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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Wait, NAMBLA is real? I honestly thought South Park made it up. It seemed like some ridiculous parody of a real organisation. It was real. It as an organization hasn't existed in any meaningful form for like a decade now, but of course it's not like the Internet didn't keep the "movement" alive 
Shame Boy has a new favorite as of 00:29 on Aug 26, 2015 |
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Aug 26, 2015 00:26
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:it's not like the Internet didn't keep the "movement" alive Also the Daily Show.
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Aug 26, 2015 00:35
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Curvature of Earth posted:*I'm shocked every time ClarkHat praises Beale's books, considering how ClarkHat thinks so highly of his own taste in science fiction. Clark is pure, distilled essence of manifestly unjustified self confidence.
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Aug 26, 2015 01:12
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I think Clark forms most of his opinions out of spite, and then sort of works backwards to justify them.
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Aug 26, 2015 01:54
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The Vosgian Beast posted:I think Clark forms most of his opinions out of spite, and then sort of works backwards to justify them. This is how most people form opinions, it's just that their original motivating emotion differs.
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Aug 26, 2015 02:31
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Heresiarch posted:This is how most people form opinions, it's just that their original motivating emotion differs. Interestingly, that's precisely what Lesswrongian rationality was (ostensibly) designed to combat. Of course, we all know how that turned out.
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Aug 26, 2015 02:48
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Darth Walrus posted:Interestingly, that's precisely what Lesswrongian rationality was (ostensibly) designed to combat. Overcoming your instinctive reactions and internal biases is a continuing process. LW and its fellow travellers seem to think that they've overcome them completely and are now ascended masters of rationality, but the thing about enlightenment is, if you think you got it, you didn't get it.
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Aug 26, 2015 02:59
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Heresiarch posted:This is how most people form opinions, it's just that their original motivating emotion differs. I know it's spite for me!
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Aug 26, 2015 03:03
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Woolie Wool posted:Not enough cute twinks. Dem Blood Angels. Also Dark Angels. And what your feelings are about space elves.
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Aug 27, 2015 02:04
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Ronwayne posted:Dem Blood Angels. The holier-than-thou nihilists or the ones that binge on all the space drugs? Because the former are boring as gently caress.
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Aug 27, 2015 03:57
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The setting agrees. They're the only ones who lose in their own rule book.
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Aug 27, 2015 05:29
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Slatestar fans unite
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Aug 27, 2015 08:18
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That's quite a quote/redtext combo, Cardboard Box A.
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Aug 27, 2015 09:51
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Vox is usually hot garbage but this is a surprisingly good piece that touches on this thread's themes.
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Aug 27, 2015 21:48
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Heresiarch posted:Vox is usually hot garbage but this is a surprisingly good piece that touches on this thread's themes. The "Ugh, I don't need to understand this because I'm above it all" approach also infects nerds closer to home; it is extremely common practice for tech startups to staff human resources with people who understand neither labor laws nor how to manage conflicts. Nerdthought from mavericks solves all problems!
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Aug 28, 2015 00:07
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Humans don't reduce to data and facts, so when that's your primary intellectual skill and you've spent your entire childhood with parents, teachers, and other elders telling you how smart you are and the entire weight of society has consistently pushed you into technical or hard science disciplines where your strengths are maximized and your weaknesses are de-emphasized, it becomes borderline impossible to accept that the ways you've been taught to think and to solve problems just do not work when dealing with live human beings and social structures. Really the best solution would be to have a mandatory comprehensive humanities curriculum all the way from grade 1 through 12, but humanities don't make people able to produce more capital for Our elites actively cultivate and encourage nerd culture because nerds are the foot soldiers of their attempt to eliminate democratic, public institutions in favor of ones that better suit their purposes. Woolie Wool has a new favorite as of 00:35 on Aug 28, 2015 |
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Aug 28, 2015 00:29
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Woolie Wool posted:Humans don't reduce to data and facts, so when that's your primary intellectual skill and you've spent your entire childhood with parents, teachers, and other elders telling you how smart you are and the entire weight of society has consistently pushed you into technical or hard science disciplines where your strengths are maximized and your weaknesses are de-emphasized, it becomes borderline impossible to accept that the ways you've been taught to think and to solve problems just do not work when dealing with live human beings and social structures. Really the best solution would be to have a mandatory comprehensive humanities curriculum all the way from grade 1 through 12, but humanities don't make people able to produce more capital for
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Aug 28, 2015 00:57
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Cingulate posted:Clearly, we must feature more lesbian muslims (muslim lesbians?) in future graphic novels, as an rear end in a top hat deterrent. 
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Aug 28, 2015 01:02
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Cingulate posted:The idea that a humanities education actually helps you help making the world a truly better place is highly speculative. It wouldn't necessarily make the world a better place in and of itself but at least it would force STEMlords out of their comfort zones for part of their lives.
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Aug 28, 2015 01:10
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Woolie Wool posted:Humans don't reduce to data and facts, I mean, the issue at hand here isn't even that. It's that, even if humans DO reduce to data(I presume you mean numerical) and facts, as you put it, that it's much more likely that the sheer amount of data you would need to truly understand an individual human being that way is so mind-bogglingly large that computing it and analyzing it in any meaningful capacity is prohibitively difficult right now, and possibly forever. quote:The fact that said unbalanced education and the technocratic mindset it engenders makes intelligent people more compliant with and more loyal to capitalism makes it even better. I actually find this unlikely. I have met a staggering amount of radical marxist mathematicians. And though my sympathies do not lie with anything that anyone would call radicalism, I think it's important to point out that the conservative bias you are perceiving in STEM chiefly stems(heh) from the T and E parts of that acronym. Engineers, like doctors, are actually more conservative, as a population than the general pop. Technology like-wise. I say this, mostly, to illustrate that treating STEM as a monolith is very much a mistake. I have always disliked inter-field pissing contests though, so it makes me cringe whenever I see STEM people bashing lib arts. Hate Fibration has a new favorite as of 01:27 on Aug 28, 2015 |
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Aug 28, 2015 01:18
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Cingulate posted:The idea that a humanities education actually helps you help making the world a truly better place is highly speculative. Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous to think that learning about the human condition will actually help you better understand humanity. Hate Fibration posted:I actually find this unlikely. I have met a staggering amount of radical marxist mathematicians. And though my sympathies do not lie with anything that anyone would call radicalism, I think it's important to point out that the conservative bias you are perceiving in STEM chiefly stems(heh) from the T and E parts of that acronym. Engineers, like doctors, are actually more conservative, as a population than the general pop. Technology like-wise. I say this, mostly, to illustrate that treating STEM as a monolith is very much a mistake. TBF, when people talk about STEM fields (including people who are encouraging others to pursue them as a career) they are mostly talking about the T and E parts. Science and mathematics are undeniably important for tech and engineering (and really every other aspect of society), but they aren't the "more valuable" fields economically. This might also explain why a lot of the mathematicians you've met are more politically diverse. MizPiz has a new favorite as of 01:42 on Aug 28, 2015 |
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Aug 28, 2015 01:24
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Cingulate posted:The idea that a humanities education actually helps you help making the world a truly better place is highly speculative. 
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Aug 28, 2015 01:35
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MizPiz posted:Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous to think that learning about the human condition will actually help you better understand humanity. Either way, "understanding the human condition" is rather different from "understanding car engines" in the sense that the latter allows you to fix cars, but the former doesn't allow you to fix humans/society. Or cars, sadly. Parallel Paraplegic posted:It wouldn't necessarily make the world a better place in and of itself but at least it would force STEMlords out of their comfort zones for part of their lives. If I didn't truly appreciate Sam Harris, I'd probably pretend I did.
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Aug 28, 2015 02:08
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Understanding things like literature and history will not automatically make you a better human being but it does increase the odds significantly.
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Aug 28, 2015 02:16
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Cingulate posted:Either way, "understanding the human condition" is rather different from "understanding car engines" in the sense that the latter allows you to fix cars, but the former doesn't allow you to fix humans/society. Or cars, sadly. The goal is not to be able to loving fix everything. Knowledge, empathy, and understanding are goals in themselves, which are not rendered worthless by the fact that they're not magical keys which can be placed into any lock and, when turned, will send out waves of sorcery to render the world immediately into a perfect fairyland
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Aug 28, 2015 02:17
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Help, the sperg is coming from inside the thread. Viewing humanity as a problem that needs to be fixed is exactly the kind of attitude that leads to DE assholes in the first place.
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Aug 28, 2015 02:20
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Cingulate posted:Either way, "understanding the human condition" is rather different from "understanding car engines" in the sense that the latter allows you to fix cars, but the former doesn't allow you to fix humans/society. Or cars, sadly. I think the idea is more that if we include it in education properly they'll be less likely to make poo poo up to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. I mean look at Moldbug, to bring it back around - you don't get to that level of smartly stupid through actually studying the things you're trying to make statements about.
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Aug 28, 2015 02:20
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Cingulate posted:Well it does sound like sympathetic magic. So your gimmick is getting pissy about people promoting anything that doesn't offer instant gratification?
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Aug 28, 2015 02:27
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Humanities courses also expose you to professors who can actually teach, instead of STEM professors who consider it a secondary part of their job.
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Aug 28, 2015 02:37
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Heresiarch posted:Understanding things like literature and history will not automatically make you a better human being but it does increase the odds significantly. There's this funny datum that the books most often stolen from uni libraries are law and ethics books. InediblePenguin posted:The goal is not to be able to loving fix everything. Knowledge, empathy, and understanding are goals in themselves, which are not rendered worthless by the fact that they're not magical keys which can be placed into any lock and, when turned, will send out waves of sorcery to render the world immediately into a perfect fairyland I'm fairly skeptical about the idea that some kind of Bildungsroman/Kairosis/whatever actually, in the real world, makes you more ethical. I don't know what does, but before I assume books do, I'd like to see some data. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but simply because Schiller claims there is such a thing as an Aesthetic Education of Man leading to ethical behavior or whatever, doesn't mean there is. Parallel Paraplegic posted:I think the idea is more that if we include it in education properly they'll be less likely to make poo poo up to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. I mean look at Moldbug, to bring it back around - you don't get to that level of smartly stupid through actually studying the things you're trying to make statements about. Art doesn't need the justification of maybe kinda probably making people behave a bit less unethical. Art is totally fine without justification. It does much better as an end than a means. People who try to instrumentalise art like this scare me a lot, usually. (I'm still really into Brecht, but - nobody here is Brecht.) MizPiz posted:So your gimmick is getting pissy about people promoting anything that doesn't offer instant gratification? A Fancy 400 lbs posted:Help, the sperg is coming from inside the thread. Viewing humanity as a problem that needs to be fixed is exactly the kind of attitude that leads to DE assholes in the first place.
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Aug 28, 2015 02:42
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Cingulate posted:If I didn't truly appreciate Sam Harris, I'd probably pretend I did. If you don't think writing a book with the subtitle "How science can determine human values" and then redefining "science" as "anything that uses arguments or evidence" in a footnote of said book is the most brilliant poo poo ever, get the gently caress out.
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Aug 28, 2015 02:43
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The Vosgian Beast posted:If you don't think writing a book with the subtitle "How science can determine human values" and then redefining "science" as "anything that uses arguments or evidence" in a footnote of said book is the most brilliant poo poo ever, get the gently caress out. I'd rather go straight to Singer.
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Aug 28, 2015 02:46
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me: "the goal isn't to fix things" cingulate: "when I want something fixed I'll still call a mechanic" Gold Star in Reading Comprehension
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Aug 28, 2015 02:58
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InediblePenguin posted:me: "the goal isn't to fix things" You can actually translate it into predicate logic if that helps you.
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Aug 28, 2015 03:01
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Though the more interesting observation is the anger level. I don't think this is liberal arts majors reaction to me being offensive to liberal arts majors - I am fairly sure most actual liberal arts majors are rather on board with my idea that arts should be ends not means. (Also, I'm super pro liberal arts!) So what's with the anger?
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Aug 28, 2015 03:04
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What I read in the post that started all this was a statement that leaving the humanities out and overemphasizing STEM fields means not teaching kids interpersonal skills and appreciation for things that can't be quantified, and the theory that putting more emphasis on humanities in education would be better. What you read in the post, or at least what you've been arguing against, is some idea that teaching humanities will "fix humankind." I do not think those two things are the same.
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Aug 28, 2015 03:09
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The statement I initially responded to was this: "the ways you've been taught to think and to solve problems just do not work when dealing with live human beings and social structures. Really the best solution would be to have a mandatory comprehensive humanities curriculum all the way from grade 1 through 12" Well, I don't think the latter is a probable solution to the former; I am very skeptical humanities teach you to "deal with live human beings and social structures". I guess at best, people do, but people in the humanities aren't any better at this than anybody else. They're terrible in their own ways, which often, for example, includes having their heads so far up their asses, you'd need a poet to come up with an appropriate metaphor for it. If I want an arbitrary human to be able to better "deal with live human beings and social structures", I guess putting him in some extracurricular thing like a theatre group could be a good idea, but not Homer. Read Homer for Homer. Not as a supposed cure for the Aspergers you self-diagnose on people you can't stand.
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Aug 28, 2015 03:16
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Appreciation for the arts/humanities is just like any other subject and requires time and effort to learn and grown in. Co-curricular activities are unlikely to have the same rigor for their participants as a formal structure would.
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Aug 28, 2015 03:30
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On the one hand, according to old movies all the scary nazis loved opera and big paintings. On the other hand Martha Nussbaum and Richard Posner.
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Aug 28, 2015 03:36
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I highly doubt that the humanities is what is lacking from engineers to make them overall less terrible human beings. I would say more that if you are educated in a system where your peers are people of roughly your socioeconomic profile (class, religion, race in many cases, etc.) and then end up in a field dominated by men and with an institutional culture that favours misogynistic narratives you aren't going to have to much introspection about the subjective nature of your experience of society/reality, which is critical to self-awareness. The whole conspiratorial narrative of STEM being emphasized to teach people compliance is also one of those things only a humanities major up their own rear end could say. The vast majority of people don't have a university humanities education and reading hamlet and listening to some biased version of history in high school was never what moved people to protest/revolt anyhways. Besides, STEM people get paid well for their role in producing profit. They aren't compliant sheep, they're the petite-bourgeoisie, who look to emulate the thoughts and trappings of their betters as a foundation of their identity. Even the ones that aren't terrible still have all the terrible pro-capitalist bullshit about self-made men and entrepreneurship and governments sucking (event he author of the Vox article) stuck in their brains, and they don't have the self-awareness to ever question whether any of these foundational ideas they have are wrong.
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Aug 28, 2015 03:36
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