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Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

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Re: Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

#21

Post by dalke »

sashahart wrote: post #5
yummyfajitas wrote: post #4

Chomsky arguing semantics. He's a linguist, he has his hobbies. Why do the rest of us care? This link is quite relevant: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que...

Chomsky is being a polemicist, which has always been his greatest skill. He has been off on politics rather than linguistics for some time now. E.g. check out http://www.chomsky.info/articles.htm (this is a similar pattern to many old scientists)

Your "many old scientists" parenthetical comment neglects several strong biases. You've likely never heard of most of the old scientists who don't get into politics because you don't know about their work at all. Older people tend to be more interested in politics than younger. It's hard to be trained/have experience in one field and then switch to another, so few young scientists would also be known for their politics. (For example, Margaret Thatcher's research chemistry impact is much less well known than her political impact.)

And yet, Chomsky is one of those few, having become one of the leading opponents to the Vietnam War while in his late 30s - as your link itself implies - and so doesn't fall under the premise of your comment.

Re: Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

#22

Post by abalone »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #14

I'm flagging this, although I have mixed feelings about doing it. I think it might be fine as a blog article, but from Wired it just looks too much like pandering. Sounds too much like " Commented on by " It's just too easy to kick out dozens of these things. Since it's the weekend, here's a few samples to show you what I mean (all of this is made up, of course) "Functional Programming Not Worth Learning Says Al Gore…

What are you talking about? If all of a sudden there was a campaign to defame Vint Cerf through namecalling and slander, would that be "fluff" and "chitchat" for HN?

Chomsky is an qualified participant in this debate, unlike the examples you gave. He has published works on media analysis and the mechanisms by which facts are overpowered by propaganda. That is exactly the issue at stake here. Standing up for truth and rigorous investigation in the face of media pressure. That's why he is involved in this.. It's the kind of thing he's fought for his whole life.

Re: Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

#23

Post by yummyfajitas »

logjam wrote: post #18
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #14

I'm flagging this, although I have mixed feelings about doing it. I think it might be fine as a blog article, but from Wired it just looks too much like pandering. Sounds too much like " Commented on by " It's just too easy to kick out dozens of these things. Since it's the weekend, here's a few samples to show you what I mean (all of this is made up, of course) "Functional Programming Not Worth Learning Says Al Gore…

Confusing. "Pandering"? What possible definition of "pandering" are you using? This is an article about the origins of a technical communications medium, origins which apparently have some relation to semantics, commented on by the most eminent linguist I know of. And since you're being all meta here and everything, and since you took the time to influence what's on the front page in this case, it's curious you appar…

...origins which apparently have some relation to semantics...

No, the origins have nothing to do with semantics. The debate over who invented "email" is dependent on the definition of the word "email". If you define email in certain ways, Van Vleck's 1961 system was the first email system. By Chomsky's definition, Van Vleck's 1961 invention doesn't qualify as email, but Ayyaduri's does.

Re: Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

#24

Post by sashahart »

spinebless wrote: post #6
sashahart wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky is being a polemicist, which has always been his greatest skill. He has been off on politics rather than linguistics for some time now. E.g. check out http://www.chomsky.info/articles.htm (this is a similar pattern to many old scientists)

lolwhat? you're not fit to tie his shoe laces. but then again, weak ad-hominems are a pattern to those who aren't, and/or are admiring the clothes of naked emperors, right? "old scientist" -- chomsky got dragged into this by paying attention ever since the vietnam war, when not many people did. you irresponsible, ungrateful little fuck! (mod that down, ban me -- it's worth saying something that actually matters)

I don't have to be grateful to Chomsky for expressing his opinion, that's his right. I don't know what the Vietnam war has to do with the invention of email.

edit: nor did I ever say anything to run interference for the Vietnam War. Or Pol Pot, or Hugo Chavez...

Re: Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

#25

Post by sashahart »

dalke wrote: post #21
sashahart wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky is being a polemicist, which has always been his greatest skill. He has been off on politics rather than linguistics for some time now. E.g. check out http://www.chomsky.info/articles.htm (this is a similar pattern to many old scientists)

Your "many old scientists" parenthetical comment neglects several strong biases. You've likely never heard of most of the old scientists who don't get into politics because you don't know about their work at all. Older people tend to be more interested in politics than younger. It's hard to be trained/have experience in one field and then switch to another, so few young scientists would also be known for their politi…

You don't seem to understand what I said.

Dawkins is another example of the old scientist pattern - many successful and famous scientists do the work they're academically known for early, then shift into topics outside of their original area. It's quite natural.

The link was from fans of Chomsky's and simply illustrates that he has shifted his attention away from linguistics for many decades now. This is not uncommon in science and it isn't some kind of slam on Chomsky.

Re: Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

#26

Post by sashahart »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #9
sashahart wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky is being a polemicist, which has always been his greatest skill. He has been off on politics rather than linguistics for some time now. E.g. check out http://www.chomsky.info/articles.htm (this is a similar pattern to many old scientists)

I'm aware of Chomsky's political proclivities, but this is purely a debate over the definition of "email". The nature of the actual systems invented is not in dispute, merely what to call them.

You said he was a linguist. I said that he hasn't done a lot in linguistics for many years now, which is true. I wasn't picking on Chomsky for being political.

Even much of his work in linguistics was polemics - the famous review of Verbal Behavior is pure polemics.

edit: and in interviews Chomsky has said that he felt a lot of this work had an essentially political purpose - talking about some nexus between Continental-style rationalism and opposition to totalitarianism, with which he associated the behaviorists

Re: Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

#27

Post by sashahart »

why-el wrote: post #7
sashahart wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky is being a polemicist, which has always been his greatest skill. He has been off on politics rather than linguistics for some time now. E.g. check out http://www.chomsky.info/articles.htm (this is a similar pattern to many old scientists)

I don't know what you mean by old, but Chomsky has been an activist for over 40 years now.

Chomsky is old in the same sense that Dawkins is old and many others are old, namely that they are retired famous scientists who made their name a long time ago and now mostly focus on other topics.

Re: Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

#28

Post by sashahart »

dkarl wrote: post #8
yummyfajitas wrote: post #4

Chomsky arguing semantics. He's a linguist, he has his hobbies. Why do the rest of us care? This link is quite relevant: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que...

Chomsky is interested in power, not semantics. The question "Who invented email?" has a variety of possible meanings, and if you clarify what you mean, the answer follows from the facts. But people don't care what the question means; they care about the prestige attached to the answer. This is more true of Chomsky than of the average person because of his obsession with power. He knows it is an attention-getting ques…

Chomsky isn't going to get a lot of power from anything at this point, he hit his stride politically some time ago. If you have read Chomsky's work from early academic stuff up through today, one unifying characteristic is that he is very good at polemics and very apt to it. That style is so much a part of him that it is completely unsurprising that he would use it even on something apparently strange like the invention of email. It's just a long term character trait.

Re: Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

#29

Post by dalke »

sashahart wrote: post #25
dalke wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "many old scientists" parenthetical comment neglects several strong biases. You've likely never heard of most of the old scientists who don't get into politics because you don't know about their work at all. Older people tend to be more interested in politics than younger. It's hard to be trained/have experience in one field and then switch to another, so few young scientists would also be known for their politi…

You don't seem to understand what I said. Dawkins is another example of the old scientist pattern - many successful and famous scientists do the work they're academically known for early, then shift into topics outside of their original area. It's quite natural. The link was from fans of Chomsky's and simply illustrates that he has shifted his attention away from linguistics for many decades now. This is not uncommon…

But Chomsky didn't change when he was old. He became well-known for his politics when he was in his 30s. Dawkins was 35 when his "The Selfish Gene" was published, and 45 when "The Blind Watchmaker" was published. Both are involved in areas that interested them when they were under 40 years old.

My point is that neither Chomsky (and now neither Dawkins) fits your description ... unless you say that people 30-40 of age are already old?

My other point is that most successful scientists don't shift into topics drastically outside their interests when they were young. Dirac? No. Erdős? No. Barbara McClintock? No. Von Braun? No. Karl Sharpless? No. Jocelyn Bell Burnell? No. Just take the list of Nobel prize winners for science and see how few of them got into politics later in life, or for that matter moved into topics markedly outside of their original area.

Yes, of course some do. But car dealership owners, and chefs (Samak Sundaravej, PM of Thailand, was a television chef for 7 years), and priests and singers also get into politics. So my last point was that there's nothing of note about a few scientists getting into politics as they get older, because people of all sorts of different fields go into politics as they get older.

Hence, my comment that there are strong biases which affect your parenthetical observation.

Re: Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky

#30

Post by [deleted] »

sashahart wrote: post #27
why-el wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you mean by old, but Chomsky has been an activist for over 40 years now.

Chomsky is old in the same sense that Dawkins is old and many others are old, namely that they are retired famous scientists who made their name a long time ago and now mostly focus on other topics.

[deleted]
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