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Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

independent.co.uk

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Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#111

Post by drekembe »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #103
azinman2 wrote: post #9

Sad to lose such an intellectual juggernaut’s voice. The world needs more Chomsky’s of all persuasions, and a culture that will elevate them.

[flagged]

His view regarding the Bosnian genocide is really strange imo. I would correct you that the people perpetrating it weren't really communists, but serbian nationalists.

However, his "USA bad" take is correct because it's true. Being anti-US, anti-NATO, anti-imperialism is the only moral view to have when you look at the history and current politics of the US.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#112

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

codeflo wrote: post #74
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #46

Speaking of non-political side of him: was not he wrong about "innate grammar" necessary to understand langage? LLM do not have such circuitry, yet they somehow work well...

Compared to an LLM, how many hundreds of gigabytes of text do humans need to acquire a language? And isn’t that disparity already proof that some sort of innate structure must be going on?

Or that llm learning algos should be further improved, which will happen at some point. I remember Kasparov's tirades to the tune of I have an eternal soul therefore computers can never beat me in chess.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#113

Post by andrepd »

raverbashing wrote: post #88
defrost wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context: Chomsky had long publicly criticized Nazism, and totalitarianism more generally, but his commitment to freedom of speech led him to defend the right of French historian Robert Faurisson to advocate a position widely characterized as Holocaust denial. Without Chomsky's knowledge, his plea for Faurisson's freedom of speech was published as the preface to the latter's 1980 book Mémoire en défense contre ceux qu…

This is a good reminder why everything should have boundaries, and everything should have a "surrounding frame" In theory this sounds like "intellectual courage", in practice it's just apology and bootlicking Camps and war and tanks were all too real. But of course you can waste time and space in your cushy western university seat

And how do you know they are real? Because historians have been free to dig around and publish arguments and rebuttals and evidence. Not because anyone by decree or force declared it to be so.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#114

Post by roenxi »

hughesjj wrote: post #51
turndown wrote: post #29

Intellectual giant whose shadow will be cast deep into the future. I don't need to review any of his work wrt to CS or linguistics to tell you that his legacy will be massive. I think Manufacturing Consent should go down as one of the most important books ever written in our culture. He was right about much, but wrong about much also. His beliefs on Cambodia strain credulity and I still have trouble separating that C…

His thoughts on Serbia/Kosovo, Russia/Ukraine, likely Russia/ Georgia etc have all been problematic too. Chomsky was illuminating in my personal character development. I grew up in a pretty conservative area, and his name carried a lot of hate like Hillary/Clinton did, but i didn't know why. Later, I saw some of his writings on American interventionism, and I found myself nodding my head in agreement over the mistake…

> I don't know why chomsky's beliefs and supported causes are so inconsistent with the morals he pushes

The obvious resolution to that paradox is either you don't understand Chomsky's morals or have mistaken what his beliefs are.

Judging by some random interview from 2022 [0] it looks like he has a position on Russia/Ukraine that is easy to defend. He describes it as a "principled, internationalist, anti-imperialist left response" and that seems like a fair assessment from what I'm reading. Looks like pretty standard fare for anyone who doesn't like war and propaganda.

[0] https://chomsky.info/20220408/

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#116

Post by Jean-Papoulos »

Here's your monthly reminder that despite the large place he occupies in the "sciency" cultural landscape, a lot of his work has been debunked and he has not gone back on his genocide-denying claims about Serbia.

His anti US imperialism views blind him.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#117

Post by vasco »

ein0p wrote: post #66
caycep wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did actually see him talk at a rally in Boston Common, around '04 or so. While his written stuff may well be better, what struck me was the gist was basically self promotion about how he know "secret" things from "secret" sources, but never really bothered to elaborate, only that the "US Govt is lying to you". Well yes but...I would say if one had such information, it is not well served by presenting oneself as a c…

Yes, US Govt is routinely lying to you. That is not controversial at all at this point. Read the book. It’s a difficult read though. Might ruffle some patriotic feathers. Think of how difficult it is today to get even remotely truthful news. And then think about how this horseshit will be written up by government funded historians once all the political scores are settled and winners are determined

I mean if you want another perspective you can simple Wikipedia "American Empire". It'll be simple enough for another view of current state of affairs without going into politically motivated alternative history, either from communists or from milton friedman fans.

It annoys me to no end that both right wingers and left wingers like so much to tell history how it's convenient to them and always hard to get something unbiased. Even numbers of deaths can't be trusted before you check who you are reading.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#118

Post by lz400 »

Chomsky was doing so many podcasts up to the moment he disappeared from the radar presumably due to medical issues. I've seen him going for 2 hours with some nobody with 5K followers, being asked juvenile and stupid questions and answering with the patient of a Saint. He looked quite diminished physically, elderly and frail but mentally he's always sharp and his recall and memory is scary.

I feel that in his later years he made a conscious effort to talk to young people and made them aware of the history and depth of the problems the world is facing, and he used very modern avenues to do so, like podcast interviews. I will always have the highest degree of respect for this man and an admiration for his integrity, sensitivity and scholarship.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#119

Post by ngcazz »

vasco wrote: post #108
SequoiaHope wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same! I emailed him asking for his thoughts on robotics and anarcho-communism and he replied pretty promptly. He said it was an important subject and that he was moving offices (this was his move to Arizona), but I could ask again another time. I never quite had the time to prepare for what I would have asked for, some kind of discussion I could record, which he was doing a lot at the time, but I was very happy just…

What makes you believe this would work? Specifically any form of anarchism? Have you seen groups of people operate for large periods of time successfully like this? Anything I've looked into shows me human nature would make any anarcho-anything system fail due to infighting.

What makes you believe anything would work? Things take people wanting them.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#120

Post by pcthrowaway »

sitkack wrote: post #71

I love Noam Chomsky so much. To me he is epitome of what a rational caring intellectual should be. Number one, he strives for the truth and while can have intellectual blind spots, isn't afraid of calling them out. We had him has a guest speaker for an internal presentation at Google and of course we had some hyper-rational libertarian eastern block swe kid who was going to take him down and Noam was super respectful…

> We had him has a guest speaker for an internal presentation at Google

Would have loved to be a fly on the wall had he been able to do a guest spot at Google recently.

I'm willing to bet he would've gone off-script and given Google hell for their engagements with Israel and treatment of their own employees who protested.

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