User:Woozle/Google+/2017/11/18
mainly in case this gets deleted
Consider the following statements, all popular at various times in history and many of them enjoying a resurgence right now:
- Witches soured the milk of my cows.
- Black people are of inferior racial stock, and need to be controlled for their own good.
- Jews poisoned the water.
- Tornadoes are God's retribution for tolerating gays.
- Trans people are just confused, and should be denied the right to transition. (Or: trans people are in violation of God's will, and should be punished or killed.)
Science is how we know that all of these statements are bullshit.
If you control what people believe, you can control what they do.
When all beliefs are equally valid -- "that's just your opinion" -- that gives power to controlling assholes who can use statements like these to motivate people.
When people can get away with saying that they're entitled to their beliefs about really basic, well-understood things like the shape or age of the earth, that's what's happening.
We're being invited to abandon millennia of progress towards individual freedom and autonomy, and to hand over our brain controls to the nearest authority. (I'm still looking at you, Global Discussion Forum.)
It doesn't matter how many guns you've got if your master is calling the shots.