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Francis Bacon, Science & Scientism
Did Francis Bacon invent modern science, or something considerably more consequential?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWMmbt3fCQA

In this episode of the AetherStream, I sit down with Robert Frederick of The Hidden Life Is Best to examine Francis Bacon’s extraordinary influence on the development of modern science, and the darker question of whether Bacon also helped lay the intellectual foundations of modern scientism.

Bacon famously envisioned knowledge not merely as understanding, but as power: power over nature, power to improve the human condition, and potentially power exercised by those who possess scientific knowledge over those who do not. His unfinished utopian novel New Atlantis imagined a society in which an elite scientific institution systematically gathers knowledge, develops new technologies, advises the state, and keeps some of its discoveries secret. That vision would profoundly influence the scientific culture that followed him.

Robert and I trace Bacon’s program from The Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum through New Atlantis and the subsequent rise of the Royal Society. We also examine a central tension in Bacon’s legacy: for all his advocacy of experimental investigation, Bacon himself was not a particularly successful experimental scientist. His greater achievement may have been convincing generations of others that organized science could transform both nature and society.

From there, the discussion moves into more controversial territory. Robert examines Bacon’s treatment of the soul and metaphysics, possible connections with Gnostic thought, and his argument that Bacon helped establish the intellectual conditions under which science could expand into scientism, the belief that scientific authority provides not merely knowledge about the physical world but answers to questions of politics, morality, human nature, and how society ought to be organized.

Finally, we turn to New Atlantis and ask the question that gives the discussion its contemporary relevance:

Was Bacon describing a scientific utopia, or drafting a remarkably prescient blueprint for technocracy?

Four centuries later, amid “trust the science,” Big Tech, transhumanism, scientific management, and increasingly intimate cooperation between technological institutions and the state, Bacon’s vision looks considerably less remote than it once did.

A carbide cap lamp, also known as an acetylene lamp, worn on miners’ helmets during the early to mid-20th century.

Did you know? 🎓

Map of the Indus Valley Civilization
https://redd.it/1vrmm85
@r_mapporn

U.S. Geographic Boundaries according to the National Weather Service
https://redd.it/1vzhbfi
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At the same time, the Russian government has raised its 2026 budget deficit forecast to 3.2% of GDP, is ramping up borrowing, and is preparing new taxes to cover the financial gap.

The news agency reports that, amid a decline in projected oil and gas revenues, Russia’s national debt will continue to rise, exceeding 20% of GDP by 2027 — a level authorities previously considered safe.

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A second man who was wounded in the failed assassination attempt on President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in 2024 has passed away.

Imagine reading without spaces between words.
Now imagine an entire culture built that way.
The invention of the modern page changed not merely how knowledge was recorded, but who could read it, how they read it, and ultimately how they thought.
https://aetherczar.substack.com/p/1733-the-writing-revolution-and-paper