said it.
I get what you're saying but that quote in particular does warrant the context that it came from someone you'd be hard put not to describe as a white supremacist.
It's worth pointing out because a lot of people don't know much beyond his war years and it's exactly the kind of thing you see Britain First using to whip up hatred.
And to be clear I'm not saying you're doing that
EDIT
In fact: https://www.britainfirst.org/winston-ch ... ges-share/
Re: Trump
Yes, I'd back up that interpretation.Little stoned kiwi wrote:Any positive changes that came from the social upheaval of WW1 and WW2 were because of seeds planted by people like her, not the wars themselves.
And I wasn't at all denying that the war was important. I said so. It was definitely a major inflexion point here.
But I think, as you've touching on, that what the war did was force a pragmatic situation where the women had to go out into the workplace and do it all - no choice in the matter, or the country would collapse - and, in doing it with as much competence as any man, it just destroyed any notion otherwise.
A woman can't do "men's work"? Well, look there. There they are, doing it right in front of us all. And it's all going just fine.
It becomes somewhat an impossible task to argue such things when you have all this indisputable evidence for all to see that you're clearly wrong and talking shit. It's like arguing that giraffes don't exist, whilst at the zoo stood in front of the giraffes. "Umm, mate, if giraffes don't exist then what the shit is that standing behind you?".
Indeed, as I mentioned, I'd also say that perhaps the most important bit about the war is that it proved to the women themselves that it was all bollocks. That's a crucial psychological step. It's not just being able to do something, it's realising - against all the centuries and centuries of propaganda telling you otherwise - that you're perfectly capable of doing something.
I watched a TED talk with Sheryl Sanderberg - Facebook's COO - and it's one of the best "feminist" talks I've seen because rather than just "men are evil" blaming, she actually correctly tries to identify the various forces that work against women reaching the top and, yes, a big one is women not believing in themselves, walking away from professions, not seeing it as "their place" to be there. That the mere thought of "I might want children one day" could well be making women not accept big roles, because - even if they don't want children now - the thought makes you back off, as you're subconsciously planning for that possible future.
After all, girls are getting better results at school than boys. They are succeeding more academically. But then there's a drop off - a cliff, in truth - where none of that translates into what we see in the workplace. Because women are just not imagining themselves in these positions. They are underestimating themselves. They've backing off.
Well, Sheryl covers it better than me. The psychology is crucial here. And that's what the war did. It changed everyone's psychology about what was possible, because it happened. And when something happens, you can't deny it's true. It's right there, proving itself to you.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Trump
Yes. But, as always, reality is more complicated than that.gravy wrote:In fact: https://www.britainfirst.org/winston-ch ... ges-share/
The person who coined the term "United States of Europe" when he said "we must build a kind of United States of Europe"?
Sir Winston Churchill.
A grand irony in the "Britain First" campaigning is that they plaster Churchill all over their materials, as representing "Britishness" and all that, but Churchill was the architect of the European Union. He was amongst the first voices to call for it and, yes, his stated vision was "the United States of Europe". Now used as an insult, but Churchill proposed it positively.
There's every reason to believe that, were Churchill still around, that he'd have actually been urging us all to sign up for "ever closer union" because he was the one who first called for that (http://www.churchill-society-london.org ... onish.html).
People are complicated. Reality is complicated. Our understanding of these things necessarily has to be complicated too, as annoying and inconvenient as that is.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Trump
Conversely, it may not be that great at the top, and with a fully neutral society men might be less pressured to go there.
It'll parrot without fact-checking that women's advancement in higher level positions has come with a corresponding advance in women developing "men's issues" like heart disease.
It'll parrot without fact-checking that women's advancement in higher level positions has come with a corresponding advance in women developing "men's issues" like heart disease.
Re: Trump
This.gumboot wrote:Conversely, it may not be that great at the top, and with a fully neutral society men might be less pressured to go there.
The "top" tier of business and politics in a free-ish capitalist economy is a pretty awful place full of pretty awful people which wastes much of it's own potential on unnecessary internal bullshit. It's possible that there simply aren't enough women willing (or pliable enough) to put up with that shit. Perhaps all the smart women (and smart men) are building something else, something just as important but without the all-or-nothing top-dog issues that poison the current organisational structures.
Maybe. If they are we're too close to it to see it right now.
Re: Trump
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/09 ... out-trace/
Proving Hillary ORDERED Emails to Be Stripped
Combetta was the employee who deleted all of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
According users on Reddit, Combetta asked for assistance in July 2014 from Reddit users on how to purge emails and how to strip VIP’s email address from “a bunch of archived emails.”
Re: Trump
An argument could be made that war isn't as much of a spur to science as is sometimes thought - taking World War II as an example, radar, the jet engine, atomic psychics, improved aerodynamics etc were all pre-war inventions. What war did do is provide funding and much greater concentration of effort.
"Stars don't twinkle in space." - Char Aznable.