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The death of a public intellectual

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Re: The death of a public intellectual

#121

Post by formerly_proven »

farias0 wrote: post #111
throw_pm23 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In the last couple years there was more than ample opportunity to see how badly this approach fails, you have droves of these "public intellectuals" as TFA calls them for every crisis (COVID, energy crisis, russian wars, gaza etc.) and almost all of them are just Average Joes dishing out their BBQ-level hot takes in public. Remember all the math and physics PhDs in 2020 suddenly being genius experts on disease modelling? The same people who suddenly became experts on warfare some time in early 2022? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#122

Post by petesergeant »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #97
DontchaKnowit wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think Eric and Lex are not organic? Certainly both are well connected, but do you really think someone at youtube tapped them to be famous? Idk where the line between organic and inorganic is, but I highly doubt youtube sat down in a meeti g with Lex and said "youve been chosen, were gonna blow your channel up"

Why not? Sans the actual sitting down with the person, that seems entirely unnecessary. We know the reverse is definitely true, people actually do get deplatformed, so why is it unreasonable to think at least some winners have been picked ?

> Why not?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#123

Post by TeMPOraL »

kaashif wrote: post #95
hnreport wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Somewhat weird comment...I thought it was obvious, I and others are occasionally interested in what e.g. Joe Rogan has to say because it's entertaining. I didn't think this was in any way confusing or surprising, and never thought this had anything to do with love. Isn't this the position of most people?

> never thought this had anything to do with love

Plenty of couples started with "oh he's so cute and funny" / "I love listening to her jokes", and few years later found themselves retelling those stories to a wide audience, at their wedding.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#124

Post by theclansman »

andrewflnr wrote: post #46
RagnarD wrote: post #41

"You’re basis for truth often relies on authority of your source." No. This is such a common logical error that it has an old name: Argumentum ad Verecundiam (often shortened to Verecundiam, or Appeal to Authority in English.) Saying "I know this because authority X said so" - you don't know it at all. It has the epistemological status of outright faith. What counts is the connection of statements to reality and thei…

When you can personally verify all the facts about biology, physics, and distant places that you rely on to make decisions every day, then you can throw stones about arguments from authority. The rest of us use a little bit of faith.

People compare the laws of physics to unproven sociological hypothesis way too much. Yes I'm using the word law to exaggerate my point.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#125

Post by Joker_vD »

michpoch wrote: post #119
bakuninsbart wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fu…

> It's very rare that things are black or white, I can see it being all very grey

Yes, it's much easier to paint the whole world one color than trying to paint it in two colors: you'd have to make distinctions and that's quite hard. But on the other hand, if two colors are not enough to paint the whole world, surely one color is even less enough?

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#126

Post by itsnotabtmoney »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #84
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…

What makes you think Eric and Lex are not organic? Certainly both are well connected, but do you really think someone at youtube tapped them to be famous? Idk where the line between organic and inorganic is, but I highly doubt youtube sat down in a meeti g with Lex and said "youve been chosen, were gonna blow your channel up"

We know that Youtube can put their fingers on the scales of their algorithm, and that they do. It's probably a single variable like `multiplier` in their hotness formula that is a default of 1.00. Lex Fridman gets insane reach beyond the quality or popularity of his content.

But it's not about a single person. It's that these midwit pseudointellectuals (Peterson, Weinstein) can constantly get churned through the top of the algorithm. People like the guy who wrote this initial post, in turn, think that there are no political discussions going on deeper than dumbed down, often misused regurgitated political philosophy from much smarter thinkers of the past.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#127

Post by nonrandomstring »

lynx23 wrote: post #118
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!…

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".

In a neighbouring thread we're talking about "conviviality" (Ivan Illich's "Tools for..."

It's an odd word.

What I found is that almost every random bore at the pub has a wealth of interesting stuff to say. You just have to tease it out. You have to work at conversations. It's a bit of a lost art imho.

The first step is always to get the topic off the mainstream (stop exchanging platitudes) by showing an interest in some marginal personal remark. Doesn't work for everyone of course. And some people just don't want to.

Living in Finland I learned the art of just being quiet around others and that "interesting company" can be hanging out without words, say just appreciating a walk together.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#128

Post by aeonik »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #61
RagnarD wrote: post #41

"You’re basis for truth often relies on authority of your source." No. This is such a common logical error that it has an old name: Argumentum ad Verecundiam (often shortened to Verecundiam, or Appeal to Authority in English.) Saying "I know this because authority X said so" - you don't know it at all. It has the epistemological status of outright faith. What counts is the connection of statements to reality and thei…

Everything boils down to faith eventually, though. Even trusting the evidence of your senses is a kind of faith. So the logical error isn't an epistemological error in all cases - you can see it as someone trying to minimize some distance metric they are operating on between Reality As It Is and Reality As I Know It by making a single hop to someone who, it is believed, has already done a lot of work investigating th…

This was the conclusion of René Descartes and the meaning behind "I think, therefore I am". It was the only safe conclusion he could come to after a deep series of introspection.

Once he got there, he systematically built up a new framework of thought and reasoning, and we got modern science and philosophy from it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito%2C_ergo_sum?wprov=sfla1

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#130

Post by justanotherjoe »

Im no longer catholic, but i use Jesus as a comparison to thrse figures. It's what i call the jesus principle: "Would jesus have this many things to say?"

Jesus was 'the son of god' and yet he didn't have that much to say when it comes down to it. Really. When you compile all the things he said, without duplication, it would probably fit in a one hour podcast.

Now, take joe rogan's guest. Let's say Alex Honnold. He lives a really interesting life and one hour into the podcast he would be struggling for things to say.

Should you listen to these public intellectuals you mentioned? sure. But after one hour or so, thats really enough to get an abstraction.

Because when it comes down to it : There's really not much to say.

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