Mark responded with a clear and thoughtful explanation to someone who wrongly claimed the tweet by Justin Amash he shared was dumb and suggested Mark google ‘what happens when people think they know better than scientists.’
Experts have a NARROW area of knowledge. Correct? Their knowledge does not extend to EVERYTHING else. In fact, they are uniquely UNQUALIFIED to apply that knowledge to particular contexts… especially respecting each and every individual’s life. An expert’s advice should be taken under advisement. It should be weighed with respect to the individual contexts and options available to the individual. This would be a PROPER means of advising the public while also protecting their individual rights. Scientists also happen to be uniquely unqualified to speak about economic or political ‘solutions’ to problems. More often than not, in these two realms, they operate off of presumptions that are anything BUT scientific. The current example should be GLARINGLY obvious. So, in my view it is ‘dumb’ beyond words to not think about what the scientists are saying with respect to your OWN life in particular or the needs of humans life in general. To place people in the grips of a hopeless dichotomy is not only invalid, it’s evil. It’s not your life or the economy. Your life IS production and production makes it possible to meet natural challenges like these. Without it… we are dead. Truly. Who is dumb? Really… who?
@MarkRPellegrino
Another person responded questioning Mark’s own expertise.
Ben Franklin was a printer. Thomas Paine a corset maker. Sam Adams a brewer. John Hancock, a businessman. Benjamin Rush a physician. What did they know about political philosophy? Tons. I never said I know better than everyone about everything. It’s funny how saying ‘think for yourself’ is regarded now as blasphemy against the church’s proclamations was five centuries ago. The fact that I don’t take scientists words on faith makes me a know it all…? Who is dumb?
@MarkRPellegrino
Mark was then accused of only caring about his OWN individual rights.
Or that’s not true at all and the ONLY way to coexist is by respecting people’s autonomy. If you really look at what you’re saying it’s YOU who is holding the gun and saying YOU matter. That my desire to not see people die because they’re afraid to go to the hospital, or lose their life’s savings, or future prospects, or independence, or the possibility of heading off disasters in the future because we don’t have the wealth is SECONDARY to your fears. Think twice
@MarkRPellegrino
Someone responded calling knowing everything about everything the American way.
Wrong. I don’t submit to what is self evidently illogical. The American way is to THINK for yourself. Scientists can know things or be wrong (in this current case they have been both) the responsibility for one’s own life and the risks they take need only be informed by proper knowledge. Compulsion need not enter the picture. Unless you are confessing to an inability to guide your own life. Are you?
@MarkRPellegrino
To someone who said Capitalism doesn’t work if people need together, Mark replied:
No one is an island. Thinking of ‘yourself’ always involves a constellation of other human beings. How morally irresponsible to suggest that I should value others’ values like my own. I can know that another man’s wife is as valued by him as mine is to me, but should I be held accountable to her as I am to my own wife? Are your children not objectively more valuable to YOU? To behave otherwise would be morally obscene. To behave as if you know the import of each person’s values to himself, on the other hand, is to respect their equal right to life.
@MarkRPellegrino
Mark framed an individual’s expertise in response to someone asking how to think for themselves if they’re not an expert.
Are you saying you can’t take the information the ‘experts’ are giving you and apply it to your own context and make choices accordingly? You need only be an ‘expert’ in your own life to do that. That’s something that no public expert is actually expert in, but you.
@MarkRPellegrino
It’s such a pleasure to read Mark’s thoughts when he gets caught up in a civil debate; he did a brilliant job defending his position.
