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In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

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Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#321

Post by tomjen3 »

sourcepluck wrote: post #308
tomjen3 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any of them ran their own startups? Ported some code to jemalloc? Then I am not interested in their idea on tech.

Wow, there you go. This is quite the straightforwardly authoritarian statement, if followed through on (though I doubt you actually follow it through). If some politicians and engineers wanted to lay train tracks down straight through the middle of a town, would the locals have a say in the matter, in your opinion? Or should they leave those decisions to the experts? I do imagine you're not really serious though. To…

You are reading too much into it. I am simply unwilling to listen anymore to the commentariat (roughly those working at newspapers, think tanks and/or having degrees in political science, media, communications, or sociology) attacking tech. It has become a tribal issue where political hay is being made and politics drags all debates down to mudslinging.

In short: Talk is cheap, I want to see that they have also done the legwork. That the issues is based on actual facts, and that it comes from a genuine desire to know and solve a problem.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#322

Post by camgunz »

mlsu wrote: post #195

The experience of passive consumption (cable TV, tiktok, etc, pointed out in another comment here) is essentially the experience of psychological obliteration. When you get sucked into reels, you go from "here" to "there," and in the process, while you are "there," your entire whole self is destroyed. The same psychological phenomena happens to gambling addicts, alcoholics, or users of heroin. It has fewer physiologi…

This is essentially Neil Postman's argument in Amusing Ourselves to Death [0]. The basic idea is that the medium matters, and different media are better suited to different types of messages and discourse. This is why I rail against social media--in particular things like Twitter/X and Bluesky, because their basic structure leads to poor communication outcomes.

It's hard to swallow--TV and social media are the backbones of our culture now--but it's pretty convincing that Postman's predictions came true.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#323

Post by pixl97 »

alexashka wrote: post #196
mandmandam wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the ultra wealthy have different priorities to what I would call important. The yachts, deregulation, tacit (or not) support for torture, illegal wars, pollution, private jets, ostentatious displays of conspicuous and pointless wealth, etc, leave that in no doubt. Were you trying to say that maybe all that destruction in the pursuit of insatiable greed could be 'good' somehow? Like Zorg's little speech [0] about…

> It's astounding how people can have all the facts and teachers in the world, while dodging genuine understanding of everything most important. You said they are dodging 'genuine understanding'. I am saying you aren't the final word on what 'genuine understanding of everything most important' is. In other words - you are using lots of words to say 'I want others to do more of the stuff I want them to do and less of…

If course what you're saying can be taking to absurdity too. Take the paradox of intolerance, if we let the intolerant have power they will wipe out anyone they don't like, hence why we have laws against things like murder.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#324

Post by marcosdumay »

rixed wrote: post #320
esafak wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ottoman sultans saw those wars and banned the press. The missed the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and eventually disappeared.

They were also a bit far from the Americas, which might have contributed to the economic boom of Europe more than the faster spreading of new ideas via books, no?

The kind of colonization that happened in America also happened in several other places, again and again, through history. In no other case is was followed by an industrial revolution.

In fact, China was just fading away from a very similar boom when Europe started expanding. And the Otomans have had their own boom some centuries before.

And China did develop a mechanical press, and decided to control an censor it too. But I don't think the GP is correct on using that as a strong cause.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#325

Post by disqard »

mlsu wrote: post #195

The experience of passive consumption (cable TV, tiktok, etc, pointed out in another comment here) is essentially the experience of psychological obliteration. When you get sucked into reels, you go from "here" to "there," and in the process, while you are "there," your entire whole self is destroyed. The same psychological phenomena happens to gambling addicts, alcoholics, or users of heroin. It has fewer physiologi…

I didn't see Andy Farnell's "Digital Self-Defense" mentioned, but I think it's relevant here -- analogous to how one should be cognizant of personal safety when navigating a city (or even while crossing a busy intersection).

https://www.solent.ac.uk/blogs/media-technology-blogs/digita...

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#326

Post by mandmandam »

Jensson wrote: post #315
mandmandam wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm having a hard time understanding what your complaint is. That the word reliable was being used to describe the FT. 'Reliable' within a certain narrow context for the people trashing our potential (ie, the capital class)? Yes. 'Reliable' within a broader context, where we get to the root causes of our catastrophic inequality, our over extraction of resources, our environmental destruction, our war mongering lead…

> 'Reliable' within a broader context, where we get to the root causes of our catastrophic inequality, our over extraction of resources, our environmental destruction, our war mongering leaders, etc? Also yes; but in precisely the wrong way. They can be relied on to support whatever makes the yacht class more money in the next few quarters. They are financial news, if you want to read news or opinion articles about o…

> They are financial news, if you want to read news or opinion articles about other topics go read something else.

Financial news from a specific and narrow viewpoint. There are others.

This is the third time I've said it now. It would be nice to know where the confusion is coming from. Is it simply that many people can't imagine any alternate view of finance news, other than that sold by FT?

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#327

Post by collingreen »

plewd wrote: post #309
collingreen wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aphantasia is hard to explain, especially in a drive by comment. I'm not the person you're replying to but the answer, for me, depends on what you really mean by conjuring images. Very technically no, I see no images for this but I don't know if that is truly the whole point of what you're asking. I mostly understand what is happening but I also really struggle to get the angles right in my mind of someone swinging a…

Aphantasia is really annoying to explain to people, like trying to explain blindness to a person who's always seen. I can't "see" anything, but I'm able to reason about it and kinda trace what I imagine with my eyes. Interestingly enough, I have very lucid dreams and have realized that I am able to visualize (with color!) inside of them. I can't imagine being able to do that at will while awake, must be amazing.

I also can "see" in my dreams! Aphantasia is so fascinating to me because it helps me think about all these senses in much smaller units. I think the more we study and learn about aphantasia the better we will understand the brain in general. It is kind of like a natural experiment where you can remove one piece of the system and reason about the whole because of what changes.

For example, I had never considered that there would be different processes involved with imagining something visual vs recalling it but now that seems super obvious to me! I love when something tweaks my perspective and suddenly a new world of possibilities is revealed.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#328

Post by asdff »

bostonwalker wrote: post #218
asdff wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is an assumption being made of the pre tv “informed person” that either never really existed as such, or merely modernized into someone who might consume their internet content in the form of Atlantic articles over tick toks and pod casts. Most people have always been poorly informed and driven to emotional content over the plain facts. A tale as old as the first chieftain we chose to emotionally believ…

Naively, I would think the same. But in the first part of AOTD, Neil Postman argues pretty convincingly that America in the 18th and 19th centuries was the most literate, bookish society on Earth and in the later parts of the book that that heritage was lost with the invention of the telegraph, radio, and later TV. In other words, TV and the internet as technologies are not "neutral" in their effect on society, they…

They were still speaking of subset of americans. One should look up the literacy rates of poor white or black americans of the time to get a better understanding of where the headspace of the average person might have been. There is a reason why politicians had to campaign by actually visiting and orally presenting their positions.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#329

Post by Nevermark »

cess11 wrote: post #317
Nevermark wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hogwash. Dramatic exits after successful acquisitions are common. You have to earn “failures” like that. That created SpaceX’s seed capital. (You can’t have it both ways. If he had convinced the US to bankroll him, that would have been serious business acumen.) Minor success on hard problems, with a shoe string budget, and an attractive business plan (vertical integration, fast-failure iteration, reusability)…

Thiel put him aside before the IPO, which was before Ebay bought them. There's been a lot of reporting about how SpaceX is keeping Musk's influence at a minimum. If you go looking you'll also find video from interviews with Musk in that role where he isn't talking from a script and comes across as a clueless high schooler. Why are you taking hits for him? Does he somehow pay your bills?

> Why are you taking hits for him? Does he somehow pay your bills?

I don’t like one-sided trolls who are insecure that some other people are exceptional?

Is that really the kind of conversation we want to have?

—

More productively:

I don’t have an axe to grind either way, other than giving credit where it is due, and vice versa.

My original comment reflected both.

He has done some truly incredible work. He earned his success.

Lately, he is a mess with completely different priorities.

I imagine many employees in all his companies are happier when he is not around these days. And would be happy if he stopped posting opinions, given the downstream impact to their brands.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#330

Post by llm_trw »

mandmandam wrote: post #326
Jensson wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'Reliable' within a broader context, where we get to the root causes of our catastrophic inequality, our over extraction of resources, our environmental destruction, our war mongering leaders, etc? Also yes; but in precisely the wrong way. They can be relied on to support whatever makes the yacht class more money in the next few quarters. They are financial news, if you want to read news or opinion articles about o…

> They are financial news, if you want to read news or opinion articles about other topics go read something else. Financial news from a specific and narrow viewpoint . There are others. This is the third time I've said it now. It would be nice to know where the confusion is coming from. Is it simply that many people can't imagine any alternate view of finance news, other than that sold by FT?

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
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