Re:The limitations of Steven Pinker’s optimism
by solipsism on Monday February 26, 2018 @10:13AM
(#16465800)
See the difference there is that you don't need shallow feel-bad articles about climate change. There's hard science there; it's incontrovertible.
In contrast, neurotically wringing our figurative hands about imagined problems like the link between vaccines and autism, the link between video games and school shootings, or disintegration of traditional values in modern times; all without hard science backing it up; will continue to fail to convince all but the most blinded.
And whether the problem is "new" or a few decades old is really irrelevant.
Why should we think it's not tens of thousands of years old?
There's some trend to have huge issues, felt and experienced by tens of millions, studied by tons of different groups, admitted by experts, pointed at by tons of different statistics, etc, and people wanting to have some definitive "this is the final 100% statistical proof with n confidence" on it, or else it doesn't exist.
It's more lalala hands in the ears denial than actual science. Same thing for the environmental change deniers.