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"Science is bad and must be destroyed"

Was she talking about science or technology? The complaints here seem to be about her use of technology. She's not "doing science" by using these things, no more than I would be "doing science" by using a stick I found on the side of the road. You can't blame her for existing in the environment she finds around her and exploiting it.

Now, if she's secretly performing experiments in her hidden lab, that's another thing...
 
jaydeehess said:
What did the guy in the back say that prompted the demand for an apology? I could not make it out.
I did notice that he was told that he had agreed to the rules, one of which was the sharing of opinions. Apparently as long as he wasn't sharing his opinion that is.
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She was talking about how practitioners of black magic could send lightning to strike a person and wanted to know how science could explain that. In response the guy said "it's not true." Which of course it isn't. It's hard to tell whether the instantaneous response to his comment was an objection to this example of arrogant western science or his breaking one of the rules, or both. Probably both.
 
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Can't watch the video this second, but I do find it interesting that science is considered oppressive and not witch-doctoring, even though both methods are imposed from the outside in whole cultures.


I'm not against alternative medicine really, but it should be a thing you come upon on your own, not a thing you have to go through because your people didn't accept the evil western methods.
 
marplots said:
Was she talking about science or technology? The complaints here seem to be about her use of technology. She's not "doing science" by using these things, no more than I would be "doing science" by using a stick I found on the side of the road. You can't blame her for existing in the environment she finds around her and exploiting it.

Now, if she's secretly performing experiments in her hidden lab, that's another thing...
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If you're going to demonize science as a tool of colonialism, it seems hypocritical to use the results of that tool.

" . . . Science as a whole is a product of western modernity, and the whole thing should be scratched off . . . " is what she said.


I'd recommend re-watching the video with captions on; I think the main speaker here is an educator and not a student, which causes me to re-evaluate my original assessment of an overenthusiastic undergrad.
 
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Meanwhile "witch doctors" are kidnapping albino children and killing them to make magic amulets, or something as sick and stupid as that, and spreading the idea that having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS.

Some culture is just plain ****, and pushing for witch doctoring abusive ignoramuses is pushing for almost everyone, but especially women and children, to be oppressed by an elite and unaccountable segment of the society. It's bull ****.
 
Resume said:
If you're going to demonize science as a tool of colonialism, it seems hypocritical to use the results of that tool.
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Because if you're going to reject science that justified racism, you obviously have to reject technology as well.
 
mijopaalmc said:
Because if you're going to reject science that justified racism, you obviously have to reject technology as well.
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When she said "scratch it all off" I took her at her word. Nowhere in this video does she address "scientific" apologetics for racism. She talks about Newton describing gravity.
 
Resume said:
When she said "scratch it all off" I took her at her word. Nowhere in this video does she address "scientific" apologetics for racism. She talks about Newton describing gravity.
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How is that relevant to your insistence that she not make use of technology?
 
mijopaalmc said:
:rolleyes:

Read the first post of yours that I quoted.
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Wow. I never "insisted" she abandon technology, but was pointing out the hypocrisy, or better, the irony of her position.

" . . . so decolonizing the science means doing away with it entirely and starting all over again."

As I said in my first post here, it seems like this video lacks greater context.
 
Resume said:
If you're going to demonize science as a tool of colonialism, it seems hypocritical to use the results of that tool.
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I assume she's not using it to colonize anyone. :D

But yeah, if she's full-on Luddite, I get your point. I was trying to be gracious and see if I could figure out something sensible in her rant.

It could be as simple as rejecting science as the unwitting partner and engine which made colonialism possible. There's a case there, since improvements in war-making (wasn't Newton interested in ballistics) and navigation are so firmly attached to successful colonial efforts.

Or, she could be recognizing that "modern science" is intertwined with economics, both as granter of surplus and consumer of the same.

I kind of wish we had more of the meeting to look at instead of the "cray-cray" snapshot.
 
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Donn said:
Sure reads that way to me.
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Wasn't the gist of the OP link that Africans did some great stuff, but the colonials stole the credit?

So I asked for examples of architecture- something 'concrete'.

Go ahead, point out something "great" that ever came out of sub-sahara africa*. Sanitation? Engineering? Medicine? Timekeeping?

* I use the Sahara as the divide to keep Africans separated form more northern ethnicities. Frinstance, are Egyptians Arabs?

My arguement re: the OP is that No, colonials didn't steal anything, there wasn't anything worth stealing. Rhodes' opinion of a lost city is not pertinant, though the existance of the city could be.
 
Saying that someone not doing something is being hypocritical is a form of insisting that their person do the thing that you say their not doing is hypocritical. It may not be an explicit insistence but it does provide the person who made the assertion plausible deniability when they want to say that they didn't answer.
 
mijopaalmc said:
Saying that someone not doing something is being hypocritical is a form of insisting that their person do the thing that you say their not doing is hypocritical. It may not be an explicit insistence but it does provide the person who made the assertion plausible deniability when they want to say that they didn't answer.
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It's not insistence at all, it's an observation of behavior.
 
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marplots said:
I assume she's not using it to colonize anyone. :D

But yeah, if she's full-on Luddite, I get your point. I was trying to be gracious and see if I could figure out something sensible in her rant.

It could be as simple as rejecting science as the unwitting partner and engine which made colonialism possible. There's a case there, since improvements in war-making (wasn't Newton interested in ballistics) and navigation are so firmly attached to successful colonial efforts.

Or, she could be recognizing that "modern science" is intertwined with economics, both as granter of surplus and consumer of the same.

I kind of wish we had more of the meeting to look at instead of the "cray-cray" snapshot.
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Yeah, it seems out of context; there has to be more to her argument. As I said earlier, I originally thought her an undergrad but I now think she is actually and educator and as such, a more complete argument is expected.
 
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Resume said:
Yeah, it seems out of context; there has to be more to her argument. As I said earlier, I originally thought her an undergrad but I now think she is actually and educator and as such, a more complete argument is expected.
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Melissa Click is an educator, too.
 
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