Revisiting #Rationalia

Last week, I ragged on famed astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson for the following tweet he made:

Earth needs a virtual country: #Rationalia, with a one-line Constitution: All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 29, 2016

But then I discovered this video of Tyson:


Towards the end of the video, Tyson says:

“...what you want is objectively verifiable truths, that we can all agree - that’s what you build your economic system on, your government system.”

There is a world of difference between "weight of evidence" and an "objectively verifiable truth". "Weight of evidence" can change as more evidence is discovered, or even as people change the way they weigh evidence. But an "objectively verifiable truth" can only be changed by the discovery of an error, and is therefore rarely changed.

Let's take Tyson's #Rationalia idea, and modify the one-line Constitution to this:

All policy shall be based on objectively verifiable truths.

Think about that for a moment: How much objectively verifiable truth is there behind most of what the government does today? More specifically:

--Is the income tax the most efficient way for the government to make money? Is it even progressive, when the wealthy end up paying little, and the middle class get a larger percentage of the tax bill? Is a progressive tax system even needed? If so, how do you explain the Social Security tax, which is regressive? 

--Does Medicare make sense? Specifically, why would you have people pay to keep themselves alive, when they are no longer productive members of society, on top of the fact they are closer to death, which is inevitable? 

--One of the few objectively verifiable truths is that a military is needed, or else #Rationalia will fall to another country. However, how much military is needed, and of what kind? When there "are currently more than 2,000 inactive M-1 Abrams tanks sitting at an Army depot in the California desert", it is safe to say we have truth disconnect somewhere. 

--Climate change is an objectively verifiable truth, but anthropogenic (man-made) climate change is only a theory. Ergo, any government policy based on anthropogenic climate change would need to be ended. However, since we know the solar activity objectively and verifiably warms the Earth (and lack of it cools the Earth), further research into anthropogenic climate change may not be warranted.

I can go on for days about truth disconnects in government, but you get the point. Tyson may be onto something here.