Posted: Apr 17, 2016 5:09 am
tuco wrote:Indeed, that is also part of diversity, to keep the fanatics in check.
How does that work, exactly? These days, it seems the preferred approach is gathering intelligence about known fanatics. The other side of the coin in this discussion is the trade-off between security and privacy. Don't forget to write a dissertation on that one, too. I've seen it elsewhere, so I know it's possible to produce one. If you have to do it, do it in a think tank, where dissertations are protected from unwanted skepticism.
This kind of reminds me of what I was thinking about in addressing John Platko, who recommends a positive relationship between 'self-improvement' (whatever that is) and 'prayer' (whatever that is). What made me think of that is wondering how we identify the role of diversity in preventing bad stuff that hasn't happened yet. I think we just believe in diversity because it pleases us to do so, or invent a measure of diversity and apply it so that the statistics come out confirming our biases. So it goes in politics.
Yes, I'm a vocal critic of overstating the role of the social 'sciences' and humanities as knowledge-generators. This is not to say they have no value in our intellectual lives. They help us come to terms with what has already happened, much the way religion does, but pulling fewer rabbits out of fewer hats. Parsimony is wonderful, innit?