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The death of a public intellectual

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Re: The death of a public intellectual

#111

Post by farias0 »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #98
michpoch wrote: post #77

> The story goes something like this, I get recommended a clip on YouTube, there’s a man who is calm, articulate, and says something that completely violates the narrative. How fascinating. Is my understanding of the world completely wrong?! I need to read everything this man written. I think author understanding of the world is not wrong, but his approach - definitely. He expects to find some "wise man" who would ha…

Is it obviously a wrong approach? You see someone make sense of a complex topic, be able to cut through bullshit and appearances, you can use that as a "character witness". Maybe that person has solid thought processes and may get other complex issues right too. There are a few people who I see to be often proven right. Clearly there is a middle ground, we should not blindly follow some authority, but some skills gen…

It is an obviously wrong approach. There are plenty of intelligent people out there, this doesn't keep them from being occasionally wrong. If you have access to the opinion of people who devoted their whole lives to the field in question, why would you seek it from an influencer that perhaps gained fame from being an authority in a couple of non-related fields?

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#112

Post by WJW »

petesergeant wrote: post #81
itsnotabtmoney wrote: post #62

This post treats the constant stream of "new public intellectuals" as some kind of organic, natural phenomenon. It's not, these people reach the top of your YouTube feed because someone wants them there. There's nothing organic about Eric Weinstein or Lex Fridman. People on this site are quick to call something "enshittification" when there are some obvious cash-grabs by megacorps, but are reluctant to admit that the…

> these people reach the top of your YouTube feed because someone wants them there Who wanted Lex Fridman there, and how did they achieve getting him there? (I've only a passing knowledge of who that is, and haven't heard of Eric Weinstein at all)

Probaly Lex Fridman himself, and then he paid a lot of marketing specialists to get that done.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#113

Post by michpoch »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #99
michpoch wrote: post #77

> The story goes something like this, I get recommended a clip on YouTube, there’s a man who is calm, articulate, and says something that completely violates the narrative. How fascinating. Is my understanding of the world completely wrong?! I need to read everything this man written. I think author understanding of the world is not wrong, but his approach - definitely. He expects to find some "wise man" who would ha…

It's the behaviour I notice rather than the stated motives; > But dear reader see this pattern for what it is... every 6 months I find someone new to obsess over... Without fail, each one of comes to disappoint. Serial obsessive fixation seems a problem right there in itself. There's a deep need that isn't being satisfied. What is it? > says something that completely violates the narrative. How fascinating. A rebel!…

> Serial obsessive fixation seems a problem right there in itself. There's a deep need that isn't being satisfied. What is it?

I do feel that the author has some interesting personality trait - but I'm not sure if he's in the minority.

After writing my comment I have realised that maybe it's why I never understood the appeal of Twitter. I have never had any "gurus" or "authorities" that I'd universally respect. I could never understand why would I follow some individual on twitter - why would I care? When I read that the author says he follows that "person" so deeply, watching their videos for hours, I completely can not relate. Neither on logical nor emotional level.

I might dig into a topic, let's say, siege of Berlin during II WW, but I'd be focusing on the topic and the source / author will be completely irrelevant. I'll even probably select various ones, as I enjoy challenging my own perspective.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#114

Post by layer8 »

I have a similar effect with TV series, getting excited at a new premise at first, but then often losing interest midways once the pattern-matching kicks in and I get a grasp on what their shtick is. The magic is usually only in the beginnings.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#115

Post by [deleted] »

m0llusk wrote: post #75

What is most off here is the analysis. The idea is that either someone is totally right about everything they assert because of extreme caution and care, or they are terribly wrong and flawed in a way that makes all of their ideas poison. But most intellectuals are in between there in a way this piece almost describes. Take this specific example of Peter Zeihan. He dares to get out of his areas of expertise and gets…

[deleted]

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#116

Post by gnz11 »

hnreport wrote: post #85
michpoch wrote: post #77

> The story goes something like this, I get recommended a clip on YouTube, there’s a man who is calm, articulate, and says something that completely violates the narrative. How fascinating. Is my understanding of the world completely wrong?! I need to read everything this man written. I think author understanding of the world is not wrong, but his approach - definitely. He expects to find some "wise man" who would ha…

why would you even watch this peron videos analysing Ukraine war? So I do this, a lot. Rogan is a good example I struggle with. I regularly go I wonder what Joe Rogan thinks about this , on subjects I know he doesn’t know shit about or is just plain wrong about. It isn’t relegated to just Rogan. Musk was another awful one when you first get into him. This has to be a form of non-sexual attraction I think. I’m not gay…

Maybe an "appeal to authority" type situation which is guiding an anxious brain? e.g. Rogan has a massive following, therefore you wonder: "why does this person have such a massive following? It must be because they have important things to say. I had better listen too."

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#117

Post by michpoch »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #98
michpoch wrote: post #77

> The story goes something like this, I get recommended a clip on YouTube, there’s a man who is calm, articulate, and says something that completely violates the narrative. How fascinating. Is my understanding of the world completely wrong?! I need to read everything this man written. I think author understanding of the world is not wrong, but his approach - definitely. He expects to find some "wise man" who would ha…

Is it obviously a wrong approach? You see someone make sense of a complex topic, be able to cut through bullshit and appearances, you can use that as a "character witness". Maybe that person has solid thought processes and may get other complex issues right too. There are a few people who I see to be often proven right. Clearly there is a middle ground, we should not blindly follow some authority, but some skills gen…

> You see someone make sense of a complex topic, be able to cut through bullshit and appearances, you can use that as a "character witness". Maybe that person has solid thought processes and may get other complex issues right too. There are a few people who I see to be often proven right.

But do they really cut through bullshit and appearances? The individuals that the author has mentioned are mostly oversimplifying the world.

> Maybe that person has solid thought processes and may get other complex issues right too.

That's the issue here - treating real world issues as a though experiment. It creates solutions that are very appealing to people who perceive themselves as thinkers. The ideas are usually simple, round, fair, based on some fairness coming from nature or math, but they completely discard the complexity of the problem. As soon as you start adding corner cases it solution fails.

You can see that as well in software engineering - if only we could simplify the problem we're trying to solve, the solution would be so clean!

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#118

Post by lynx23 »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #99
michpoch wrote: post #77

> The story goes something like this, I get recommended a clip on YouTube, there’s a man who is calm, articulate, and says something that completely violates the narrative. How fascinating. Is my understanding of the world completely wrong?! I need to read everything this man written. I think author understanding of the world is not wrong, but his approach - definitely. He expects to find some "wise man" who would ha…

It's the behaviour I notice rather than the stated motives; > But dear reader see this pattern for what it is... every 6 months I find someone new to obsess over... Without fail, each one of comes to disappoint. Serial obsessive fixation seems a problem right there in itself. There's a deep need that isn't being satisfied. What is it? > says something that completely violates the narrative. How fascinating. A rebel!…

What I have learnt is that the majority of people are not interesting enough to keep quiet just to be "allowed" to be around them. The number of people I respect and am interested in listening to their opinion goes down from year to year, with experience. Most people are jerks that deserve to stay in their bubble with their "friends".

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#119

Post by michpoch »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #100
michpoch wrote: post #77

> The story goes something like this, I get recommended a clip on YouTube, there’s a man who is calm, articulate, and says something that completely violates the narrative. How fascinating. Is my understanding of the world completely wrong?! I need to read everything this man written. I think author understanding of the world is not wrong, but his approach - definitely. He expects to find some "wise man" who would ha…

If you are trying to be a well-rounded person with well-founded opinions on different topics, it makes sense to believe that there are others like you who are further along the way. Both of your examples have a very strong technical component, either understanding the underlying biology/epidemiology or understanding war theory and practice. It is indeed unlikely that someone is an expert in both. But many important t…

> If you are trying to be a well-rounded person with well-founded opinions on different topics, it makes sense to believe that there are others like you who are further along the way.

Maybe that's the issue with me. The more I learn, over years, the more cautious I become about forming an opinion. It's very rare that things are black or white, I can see it being all very grey. So if I see someone describing, with full confidence, that this is good and that is bad, without all that load of middle-tones, it just makes me feel that they either are not too smart or do not have good intentions.

> You can come to very different conclusions based on how your worldview is constructed, and I think the sign of a true intellectual is that they can coherently describe theirs, and make other intellectuals understand it, even if they are diametrically opposed to it.

I can see the appeal here. What I do not understand is, why would you approach that person as an authority?

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#120

Post by pjc50 »

michpoch wrote: post #113
nonrandomstring wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the behaviour I notice rather than the stated motives; > But dear reader see this pattern for what it is... every 6 months I find someone new to obsess over... Without fail, each one of comes to disappoint. Serial obsessive fixation seems a problem right there in itself. There's a deep need that isn't being satisfied. What is it? > says something that completely violates the narrative. How fascinating. A rebel!…

> Serial obsessive fixation seems a problem right there in itself. There's a deep need that isn't being satisfied. What is it? I do feel that the author has some interesting personality trait - but I'm not sure if he's in the minority. After writing my comment I have realised that maybe it's why I never understood the appeal of Twitter. I have never had any "gurus" or "authorities" that I'd universally respect. I cou…

Old Twitter was much better for offering you a plethora of perspectives, especially of random individuals "on the ground", in whatever sense, who were not professional talking heads. That time is long gone.
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