41–50 of 98 posts
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Dissent isn't treason, even if you do it a lot.
He dissents, per Chris Hitchens, even when such dissent is "stupid and ignorant." So if Chomsky is too smart to be "stupid and ignorant," he must do so out of his need to be a bad American. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_wor...
I've been a big fan of Noam Chomsky for years. I had to implement a recursive descent parser for a project recently and stumbled onto this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy He laid out the classes of formal grammars clear back in 1956. Every time you use a regular expression, compile code or run a script, you're applying concepts that he helped pioneer. I almost couldn't believe it. I have a new apprec…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_grammar
A good 2500 years prior. Chomsky was in the right place, at the right time, to carry that work forward into computer science. Not to detract, but the point is key: Sanskrt was formally specified 2500 years ago in a way that is recognizably a CFG.
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It's actually pretty strange that even he limits the damage to the US only. Whereas it's clearly worldwide damage. EDIT: I suppose he phrased it this way so that we listen more closely (or listen at all).
Attack on American citizens is a way more powerful message than attack on German or some other "second class" citizenry :) But also, it is American elected officials who deployed the program on American taxpayers money. Therefore, American citizens, unknowing to themselves, have become a major investor into the greatest surveillance network in history, which spies back on them and the rest of the world. So Chomsky's…
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Good point, stay in the communist bubble. G-d forbid you read something critical that changes your mind. Much better to hide behind 'criticism is written by people who dislike him, so not worth reading' defense. Perhaps you should consider that they dislike him for a reason. What I can tell you is that the man is vile - read up on his excuses for Pol Pot, Stalin and the like.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/27/books/l-chomsky-and-the-kh... His further assertion that Noam Chomsky attributed the deaths of the Pol Pot era to ''nothing but'' a war-induced famine is an outright lie. Mr. Chomsky (and the present writer, who was co-author with Mr. Chomsky of his published works on Cambodia) went to great pains to stress that there was no doubt that the Khmer Rouge was committing serious crimes, a…
The point is rather is not that he is pro ONE particular horrible regime. Rather that he is quick to support ANY (or most) regimes that are anti-american, regardless of what it's actually like - such as Mao's China (in the middle of madness of Cultural Revolution), USSR, etc. The last article you quoted says exactly that - he is quick to support any 'underdog', regardless of if they are good or bad guys.
Chomsky is one of the greatest intellectuals of our time. The man has nothing to lose and nothing to gain by voicing his thoughts. Too bad he is getting up there in age but hopefully we will enjoy his presence for many more years.
"Chomsky is one of the greatest intellectuals of our time" This is undoubtedly true. He is one of the most cited authors of all time. It is unfortunate that the american media does not give him the attention he deserves. In fact, in Europe Noam Chomsky and his opinions are very highly regarded and his writings are taught in schools. I am Greek (living in the U.S for the last 5 years) and I was first introduced to Noa…
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Excellent! I always wanted to read a completely unbiased (and totally not cherry-picked and wasn't compiled by a fanatical detractor) resource on Chomsky's collected works. Clearly, this is it. Worth noting, Paul Bogdanor contributed to The Anti-Chomsky Reader : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anti-Chomsky_Reader While I'm educating myself, I really should tune to Rush Limbaugh to learn about contraception, feminism…
Excellent! I always wanted to read a completely unbiased (and totally not cherry-picked and wasn't compiled by a fanatical detractor) resource on Chomsky's collected works. Clearly, this is it. Well, clearly you will also want to read the criticisms leveled against the hokey "logic" and arguments employed by Bogdanor himself. It is difficult to take Bogdanor seriously as a contribution to the body of knowledge on the…
I would expect Chomsky supporters with an iota of critical thinking to be able to read them and see for themselves how reliable they are (and not just jump to wikipedia to check who assembled them).
(This has nothing to do with Snowden but Chomsky's main point.) One thing I found troubling about all this is you can't expect the victims in other countries to decouple the intentions of the American gov't from American citizens. Except (even more troubling) is that citizens seem to support drone warfare ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/10/m... ).
I remember even once, I was eating in a restaurant in front of my home (literally, it was across the street), and 3 US citizens were talking in english in a nearby table... Their conversation was one of the most horrible things I heard in a while, they were advocating get rid of immigrants, because all immigrants were filthy evil people and deserve to die, and that brazillians were scum, and whatnot (and they were saying that in Brazil).
I almost hit one of them in the head, but then I realized they were 3, and I was one, so I decided to just finish my food and leave as quickly as possible.
Other encounters with typical US citizens were not much better, reading comments on mainstream newspaper do not make me believe better either.
And I cannot count how much times I got into arguments about our US supported dictatorship during the cold war, with US people that believe that I should have thanked the US government for "saving" us.
And then, saving from what? And the reply is whatever fake threat of the time (communists, terrorists, muslims, whatever). This get me so much on my nerves that I even started to join random communication channels with US people (like, game chats, site chats, social networks) and provoke them into political arguments, just to check, and yes, many DO believe the US came here to "save" us, it is like if US citizens have some sorta of weird hero complex where they believe that the foreign policy of the US is save everyone. This is something that I never understood properly, how the hell a population can believe such bullshit.
Beside other bizarre views (for example frequently I see comments defending that US should just turn North Korea and Iran into glass... Usually when reading reuters.com)
(This has nothing to do with Snowden but Chomsky's main point.) One thing I found troubling about all this is you can't expect the victims in other countries to decouple the intentions of the American gov't from American citizens. Except (even more troubling) is that citizens seem to support drone warfare ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/10/m... ).
Frankly, excepting a few circles (like, Hackers) most US citizens I've met support US government positions, even the most stupid ones, maybe out of ignorance... But they do. I remember even once, I was eating in a restaurant in front of my home (literally, it was across the street), and 3 US citizens were talking in english in a nearby table... Their conversation was one of the most horrible things I heard in a while…
Stop posting Chomsky stuff to HN. He is not an intellectual. He either cannot, or refuses to see both sides of the coin--either in his political writings or academic writings (e.g. there profound and valid empirical cracks in his universal grammar model that he's failed to acknowledge). Down with Chomsky. Down vote me, I don't really care. I'd surely trade all my HN Karma for a reduction in Chomsky related posts to H…
Unsurprisingly, non-Americans take exception to American exceptionalism. America is literally pulling a, "We're better than you so we can violate any of your laws - including our own - and then murder, torture & kidnap. We are sovereign over the entire world." Few non-Americans think that's a swell idea, so it will only last as long as American power lasts. If you agree with Chomsky or not or if you think American po…