Upper Class Twit Crashes Bank, Pinks Science

I've said before that if I need to know what stupid people think, I read the Wall Street Journal editorial page. It's almost as good as Investor's Business Daily at determining what stupid people think.

And generally, if I want to know what incredibly stupid people think, I'll read the comments following the editorial. But on this particular editorial, the comments are actually not all that stupid!

So, the retarded* old custard pot that wrote this ridiculous and risible piece of business fluffing is named Matt Ridley, and he literally is an upper class twit. Matt, by the way, crashed a bank in 2007. Per Wikipedia:

"In September 2007 Northern Rock became the first British bank since 1878 to suffer a run on its finances at the start of the credit crunch. It was forced to apply to the Bank of England for emergency liquidity funding, following problems caused by the financial crisis of 2007–08.^[34] The failure of the bank eventually led to the nationalisation of Northern Rock. Ridley went before a parliamentary committee which criticised him for not recognising the risks of the bank's financial strategy and thereby "harming the reputation of the British banking industry."^[11] He resigned as chairman in October 2007.^[11]"

In order to make his case against government funding of basic science, or perhaps ANY funding of basic science, Matt seems to be mangling the message of Kevin Kelly's technium book, What Technology Wants. Matt seems to make the case that somehow technology has disconnected from human brains, hands, and hearts, and is churning along all on its own making its own stuff.  I suppose I could parody his contention and suggests that we just set up a room for technology where it can reproduce in peace. But the idea (similar I suppose to Dawkin's hopelessly not-even-wrong bullshit meme idea, that the real replicators are ideas and concepts that breed like parasites in our empty animal brains) that technology has taken on a life of its own and really doesn't need us is something that an eight-year-old might buy into, but hopefully a regular adult sees as pretty fucking stupid. But continuing Matt's argument It seems that if technology doesn't need individuals, well then, collectives of individuals are not only unnecessary, but actually an impediment. Standard libertarian horseshit.

I have to assume that some private enterprise libertards needed a little brony swoon, and Matt obliged them.

The fact that Matt directs the narrative through cherry picking and some outright lies doesn't help his argument, but then, the WSJ editorial has never ever worried about reality.