Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist who hosts the hit show "Cosmos," was a guest on Bill Maher's "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO Friday night, and Tyson received standing ovation. Rare for a scientist, Maher joked.
But Tyson, of course, has his critics, including the right-wingers at the National Review, who put Tyson on the cover of their print magazine recently with the coverline, "Smarter Than Thou."
Why don't they (meaning Republicans) like you? Maher wondered.
Then he answered his own question by saying, "I think they don’t like you because you’re a scientist, and a black one, and you’re smarter than they are."
Tyson thought it might have something to do with the glorification of "nerd culture" and how people in that world generally vote democratic. But Maher is pretty sure racial jealousy plays a major part, as with Obama.
The other thing that galls the right is how scientists are always pointing out how insignificant human life is, and how random. "That offends them," Maher said.
"Sure, insignificance can be depressing, but there’s another way of looking at it," Tyson replied. "We’re connected genetically to a tree. That's cool."
Maher was skeptical: "C’mon, they have problems with apes."
Tyson insisted that our interconnectedness with the universe was practically spiritual. "We should celebrate that, not be pissed off by that."
Tyson went on to clear up some other misconceptions, like the recent CNN hysteria about solar flares practically hitting earth and wiping out all humanity.
"The sun is gurgling place," he explained, using more words than that..
"Talk slower," Maher said, trying to keep up.
"Sometimes it burps up plasma. Sometimes they head towards earth. When they collide with the earth’s atmosphere, it sets it aglow. Everytime you see the northern lights, we have just been slammed by a plasma pie."
"That damn CNN. Always trying to scare me," Bill said.
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! also appeared on the show, making trenchant points about U.S. foreign policy and how the military option should be taken off the table. "Just do the opposite of what Dick Cheney says," she suggested. She and Tyson seemed in full agreement that the death penalty, such as the torturous execution in Arizona this week, should also be taken off the table.
See the Tyson segment here:
Last edited by seemslikeadream on Sun Jul 27, 2014 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started. They could still get him out of office. But instead, they want mass death. Don’t forget that.
There are regular displays of brilliant editorial in the "New Rules" segment, and I'm sure he's responsible for much of that writing. I loved the segment on Police State America, it was perfectly pitched as both an analytical and a persuasive piece. Otherwise, Maher's bullying and self-aggrandizing presence on his own show, the sophistry and inflexibility in all of his many opinions, the cartoonish Western supremacy (as if by the coincidence of where he was born he gets credit for the Enlightenment or something), misogyny and behavior generally make it very easy to hate him. As I've said, his anti-religion film turned into a kind of bait-and-switch halfway through, when it turned mainly Islamophobic and he got very blindly Zionist. (The only interview he cut off was with an anti-Zionist rabbi.)
Or, in a nutshell:
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.
To Justice my maker from on high did incline: I am by virtue of its might divine, The highest Wisdom and the first Love.
what..... no one has anything bad to say about Amy Goodman... racist republicans..... what a snob Neil is or what a great mag that National Review is?
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started. They could still get him out of office. But instead, they want mass death. Don’t forget that.
Someone to whose house I was invited for a few days had one of Maher's books in the toilet as "light-hearted" bathroom reading. It made my heart heavy. I had to resist the daily temptation to wipe my arse with it. Two hundred pages of desperately laboured wisecracks and factory-built single-paragraph "irreverent" "takes" on the safest of safe liberal targets.
Also, and by no means unrelated: What is this face for, if not for punching?
^^There's a reason why he tells us it's funny.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966
JackRiddler » Sun Jul 27, 2014 1:43 pm wrote:There are regular displays of brilliant editorial in the "New Rules" segment, and I'm sure he's responsible for much of that writing.
Agreed (though not sure I'd give him that much of the writing credit) -- regardless, it provides some of the better critiques/analysis one will hear on such a program.
JackRiddler » Sun Jul 27, 2014 1:43 pm wrote: Otherwise, Maher's bullying and self-aggrandizing presence on his own show, the sophistry and inflexibility in all of his many opinions, the cartoonish Western supremacy (as if by the coincidence of where he was born he gets credit for the Enlightenment or something), misogyny and behavior generally make it very easy to hate him. As I've said, his anti-religion film turned into a kind of bait-and-switch halfway through, when it turned mainly Islamophobic and he got very blindly Zionist. (The only interview he cut off was with an anti-Zionist rabbi.)
Cheers. I think of him like a kind of rubbery real life 'Spitting Image' puppet with emotional b.o. - he is the sort of person I hope gets custard pied. The End
MacCruiskeen wrote:Someone to whose house I was invited for a few days had one of Maher's books in the toilet as "light-hearted" bathroom reading. It made my heart heavy. I had to resist the daily temptation to wipe my arse with it.
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
I do not like him either but I typically enjoy the guests. So sometimes I click on a link here and there.
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
PRECISELY. edited to remove an unnecessary slang term.
Yes, he's not progressive enough...so punch him.
If I knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. St. Paul I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started. They could still get him out of office. But instead, they want mass death. Don’t forget that.
PRECISELY. edited to remove an unnecessary slang term.
Yes, he's not progressive enough...so punch him.
Couple of thoughts there:
1. What does 'progressive' mean/how is it defined in this current atmosphere?
2. Regardless of the answer to point 1, I for one wouldn't consider myself a 'progressive' simply because my over-arching thought lines on a given matter do not necessarily align to a given contemporary term or phrase, the meaning of which may likely shift per zeitgeist and/or cultural whim. Since I don't consider myself a progressive, I don't give a sh1t whether or not he meets the criteria of said label (or any label, for that matter; his actions/comments minimally merit a backhand regardless).
That aside, stepping away from the rhetoric for a moment, the true tragedy here is that Maher's Mediocre Mind is provided such a platform in the first instance, and paid handsomely for it. Shouldn't be surprising in our modern era, of course: jesters and clowns abound -- the less erudite and more facile, the greater their platform/visibility, apparently. More distraction, more fodder, more chum for the fish.
Authentic and clear voices of reason are -- systematically, before too long -- silenced and/or stripped of resources.
The mere fact there is a Maher thread in this forum is simply another testament to our collective failure as a culture, and our apathy/capitulation to The Machine.
I don't want to punch Maher, nor see him punched. He can't help having such a punchable face. He might help being a dick all the time, but it may be involuntary. He's not a thinker and he is not remotely progressive. He's not even a liberal, except in the same sense that Colbert was a right-wing pundit. Just an aggro sophist playing a character on a show in which the politics is incidental to the kayfabe.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.
To Justice my maker from on high did incline: I am by virtue of its might divine, The highest Wisdom and the first Love.
