mechtopia

Why skepticism is like the M25

Analogies are great aren't they... They're an effective way to reinforce your flimsy misconceptions about something, whilst simultaneously taking attention away from the observable facts, but they have other uses too. Sometimes an analogy can provide us with a simple path to deeper understanding of an issue, like the use of imaginary numbers as a mathematical short cut, or the use of analogue electronics to model spring-damper systems. Will this be one of those occasions? Probably not, but here goes..

There are lots of groups out there in the world, many with a goal: Libertarians seek smaller governments, socialists seek bigger ones. Other groups seek a cure for a disease, or to ease the suffering of the afflicted. Some groups have already arrived at their destination, like a group for people with red hair, or a club for people who own a particular model of car. Some groups are trying to escape from somewhere, like from addiction, or from poor finances, or from Slough.

So, I hear you ask, where's this all going? Well that's kind of my point. While most groups are defined by where they're starting from, where they're going, or where they've got to, skeptics, however, are united by little more than a method, a journey, an approach to handling situations.

The M25 is an orbital motorway that loops around London, and provides a central hub for the traffic in the south east of England. When it's working well (which is an increasingly rare occurrence) it forms an important part of the means a traveller uses to get from any large town in the south east, to any other. Many people will use a short section of the M25 on a journey, but few have driven the road in its entirety, let alone in both directions - the M25 isn't a journey in itself, but it provides a structure by which people can get from A to B.

Would you form a community of people that used the M25? If you took a random cross section of those using the road, you'd find a great variety of people, possibly with little in common, save for the fact that they all use a vehicle of some kind, and they're travelling on a road with the same name.. The chances that they'd agree about everything would be slim. If you asked two random people where they were going, or where they came from, you couldn't guarantee that they'd tell you the same thing (although you might find lots of people who were trying to escape from Slough)

If you did form a group for users of the M25, what would you talk about in idle conversation? Well, you could talk about how expensive it is to buy food at South Mimms, but hopefully you'd move on to something that's a little more interesting. If you were a regular user of the stretch between the M4 and M40 junctions, how would you react to someone that told you that to be a "proper" M25 user you had to be a regular user of the Dartford crossing? What if, quite frankly the Dartford crossing didn't figure in your everyday journey and didn't interest you?

I'm not saying that a community of skeptics isn't worthwhile, but you shouldn't expect it to behave like a normal group. You shouldn't be offended if people aren't going to the same place as you, or haven't come from the same place. What you should do is use your common dislike of the prices at South Mimms to build a rapport with your fellow traveller, and work together to keep the skeptical highway clear of traffic cones.

OK, that's as clear as mud isn't it, but hopefully you now realise why Atheists have to pay a toll at Dartford, and why people go insane if they try and drive the M25 all the way to the end. Next week: why Scientology is like the A404, and why Jesus is like a Ginsters pasty at the service station on the A12 at Chelmsford.

Posted at 11:39PM Aug 17, 2010 by ohp in General  |  Comments[0]