domain:questioner.substack.com
hydroacetylene
2d ago
We can have universally-beneficial/long-term scientific research, or we can have politicization of science, but we can't have both at the same time.
The Soviets did.
Throwaway05
2d ago
public trust with the polio vaccine
I know where you are going with this but ironically the polio vaccine ended up being a long term public relations disaster once the pain of polio started to fall off. Check out the whole Salk vs. Sabin thing if you want to dig in.
hydroacetylene
2d ago
I’m pretty sure Tao and his team receive high salaries(and while I DON’T understand his work I’m well willing to believe those high salaries are well deserved).
Throwaway05
2d ago
This is advice for the last conflict - when the ACLU wanders around as a shambolic corpse that refuses to support the rights of "those people" you know the old institutions can no longer help.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
2d ago
Yep, agreed. It's so fucking dumb and idiotic because it's sacrificing the ability to actually take a scientific approach towards solving problems in the future. Every time I hear this kind of shit from my colleagues I want to shake them: you are burning political capital for short-term gain.
The problem is that science itself does not have a metaphysical system. Scientism, the sort of religion that has grown up around science, has a particular moral outlook. Science as a praxis, a way of discovering empirical truths, does not and cannot have much to say on moral questions, as morality and metaphysics are definitionally outside of the domain of science.
Primaprimaprima
I am trying so hard not to say the MBTI type of everyone I reply to
2d ago
· Edited 2d ago
I don't really know where you're then getting this notion that we can draw any conclusion from what she says to how theoretical objects are thought up for use in scientific scenarios.
It was the idea that occurred to me while reading the text, so I just went with it!
I fully admit I'm engaged in a "motivated" reading. I'm more concerned with trying to extract a coherent philosophical idea from the text rather than with reconstructing Irigaray's exact mental state. But I don't think my interpretation is baseless either.
Backing up to give more context:
What is left uninterpreted in the economy of fluids—the resistances brought to bear upon solids, for example—is in the end given over to God. Overlooking the properties of real fluids—internal frictions, pressures, movements, and so on, that is, their specific dynamics—leads to giving the real back to God, as only the idealizable characteristics of fluids are included in their mathematicization.
Or again: considerations of pure mathematics have precluded the analysis of fluids except in terms of laminated planes, solenoid movements (of a current privileging the relation to an axis), spring-points, well-points, whirlwind-points, which have only an approximate relation to reality. Leaving some remainder. Up to infinity: the center of these “movements” corresponding to zero supposes in them an infinite speed, which is physically unacceptable. Certainly these “theoretical” fluids have enabled the technical—also mathematical—form of analysis to progress, while losing a certain relationship to the reality of bodies in the process.
What consequences does this have for “science” and psychoanalytic practice?
Roughly: Science can't just give a direct description of every single microdetail of reality. It has to "symbolize" things -- create simplified and idealized theoretical models. These models are inevitably attached to linguistic imagery.
And if anyone objects that the question, put this way, relies too heavily on metaphors, it is easy to reply that the question in fact impugns the privilege granted to metaphor (a quasi solid) over metonymy (which is much more closely allied to fluids).
Honestly not entirely sure what this part means. I assume that she's saying that solid imagery is more metaphorical, and fluid imagery is more metonymic, and her questioning here is impugning the privilege that the current imagery of physics grants to solids over fluids.
Or—suspending the status of truth accorded to these essentially metalinguistic “categories” and “dichotomous oppositions” — to reply that in any event all language is (also) metaphorical,+ and that, by denying this, language fails to recognize the “‘subject” of the unconscious and precludes inquiry into the subjection, still in force, of that subject to a symbolization that grants precedence to solids.
They key part is really the line at the end, "the subjection, still in force, of that subject to a symbolization that grants precedence to solids". The current "symbolization" of physics grants precedence to solids. But she's implying that that could change. We could imagine an alternative symbolization that grants precedence to fluids instead (without changing the content of the underlying physics).
it's likely because it is a simpler concept to do math with, than fluid cows.
Again the suggestion is that the imagery could change without changing the math.
Solid objects are already a lot more "fluid" than they might initially appear. See for example The Problem of the Many. It's not too hard to imagine an alternative conceptual landscape where we view the world of macro objects as being fundamentally populated by fluids, with "solids" being an exotic deviation from the fluid norm, if they even exist at all.
Throwaway05
2d ago
This is unfortunate-- disastrous for some people I know. Of the anecdotes I've heard, such as jdizzler's below, everyone thus far has earned my sympathies.
Let me register myself - when the election was running the few people I felt comfortable sharing my leanings with hit me with the "dude you might lose your job or whatever" and I said yes that's fine.
Months later I missed out on a major professional opportunity because of a funding cut and people expected me to complain.
No, this is what I asked for.
Fixing the rot instantiated by social justice is going to be painful. We need to accept that.
I am sorry for the people hurt in the process...but it's necessary and I encourage others to mentally frame it that way.
hydroacetylene
2d ago
I’m not sure that was the turning point- in practice lots of people just decided to hell with it around Easter.
Garfielf
2d ago
Progressives already do that, and have loudly proclaimed for years it is OK to do. So I will not be upset because it is expected behavior from them.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
2d ago
My quest to the 200 54# Kettlebell Snatch goal is taking some detours. I seem to have plateaued at around 160 where my exhaustion hits a point where the fatigue overwhelmed my form and injuries happen. Nothing major, torn calluses, back gets a little tweaked, etc. I think I'm going to start trying to do 2-5 sets of 100, since knocking out 100 in a row has gotten fairly easy. Did two sets today as a try out and it seems promising. Might add a 3rd set of 100 next week. Fingers crossed. I'm hoping after stacking enough of those sets, once day I can just drop the rest period and go for 200 straight.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
Hirsch's original suggestion was that a "successful scientist" after 20 years would be around 1 annualized, an "outstanding scientist" around 2, and a "truly unique" one around 3.
I'm going to venture a wild guess and say this was before Goodhart's Law had it's way with that measure.
Tanista
2d ago
I mean, not all of them. There are definitely SJWs who believe that SJ doesn't count as politics but indeed "just common fucking decency"*, although there are certainly others who'll yell at anyone who thinks it's possible to be apolitical.
I think the "personal/everything is political" is a better explanation of the mindset than "just common fucking decency". Especially because it's paired with a sort of almost gnostic/mystery cult mentality. The Onion parody of the general mindet of "if only you were educated as I was" is instructive: "just decency" doesn't require induction into a political discipline.
"It's just decency" can be taken as an attempt to build consensus that ran out of control, precisely because of the dynamics you note.
zoink
2d ago
From January 31, 2015 The Parable of the Talents
Every so often an overly kind commenter here praises my intelligence and says they feel intellectually inadequate compared to me, that they wish they could be at my level. But at my level, I spend my time feeling intellectually inadequate compared to Scott Aaronson. Scott Aaronson describes feeling “in awe” of Terence Tao and frequently struggling to understand him. Terence Tao – well, I don’t know if he’s religious, but maybe he feels intellectually inadequate compared to God. And God feels intellectually inadequate compared to John von Neumann.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
As I said, they failed, utterly. Their protests fell on deaf ears and the academy became more and more exclusive of any opposing views. It turns out that a key part of enforcing ones free speech rights is force.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
Yeah, I think most people complaining about this now were either directly participating in the censorship, approving of it, or at most not all that bothered by it.
Sure, there were some pro-free speech groups, I think FIRE is the most prominent. Libertarians are non-entities though, and it would be an odd one if they complained about government grants being cut.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
This is the culture war thread, not the random hypothetical thread.
magicalkittycat
2d ago
This really does seem to be the basic "it's ok when I do it, crazy when the enemy does it" statement. Not uncommon, but as a principled person who has fought against censorship from all directions I disagree with it.
magicalkittycat
2d ago
I'm not a free speech absolutist, but I care about fairness and equality before the law. Unilateral disarmament of letting one side do whatever and the other side only gets to wag the finger and say tut-tut does not improve the status of the principle at hand.
Then don't go for unilateral disarmament, use your power to enact fair rules for government. Groups like FIRE, and in the past stuff like the Free Speech League, the First Amendment coalition and other groups protect our rights by fighting for them legally in all cases.
magicalkittycat
2d ago
Don't confuse not having perfect and permanent success with a failure, or you'll let your free speech rights keep slipping further and further away.
magicalkittycat
2d ago
It appears nobody has attempted to deport Tom Macdonald for that video.
Yes it's a hypothetical. Would it be ok if the future Dems declared him to not have first amendment rights as a legal residents in the US and deport him based off political speech they find insulting?
TheDemonRazgriz
2d ago
Every time I hear this kind of shit from my colleagues I want to shake them: you are burning political capital for short-term gain.
I think in most cases it’s much worse than that: they are burning political capital for no gain at all (well, except in their own personal/social lives, perhaps). Was anyone, any single solitary person, actually convinced by the argument that “the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus”? I highly doubt it. On the other hand, did people who read things like that lose their faith in the fields of science and medicine? Quite plainly yes, by the hundreds of thousands.
magicalkittycat
2d ago
It's been winning for a long time in the US! We have slip ups but don't confuse not attaining a permanent perfection with a complete failure. Each time a would be censor is prevented from censoring, a win is had. Sometimes it will fail, but when no one tries to fight for what is right then nothing good will come.
magicalkittycat
2d ago
They did these things not even for such a good reason as revenge, but instead out of pure will-to-power.
Is revenge a good reason to do things you find immoral? I think a lot of us more principled folk would disagree.
thejdizzler
2d ago
The gender question is interesting, especially since the trilogy does seem to be very concerned with sex (the various relationships between the first 100, Hiroko's weird sex cult, the loose sexual relationships between the children in the hidden colony). 2312, a later work with many similarities to the Mars Trilogy, also extensively deals with the trans question, although kind of in a background way (everyone is just implied to be trans because why not). This does make me think a lot less of KSR as a thinker: there's a lot more kowtowing to current thing going on than I would like to think.
Naturally loquacious writers :: LLMs
are as
homely girls :: MTFs
modernity, amirite?
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