Three Homeworks for Professor Hanson
27th June 2010
Mencius Moldbug is back … and he’s Bad.
Pseudoscience will generally be found solving problems, such as climate prediction, in which the scientific method does not work at all. Rather, other forms of reason are the only reasonable ways to reason about the problem – or there may be no effective means of prediction at all. Thus, there are no scientists to fight. You can’t beat something with nothing.
Once the actual constitution of a country – the actual rules of decision by which its government operates – has diverged from its official constitution, what is the meaning of the latter? The answer is: it has no meaning at all. A constitution is a contract. Once broken, it is meaningless. “The Constitution” is an interesting historical document, no more valid than the Salic Law. Rather, it is “constitutional law,” ie, the precedents of the Supreme Court, which are the supreme law of the land.
Thus, in the terms of John Austin, who holds sovereignty in the United States? The Council of Nine, also known as the Supreme Court. For they are the unmoved mover, those whose decisions are final and cannot be overridden.
As we have seen, “rule by law” means “rule by judges,” and “rule by social science” means “rule by pseudoscientists.” Either, in other words, equates to “rule by men.” If these men are effective and responsible, they will govern well. Otherwise, they will govern badly. This has been true for all of history and will never change. Only in our time has it been so persistently denied.
To be brutally frank, these bureaucrats have no interest at all in Professor Hanson’s results. For one thing, his ideology is completely incorrect. Behind the veil of pseudoscience lies an oligarchy, of which Professor Hanson is not a member. He and his lessers in the George Mason School are of no relevance at all, because they are wingnuts at a Virginia cow college. At the top, power is always a matter of social exclusion.