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Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#141

Post by ehvatum »

etplayer wrote: post #99
bjl wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a lot of hubris (all too common in the software engineering community) to suggest that Marx and Hegel, two of the most influential philosophers of all time, produced nothing of meaning.

I wouldn't say it's hubris as much as it's ignorance, dogmatic positivism, and scientism that tends to show itself here and there; I'd say it's more common among those who have made it their life course to be in science or engineering - and I don't mean this disparagingly, as I study EE myself. It's not only ignorance of Marx and Hegel either, Slavoj Zizek regards Marx not as a philosopher but as a sociologist and ec…

Is "dogmatic empiricism" another term for "natural philosophy"? Where does one end and the other begin?

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#142

Post by fundabulousrIII »

bjl wrote: post #96
dgut wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read some Adorno and his work appears to me as meaningless chewing around. After all, he was inspired by Marx and Hegel. E.g: > What philosophy once called life, has turned into the sphere of the private and then merely of consumption, which is dragged along as an addendum of the material production-process, without autonomy and without its own substance. To quote Hume: > If we take in our hand any volume; of di…

It takes a lot of hubris (all too common in the software engineering community) to suggest that Marx and Hegel, two of the most influential philosophers of all time, produced nothing of meaning.

hegel: The dialectic, which he 'enhanced' and marx the material dialectic. Is the dialectic valuable in abstract and is it even reasonably accurate as a model for thought and human decision making?

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#143

Post by ucontrol »

smallnamespace wrote: post #18
j9461701 wrote: post #13

The article reminded me of the two cultures lecture by CP Snow, from 1959. Where Snow argued Western intellectual culture was sharply divided between the humanities and the sciences, and great harm was being done by each trying to poison and undermine the other to claim greater cultural cachet. I wonder if this played some role in Kaczynski's strange tragedy. As the article describes, he seemed to have adopted parts…

As an immigrant (from a non-Western society) who also spent youth steeped in Western literature, arts, and music, every development after WWI just seems so sad. There's the moral self-loathing (veering towards self-flagellation) of the 'social justice' class, the academic anti-truth of the relativists and the post-modernists, the equally poisonous know-nothingism of parts of the right. Western civilization still live…

This is such a wonderful comment. It reminded me of the link between the World Wars and subsequent philosophical developments in the West (which culminated with postmodernism), a topic that I've always found fascinating. It's easy to underestimate just how profoundly WWI and WWII shook Western civilization and changed the course of history, and that they weren't just another group of conflicts notable solely for their sheer scale.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#144

Post by fundabulousrIII »

titzer wrote: post #90
lr4444lr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...if people have easy access to guns, you will have more deaths by guns ... because guns are a "force or thought multiplier". I read that about 40,000 people are killed/injured by guns per year, with 44% of households owning one. Meanwhile 1.3 million people die in road crashes - let alone injuries. If we simply judge "empirically" what happens by sheer ratios of ownership, the NRA's arguments make even more sense.…

> Meanwhile 1.3 million people die in road crashes You're comparing a global number to...something else. In the US (~33,000 deaths annually by firearm, including suicide, ~32,000 traffic fatalities). What was your point again?

You'd rather the suicides use more primitive implements? If you are done with things a gun is pretty painless and nearly certain. Everything else should have warning labels.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#145

Post by grzm »

fundabulousrIII wrote: post #144
titzer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile 1.3 million people die in road crashes You're comparing a global number to...something else. In the US (~33,000 deaths annually by firearm, including suicide, ~32,000 traffic fatalities). What was your point again?

You'd rather the suicides use more primitive implements? If you are done with things a gun is pretty painless and nearly certain. Everything else should have warning labels.

As the guidelines request,

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This is particularly important on sensitive topics, such as this one. The goal of HN is not combative arguments, but rather constructive, substantive discussion.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#147

Post by fundabulousrIII »

FooHentai wrote: post #19
tlb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article paraphrases Ellul criticizing the modern world, "mankind no longer saw technology as merely a tool but now pursued its advancement as an end in itself. Society served technology, not vice versa. Individuals were valued only insofar as they served this end." That was a major influence on Kaczynski. When you say it's tragic that he didn't end up contributing to mathematics, you're judging his life by the va…

He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata! What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, it is the people, it is the people! The advancement of technology and furthering of knowledge is a noble endeavor, but only in pursuit of a higher goal. Advanced technology not used, or great knowledge never applied, is of no value. It is only with a higher intention for the use of these thi…

Hell is other people.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#148

Post by fundabulousrIII »

grzm wrote: post #145
fundabulousrIII wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd rather the suicides use more primitive implements? If you are done with things a gun is pretty painless and nearly certain. Everything else should have warning labels.

As the guidelines request, > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html This is particularly important on sensitive topics, such as this one. The goal of HN is not combative arguments, but rather constructive, substantive discussion.

Get a life. Oh, excuse me, was my sarcasm too transparent?

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#149

Post by kutkloon7 »

hammock wrote: post #88
Iv wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot invent drones and tell people it should only be used for good things, not bad things. Sure you can. This is the purpose of laws and law enforcement. Try to fly a drone with a knife to stab people and people will destroy it and arrest you. Internationally we have a lack of laws and a lack of enforcement, therefore we had only limited success at preventing nuclear proliferation or chemical/bio weapons uses…

Laws don't separate good from evil. They serve to legitimize (think of the root of that word) the exercise of certain behavior. But there can be good laws and evil laws. If you have trouble understanding this point, look at another country besides the US when thinking about it.

Heh, "Look at the laws in the US when thinking about it" would be more appropriate.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#150

Post by dgut »

voidhorse wrote: post #103
dgut wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's narrow things down. What did Hegel produce of meaning? Can you answer that question concretely without the gaseous word bending that is typical of Hegelians?

It depends on what constitutes 'meaning'. If meaning has a minimal requirement of historical impact it cannot be denied that Hegel produced a tremendous amount of meaning in the world, as entire traditions of thought have developed out of his notion of dialectic. Hell, the whole idea of Communism presumably would not have developed were it not for Marx's reading of Hegel, and it's nigh impossible to deny that idea ha…

Meaningful/useful/valuable to humankind. Marxism is unscientific and led some societies close to barbarism.

225 words and you couldn't answer me.

Let's practice: Donald Knuth created the KMP algorithm.

Help me understand the omnipotence of Hegel. Your turn.

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