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Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

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Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#3

Post by ryanx435 »

The palm pilot was years ahead of the iPhone, but it doesn't matter. Apple is who brought us into the age of mobile devices with the iPhone.

These guys may have had the same ideas before everyone else, but it doesn't matter. Their effect was minimal and the enlightenment didn't catch on in Ethiopia.

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#4

Post by dang »

ryanx435 wrote: post #3

The palm pilot was years ahead of the iPhone, but it doesn't matter. Apple is who brought us into the age of mobile devices with the iPhone. These guys may have had the same ideas before everyone else, but it doesn't matter. Their effect was minimal and the enlightenment didn't catch on in Ethiopia.

Would you please not post shallow dismissals to Hacker News? This is just the sort of curiosity-killing comment we don't need here, particularly as the first post to a thread.

Historical material is interesting for plenty of reasons beyond "who won", and has always been welcome on Hacker News. So are things whose "effect was minimal", as long as they're interesting.

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

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#5

Post by nickysielicki »

We don't study philosophy simply based on who is first, we study texts because they are thorough and influential on future philosophical and political development. We know this because future scholars directly cite them.

Before all the aforementioned authors, it's all but certain that many of these thoughts were had by unknown people without the ability to archive them in depth. The Bible alone is evidence of this; for someone to write that denial of religion deserves death, they must consider religion as a choice in the first place.

This just feels like someone is shoehorning a narrative that they like.

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#6

Post by dang »

nickysielicki wrote: post #5

We don't study philosophy simply based on who is first, we study texts because they are thorough and influential on future philosophical and political development. We know this because future scholars directly cite them. Before all the aforementioned authors, it's all but certain that many of these thoughts were had by unknown people without the ability to archive them in depth. The Bible alone is evidence of this; f…

This isn't as cheap as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16200064 but it's still a shallow dismissal of a straw view of the article. What's interesting here is not that these guys did or didn't have historical influence—obviously they didn't, end of story. It's that their ideas were surprisingly similar to later, more famous thinkers in a place few would have expected. That easily clears the bar for interest on Hacker News.

When the HN guidelines say the following, it applies to articles as well: 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

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#8

Post by heavenlyblue »

ryanx435 wrote: post #3

The palm pilot was years ahead of the iPhone, but it doesn't matter. Apple is who brought us into the age of mobile devices with the iPhone. These guys may have had the same ideas before everyone else, but it doesn't matter. Their effect was minimal and the enlightenment didn't catch on in Ethiopia.

Or, Apple had piggybacked off the mistakes of Palm Pilot. The same thinking will lead you to a belief that all of the things Apple had ever done were perfect and there was only one way of doing it (since they did win in the end), when the situation should account for all of the players in the act.

Also, let's not forget that Steve Jobs had repeateadedly refused to do chemo instead prefering homeopathy; and there's a huge chance the only reason those products are here are due to his highly pumped up ego, rather than the deeply thought-through design.

Or in other words, "Those who don't know history, are doomed to repeat it".

Re: Yacob and Amo: African precursors to Enlightenment thinkers

#9

Post by nickysielicki »

dang wrote: post #6
nickysielicki wrote: post #5

We don't study philosophy simply based on who is first, we study texts because they are thorough and influential on future philosophical and political development. We know this because future scholars directly cite them. Before all the aforementioned authors, it's all but certain that many of these thoughts were had by unknown people without the ability to archive them in depth. The Bible alone is evidence of this; f…

This isn't as cheap as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16200064 but it's still a shallow dismissal of a straw view of the article. What's interesting here is not that these guys did or didn't have historical influence—obviously they didn't, end of story. It's that their ideas were surprisingly similar to later, more famous thinkers in a place few would have expected. That easily clears the bar for interest on Ha…

> What's interesting here is not that these guys did or didn't have historical influence—obviously they didn't, end of story. It's that their ideas were surprisingly similar to later, more famous thinkers in a place few would have expected. That easily clears the bar for interest on Hacker News.

I agree with you on this-- it's definitely interesting, but the point you're making here is very different from the thesis of the link. The thesis restatement in the last paragraph of the article makes the case that these authors have high historical relevance in philosophy, and that argument is what I was responding to.

I understand the goal of the guideline, but as a starting point it's unreasonable to expect someone to respond to an argument as it could be rather than as it really is. I think we're on the same page.

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