"Suffering Fools in the Pursuit of Truth"

I know it's a pretentious title, but I don't care, I just need to vent.

I grow increasingly irritated by our society's materialist conception of the Universe (materialism here meaning a metaphysical view of the Universe by which all things boil down to Matter and Matter alone, and that the only things that are Real are those which can be concretely quantified). I don't buy it anymore; I do believe that there is a non-material element of existence that we as humans either cannot perceive, or have lost the ability to perceive. I believe that there are fundamental aspects of existence that we cannot and will never understand; that such is just the nature of being human, and the limitations of our human brain. In the same way that we truly cannot comprehend the scale of a supercluster, or the density of a black hole, I believe that there are things that occur on our own planet, or within our minds, that we will never truly understand, because we're just not built for it. And I think that's okay. I do think we should study these phenomena, and that it's a worthwhile endeavor to try and understand them, which makes it ultimately disheartening and discouraging that these fields of study are so flooded with crackpots and conspiracy theorists.

This whole rant stems from a podcast I'd just started listening to (which will remain unnamed here because I don't think they deserve promotion) about the possibility of nonverbal autistic children having ESP (extrasensory perception) -- and, please, I know it sounds crazy off the bat, I know -- but I was willing to listen because the parents of these children sounded genuine; they sounded sincere; the host sounded like she really wanted to unearth the truth behind these phenomena, or at least promote it as an area of serious scientific study. Now obviously there's the very clear and present ick of the "Autism is a superpower" trope here. People with autism should be treated as people with special needs, not poked and prodded like lab rats or lauded as having ridiculous powers in an effort by a neurotypical society to compensate for their disability -- obviously. I was willing to entertain the idea because the host appeared to be going to lengths to control the testing environment as much as she could, while facilitating the efforts of a certain academic neuroscientist who was spearheading this research movement. I was willing to listen to the mothers' stories that claimed their children could read their minds, that they shared an extrasensory, telepathic link; I fully believe that there are metaphysical links between humans, especially with one's mother; and we've all heard it said that the loss or lack of one sense causes the others to boost themselves to compensate. So, I thought, who's to say that a nonverbal person with autism couldn't develop some kind of extrasensory, metaphysical awareness of their world to compensate, and to communicate with the parent we each are closest to (if not emotionally, then on a metaphysical level): their mother? The tests were pretty amateur and loosely conducted, but I was only on episode three, and the scientist made an effort to clarify that her peers would not find the tests scientifically sound because of certain factors -- she, it seemed, wasn't trying to obfuscate anything or blow it out of proportion; and who knows, maybe as the show goes on, it becomes more and more scientifically rigorous and they get more skeptical scientists in to verify their findings and experiences. I'll never know, because I won't be listening past episode three. It turns out this neuroscientist is alsooooo (drumroll, please)... a fucking anti-vaxxer!! Yup, a full-on "vaccines cause autism", "I did an anti-vax rally with RFK, Jr.", god damn fucking anti-science dipshit moron.

This is fucking infuriating for a multitude of reasons, one of which being THAT IT'S BEEN DISPROVEN COMPLETELY. Vaccines do not cause autism! The doctor who published that paper was PAID OFF to publish misinformation and STRIPPED OF HIS LICENSE. IT'S NOT TRUE. IT NEVER WAS. So the fact that this scientist, who claims to care about these subjects and their families and the pain they go through by not being acknowledged as human beings by the American medical system and society at large, is also a conspiracy theorist who seemingly doesn't care enough to read a single paper disproving the vaccine claim, and happily go on promoting harmful anti-science rhetoric, is both disappointing and infuriating. The other frustration is that, because she promotes this disproven, harmful, unscientific conspiracy, it delegitimizes the entire pursuit of the podcast, and therefore, the entire possibility that the subjects may have ESP. It perpetuates a cycle of misinformation that makes these fields of study seem "kooky" and stupid. "Woo-woo", if you will.

Take aliens, for example. It's ludicrous to think that, in the infinite vastness of the Universe, and with the sheer number of stars and galaxies and planets that exist, that planet Earth is the only celestial body that has any intelligent life on it. It's just impossible. Something, somebody else exists out there, just by mathematics alone. And yet, we have precious few serious scientists willing to study it because we've had decades of muddled reports, misinformation, targeted disinformation campaigns, and plain old silliness with shit like the "Tall Whites", people claiming they had sex with aliens, and countless hoaxes. Despite the equally massive numbers of verifiably real, unexplainable encounters with UAPs, society at large scoffs at the idea of alien life because it's treated as a goofy, stupid fringe theory, so to be a serious scientist trying to legitimately study the phenomenon can be career suicide. Serious scientists don't want to study fringe science because they can be labeled as crackpots or unscientific, and laughed out of their fields; but then, when somebody does want to conduct a serious study of phenomena like ESP, they turn out to be an anti-vax dipshit and it completely poisons the well for anybody else! I am very open to the idea of ESP being real, that maybe these subjects with autism could have developed (or tapped into) a different way of experiencing the world than other people -- but this doctor completely sours the whole thing by supporting an unfounded, disproven theory that directly harms and marginalizes the very people she claims to be fighting for. It's disgusting.

I don't have an idea of how to fix this problem, either. I'm not a scientist, or an academic, I'm just a clown with a lot of ideas and too much time to think; but I do think and believe that there are fundamental aspects of our Universe that deserve study, that deserve serious academic pursuit. I have a major beef with materialism and the notion that the entire grand mystery of existence - that consciousness and love and connection and religion and synchronicity and the essence of our very being as sentient creatures - can all be boiled down to nothing beyond chemical reactions. I do believe there's more to it than that alone -- but I worry that our modern society is too far gone down the misinformation tubes, too sucked into TikTok conspiracy videos and anti-intellectualism and racism and rejection of the metaphysical, to really pursue those ideas. Even if we never find out why we're here, or what happens after we leave, we can at least try to stop spreading verifiably false misinformation and stupidity.

Can't we?

Originally published on July 12, 2025.