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The death of a public intellectual

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Re: The death of a public intellectual

#141

Post by mypastself »

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…

While I don’t use social media, nor am I prone to personality obsession like the author, there’s definitely something to be said about following an “authority” on Twitter and the like. Whether they’re an artist whose work you enjoy, a top expert in a field you’re interested in, or simply a person whose writing on some topic you appreciate, surely there’s an individual whose insight you’d find valuable enough to “follow”?

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#142

Post by lionkor »

Why does this fucking article keep lagging my entire browser and keeps reloading? I have a constant loading bar. Just let me read the damn text.

Of course reader mode is broken.

Decide what you want to do: Do you want to publish content, or visual art? Don't try doing both when you're not great at either.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#143

Post by DavidPiper »

simongray wrote: post #110

Zeihan's synthesis view of geopolitics is pretty interesting, but he does display glaring faults when he ventures beyond that niche, e.g. when he tries to summarise the economic systems of the world in his most recent book he says all of Europe is socialist, which is what I would consider a very basic American layman's take on economics, not really fitting for any kind of public intellectual in the social sciences. I…

This was my take on Zeihan too. He's one of the few I've approached in the way the OP is talking about (minus the worship part). I bought and read one of his books.

I completely agree with your take: his demographics work was a new model of thought for me, and interesting to think about and apply. A lot of his extrapolation felt really off, though.

For Zeihan in particular I went a bit deeper in trying to figure out why a lot of his analysis didn't sit well with me. Part of it was the America-centricity - the superficial non-interest for Europe and other continents. The second part, though, was that I don't think he really considers that the people making these systems work also suffer if the systems collapse. At a societal level, we are motivated to keep our global systems maintained because they sustain our ways of life - not because somebody signed an agreement. The signing was just a means of getting it started.

Anyway, end rant, but I guess his ideas feel too far down the isolationist line. My analysis of which probably proves the OP's worshipping point. It's designed to pull you in.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#145

Post by justanotherjoe »

Almondsetat wrote: post #139
justanotherjoe wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point though. He didn't need to say it again cause he wouldnt add anything to it.

You are again making a mistake. Jesus didn’t have to add much because it was implicit that everything written in the OT was the truth . Unfortunately if you don’t believe in Christianity there is no book or philosopher that has told the whole “truth” about the universe, so any new kid on the block might indeed have many things to say

My statement was about information content. It was really never about Jesus at all. My point is that it's really rare to have so many interesting or new things to say, and anyone who says interesting and novel things all the time for a long time(not jesus) would either have to be redundant, bs-ing, or trying to say things beyond their ken.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#146

Post by its-summertime »

Almondsetat wrote: post #133
justanotherjoe wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

im explaining it poorly. What i mean is that the principle is "if jesus didn't have that much to say,who is this guy that he talks for thousands of hours?"

Yours is a bad example. Jesus said that the old law was still valid, which means that in fact you have to study the entire OT to get the full message. He just left it to the reader as an exercise

Deferring to others seems fine, no? Going on a weekly podcast to recite the entire OT over and over is what influencers-that-are-not-jesus are doing.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#147

Post by kibwen »

mypastself wrote: post #141
michpoch wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

While I don’t use social media, nor am I prone to personality obsession like the author, there’s definitely something to be said about following an “authority” on Twitter and the like. Whether they’re an artist whose work you enjoy, a top expert in a field you’re interested in, or simply a person whose writing on some topic you appreciate, surely there’s an individual whose insight you’d find valuable enough to “foll…

> surely there’s an individual whose insight you’d find valuable enough to “follow”?

Not me. What I would like to follow is a topic that interests me, with discourse predominantly populated by subject matter experts. "User-based" follow systems like Twitter only make sense insamuch as the user sticks to their expertise, and as soon as they start veering away into new topics their comments are just as likely to be noise as the average schmuck, and I don't know why I would want to waste my time deliberately consuming noise.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#149

Post by naveen99 »

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…

Violating the narrative is irrelevant. But if someone writes something interesting, logical, that I didn’t already know, I usually look for more, whether it’s hn comments , github projects, youtube videos, arxiv papers etc. once I see something particularly dumb or illogical from them, I stop. Especially if I found some other rabbit hole to follow.
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