Science and greed, Morozov and Horgan,Brockman and Edge and ethical cold takes

The Edge Foundation is well known to science and philosophy fanbois and fangrrlz, including myself, with its big "annual question" that founder and proprietor John Brockman asks leading philosophers and scientists.

But, there's also a private version.

Evgeny Morozov calls it "an elaborate massage of the ego (and apparently much else) for the rich, the smart, and the powerful."

Turns out there's a horrible pun of sorts in that material in parentheses.

In the article, Morozov drops the reveal on just how much of a "FOJ" Brockman is. That would be as in "Friend of Jeffrey," with the Jeffrey being Jeffrey Epstein. And there's your horrible, and horribly true, in all likelihood, pun.

Brockman is also a heavy hitter in the book agency world for science authors. THAT now explains, I think, the Lawrence Krauss connection with Epstein.

Morozov explains:

Epstein participated in the Edge Foundation’s annual questions, and attended its “billionaires’ dinners.” Brockman may also be the reason why so many prominent academics—from Steven Pinker to Daniel Dennett—have found themselves answering awkward questions about their associations with Epstein; they are clients of Brockman. Marvin Minsky, the prominent MIT scientist who surfaced as one of Epstein’s island buddies? A client of Brockman’s. Joi Ito, the director of the elite research facility MIT Media Lab, who has recently acknowledged extensive ties to Epstein? Also, a client of Brockman’s.

So, Krauss, infamous for his own Epstein connections, was either an imperial playtoy at one of these dinners, a Brockman agency client, or both. (That "prominent academics" link makes clear Krauss was invited to one of the shindigs, if nothing else.)

So? Which is exactly where Morozov goes next:

Should we just write it off as natural collateral damage for someone with a network as extensive as Brockman’s?

And his answer to his rhetorical question is no:

In Brockman’s world, billionaires, scientists, artists, novelists, journalists, and musicians all blend together to produce enormous value — for each other and, of course, for Brockman. This mingling of clients doesn’t happen in other literary agencies, at least not to this extent. Nor does this happen at Brockman Inc., as all such interactions that we know of took place under the umbrella of the Edge Foundation, a sibling organization, with Brockman as its president. Would Brockman Inc. exist without the Edge Foundation? Possibly—and it did, at the outset. Would it be as powerful, trading on Brockman’s ability to rub shoulders with academics and billionaires alike? Probably not. Still, I can attest that Brockman’s authors face no pressure to get involved with Edge: I, for example, diligently responded to their annual questions between 2010 and 2013—and then stopped, as I was put off by Brockman’s insistence that people responding to the annual question should keep away from politics.

So ... Dennett, Pinker and many others, even if, unlike Krauss, they have never had anything besides their egos massaged, have been at least partial accomplices in having Brockman's ego massaged through silence. That's Morozov's take. 

He continues in that vein:

When the Epstein-Brockman connection first surfaced in the news, I wanted to give Brockman the benefit of the doubt. ... In the last few weeks, such a charitable interpretation has become very hard to sustain, especially as other details ... became public. John Brockman has not said a word publicly about his connection to Epstein since the latest scandal broke, preferring to maintain silence on the matter. That I have found quite infuriating.

Morozov then personalizes why he finds this infuriating. He said he got an email from Brockman in 2013, intended for somebody else. They had a back and forth and Morozov makes this observation, aided to some degree by hindsight, as he says that, years ago, he didn't know who Epstein was (born in Belarus, I have no doubt on that):

In that old email, it seems clear that Brockman was acting as Epstein’s PR man.

There you go. And, 2013 was after Epstein's original conviction, of course. He expands:

(N)ow that I’ve found that old email he sent me, I cannot believe that he knew absolutely nothing of Epstein’s wild sexual escapades—in fact, his email suggests he was trying to capitalize on them to recruit yet another useful idiot into Epstein’s network.

OK, that's that.

Morozov has decided to act.

I’m just one of the many authors in Brockman’s agency; my departure wouldn’t affect anything. I am also the last one to complain: His agency sold two of my books, and I have two more underway, also sold by them. 

Yet, I am ready to pull the plug on my association with Brockman’s agency—and would encourage other authors to consider doing the same—until and unless he clarifies the relationship between him, the Edge Foundation, and Epstein. If such an explanation is not forthcoming, many of us will have to decide whether we would like to be part of this odd intellectual club located on the dubious continuum between the seminar room and a sex-trafficking ring.

Sounds reasonable enough and straightforward enough.

So, after reading this, I Tweeted the link to two online friends of mine, philosopher and philosopher of science Massimo Pigliucci, and science journalism professor John Horgan.

Let's just say I found Horgan's response "interesting":

Brockman ceased being my agent a decade ago, but I'm not going to speak ill of him. And Morozov is a rat jumping off a ship he thinks is sinking.

— John Horgan (@Horganism) August 22, 2019

I don't think I'm at "infuriating," but beyond the scare-quoted, not reference-quoted, "interesting," I find his response more than "interesting." 

That said, the Slate piece that Morozov links in my first pull-quote points up more of the Epstein problem. He has almost exclusively courted male scientists with his grant funding. That, in turn, beyond its relationship to sexual procurement, is a clear promotion of sexism in science. That may not be on Brockman, but even it kind of is, even if he didn't know about Epstein's hideous sexual abuse. That said, people whom Brockman invited to participate on the public version of The Edge were almost all men, too.

Beyond that, I thought the "great question" on the public version of The Edge often bordered on pretentiousness. Many of them recycled themselves.

It seems that John Brockman's greatest sales job has been selling himself.

Also, as I've said elsewhere about movement skepticism and atheism, science, especially when carried out to scientism, is no guarantor of moral (or well-rounded intellectual) superiority.

Luther vs Eck, 1519

I just got to thinking the other day that, with the 95 Theses (and legendary claims about them) two years ago, I probably "should" do some semi-regular blogging about 500th anniversary Luther events at least through the 1521 original date if not through 1530.

And I am reminded that his debate with Johann Eck, which really put him in the road map, happened in July 1519.

Wikipedia has a good basic overview of the Leipzig Debate. (Note: At one time, overall, in defense of critics, I would have rated Wiki a B-plus if not even an A-minus. Now, based in part on how many entries it lacks — and in the case of current affairs, seemingly refuses to add — it's a flat B.)

So, first, not quite a legend, but, close. Remember that Luther was not alone. Karlstadt actually went first, and was considered the heavier hitter. From a Lutheran POV, he was written out because of later bumbling and intransigence. But, given that much of that intransigence was actually simply being more "Reformed," why hasn't the Reformed tradition picked up on him at least a small bit more?

Eck did win one big point, that in essence is a ticking time bomb for Catholicism AND for any version of Protestantism that claims any sort of hierarchical power. If both popes AND councils can err, as Eck stated and Luther conceded, than how can any church claim any authority over any individual, or any individual's interpretation?

To put it another way, to Luther's own time and to pending future events, Luther vs. the Schwármer was hoist on his own petard by Johann Eck. Or Luther vs. Karlstadt, for that matter.

The bigger issue yet is that, other than calling on secular government to uphold his interpretation of the bible by military force, Luther never wrestled with that.

Eck? "Tradition" of the Holy Roman Church remained in place. This was also true, of course, in the Orthodox world. It remained true in the Church of England and, to a lesser degree, in the Wesleyan / Methodist world.

This same issue extends to the canon of Scripture. Luther claimed that Purgatory exists nowhere in the Bible. Praying for the dead, tis true is found only in 2 Maccabees, which Luther was soon enough to reject. That said Protestant grounds for rejecting deuterocanonical books are themselves unstable, as pre-Masoretic Texas Tanakhs didn't have Esther, among other things — as In addition, as Wiki notes, Hebrews clearly, and Paul seemingly, reference deuterocanonical works.

Here, as with his "epistle of straw" on James and his thinking that Revelation should also "come out," Luther was adopting an individualist stance, while expecting others to follow him. Had he looked at New Testament canons from some of the smaller churches in the Orthodox tradition, and their omitting it, he might have followed through on the impulse to declare Revelation non-canonical.

Of course, this reaches its acme in 19th century America. Short of proving fraud against Joseph Smith or Mary Baker Eddy (seemingly easy with the former, though), how can you say these aren't legitimate new revelations? It's like a "marketplace of ideas" for Christian religion, but Luther wanting a thumb on the scales.

However, baptisms for the dead — and without any condemnation of the practice — appears in 1 Corinthians. Yes, it's in the form of a rhetorical question, but Paul makes it look common — and acceptable. Luther, as was his wont elsewhere, seems to simply ignore this. (He later ignores that this might just undercut Lutheran and old Catholic ideas about baptism.)

And, in turn, this too sets a track for followers. Fundamentalists of today ignore the call to stone people to death for tattoos, to shun them or whatever for wearing wool-polyester blends on clothing and many other things. Luther himself and his catechisms of a decade later try to claim a separation in the Torah between moral, civil and ceremonial uses of the law.

In all of this, though Eric Metaxas is wrong in spades to make Luther into an anachronistic modern evangelical preacher, in some ways, contra horrified Lutherans, a thread is there.

Personal critical theology on Daniel 7-9

This is derived from answers to three Quora questions, separately on Daniel 7, 8, and 9, requested by a John Bonham. (No, I didn't meet him down at the levee.)

Just above every other answer to the Daniel 7 question, which I was directly asked by him, were Religious Right nutters, with the same variety of answers to the fourth empire. Rome. European Union. USSR. UN. Et cetera. There were a couple of non-Religious Right nutters more nutters yet. I am adapting that answer and combining it with the other two.

First, critical theology has Daniel written sometime shortly after 164 BCE. The increasing inaccuracy of his "prophecy" about the fate of Antiochus IV is a lead-pipe cinch on that. Fundamentalists often dodge that by saying it's not about him, hence we can't say it's right or wrong.

The ten horns? Likely a reference to the Seleucid dynasty. If one counts Alexander the Great and the unnumbered Antiochus, nephew of Antiochus IV and son of Seleucus IV, one gets to 10.

Other descriptors in visions in both chapters 7 and 8 make clear it's the Selucids. The seventy "sevens" in Chapter 9 make this even more clear.

Since it's the Selucids, and we have a "vaticinium ex eventu," or prophecy after the fact, we can thus date the approximate writing of the book.

Why four kingdoms here and only two in Chapter 8? Why is the one animal Media-Persia combined in Chapter 8, but Media is kingdom two and Persia kingdom three in Chapter 7?

Simple.

Daniel actually has a kind of complex compositional history. Chapters 2-7 are in Aramaic and chapters 1 and 8-12 are in Hebrew. Wikipedia's piece on Daniel has more. WHY this is that way is still a riddle in critical theology. But, it seems likely that the author was borrowing from older sources in spots and there was an editing and redacting process involved.

Now, Daniel 7.

As Daniel was written during the Maccabean Revolt, that’s what the end of Chapter 7 was about — Maccabean-leaning Jews throwing off the yoke of the Seleucids. Not all Palestinian Jews were anti-Hellenization. There were ardent Hellenophiles, and people with various middle grounds. Per Wikipedia, it must be remembered this was a civil war as much as a revolt. More on that here.

It wasn't a prophecy about an unknown Jew coming along about 200 years later to be a spiritual Messiah rather than a princely leader, just as Isaiah 7 was not about an unknown Jew being born 740 years later. Prophecy meant FORTHtelling first, foretelling second. And, it had to be relevant to the people at hand. (Isaiah 7 is actually predicting the birth of Hezekiah in a couple years from the time of speaking.)

Now, Daniel 8.

The language about the end of the time and rebels against this last king matches well with fighting the fourth beast in Chapter 7, another indication that beast is NOT Rome, let alone anything later.

Finally, Daniel 9.

I referenced this article from Infidels on Quora in my Chapter 7 answer. It talks a lot about the 70 "weeks" so I link it here. But, I don't totally agree with it on the weeks. Here's my take, which requires more depth.

The seventy “sevens” have traditionally been understood as seventy seven-year periods. So, when exactly do they start? What about the different subgroupings? This is an issue still of some debate in scholarship.

If one notes the 62 sevens in the first group are 434 years, that may help. Nebuchadnezzar first took some Judahites into captivity in 605 BCE. And, 434 years later, 171 BCE, is when Onias III as high priest is killed, and when Antiochus IV Epiphanes consolidates his reign as Seleucid emperor, killing his nephew, also Antiochus, after letting him rule as co-emperor since 175, and yet another clue that this book is about the Maccabean revolt and no, not about Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, the Papacy, the UN or anything else.

So, that’s how I see the 62 “sevens.”

Then, the one “seven” gets you to 164 BCE and the seeming success of the Maccabean Revolt with the death of Antiochus IV.

Now, the seven “sevens.”

Why they’re listed after the seven sevens, I’m not sure.

They don’t fit going backward from 605; nothing earthshaking happened in 654. They don’t make sense coming after the single 7.

One solution, given the chiastic structure of much of Daniel, is to take them as a period within the 62 sevens. The full Babylonian captivity starts in 586. From there, it’s approximately 49 years to Cyrus’ edict of return. Infidels disagrees with me somewhat on this part of the issue in particular.

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Now, should these be taken as literal weeks, first of all, rather than totally symbolic, since they're called 70 "sevens"? And how much does this connect to the historical accuracy or lack thereof of where Daniel makes historic statements, like "Darius the Mede"?

These are separate but intertwining issues.

First, on the overall historical accuracy of Daniel? It's not high, but why? Many people want to take him as just an idiot, kind of like Mark being an idiot about Syro-Phoenician geography and more. But others, noting the apocalyptic-mythopoeic nature of the book, say that Daniel "salted" some of his inaccuracies into the book to let readers know to read it semi-novelistically. The Infidels link has more.

I'm inclined to think these are more goofs rather than wink-wink nudge-nudge efforts. That said, Mark was writing about geography and just apparently didn't bother to get facts straight that were in his lifetime. The actual Shah Darius, that is, Darius the Great, vs "Darius the Mede," lived almost 350 years before Daniel was written. Even if parts of Daniel have an earlier core, none of it was likely written out before 300 BCE, still 200 years after the fact or more.

This issue interlinks partially with whether the "sevens" are symbolic or literal, and if literal, how accurate.

That said, re a commenter to my Daniel 9 post on Quora, EVERYBODY in the Biblical interpretation world not a fundamentalist or evangelical takes the single seven as literal, precisely because it fits the timetable of the Maccabean revolt.

So why not the 62 "sevens" and the seven "sevens"? Well, as I show, the 62 fit perfectly. Of course, when you recognize that, you have to say that the author of Daniel was apparently not a historical idiot after all.

One presumes that, just as kingly reign dates were kept, and are shown (albeit with some inaccuracies and some possible father-son dual reigns) in Kings and Chronicles, that a high priestly reign sheet would have been kept after the end of the monarchy. So, this wouldn't be that hard, and you say "Daniel" wasn't an idiot on all matters historical.

That still leaves the problem of that last seven "sevens." My answer is the best I can think of. Nobody claims Daniel was written 115 BCE, which would be required by placing them later — unless they're considered a stab at actual prophecy. The third alternative is taking them, and them only, as symbolic, a la a Jubilee cycle like in Leviticus.

Whether Daniel gets everything else historically correct or not, he portrays all his visions and all his folklore stories alike as being set within history. So, I think we need to take the 70 "sevens" that way and keep wrestling with the seven "sevens."

(Update: See LOTS more at this longform for just what Daniel, First Maccabees and to some extent Second Maccabees, presumably willfully and polemically, get wrong.)

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For people not regular readers of this blog, I have a graduate divinity degree from a top-rate seminary, not a fly-by-night bible college. I know biblical Hebrew, biblical and classical Greek, and ecclesiastical and classical Latin.

And, a couple of notes for the skeptic-minded of various types and the Religious Right.

First, others occupied today's Israel / Palestine / west side of the Fertile Crescent / south Syrian appendage before the first Israelites. Remember that in the context of Daniel, and First and Second Maccabees, being hortatory works and not history. More on that from me here, in my piece on the true meaning of Hanukkah.

Second, while Revelation feeds on Daniel's imagery, no, they're not writing about the same things. In fact, the core of Revelation is probably non-Christian.