Re: Science: Vaccines Work, GMOs Are Safe, Everything is a Chemical
Science in the US died a little more today.
Meh, science is transnational. If the US divests then whoever picks up the slack will be the big winner. The US may decide to be the Ming dynasty and go up its own as-s, but if so the species will march forward somewhere else.
We had a good run, but as we fall behind the world in freedom and tolerance, we should also fall behind in science. The most powerful country should be the most free. If the US turns into a police state it
should become a poor, failed state. Not as punishment. Not even for the laughs. Just to protect the rest of the world.
In so many ways the US blew it in 1980. There was a clear choice but the orcs rose up, and since then it's been a freefall towards neofeudalism and a new Dark Age. We can pull out of it but with every year the damage is probably five years to fight our way back, which means we've already taken a 150-year dead end and counting.
The US may have been marked for death right from the beginning by its founding by racist sociopaths, who knew and cared enough to demand and enshrine liberty, but still had a sickness that prevented them from seeing the misery and enslavement right in their kitchens. That combined with the fundies always meant America has lived its entire history with 2 strikes. We only got to fail once, and when we did in 1980 that might have been it.
But look, my genes are Slav and Viking. This place was quite nice for a century, but 2 generations down the line it might just be another Old Country.