Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life • Hacker News Board

Re: Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

#141

Post by zecho » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 6:52 AM UTC

javert wrote: post #138

kinleyd wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't count how many times I've looked up Chomsky's views over the years, and every single time I've looked them up, it's become immediately clear that he is completely dishonest. It would be interesting if you gave us a few examples of where you looked up his views, and found him to be completely dishonest.

He contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one's self to an owner or "wage slavery". (from Wikipedia) There is just one example, taken relatively randomly. "Wage slavery" is a completely invalid concept. If I want to work, and somebody wants to pay me a wage, that is moral and proper and free . It's called trade. Someone who holds a gun to my head to force me not to engage f…

I downvoted you because you took that sentence from Wikipedia completely out of context, not just out of context with regard to its surrounding paragraph on Wikipedia, but also because its out of context with regard to the citation at Wikipedia and what Chomsky has to say about worker ownership.

Re: Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

#142

Post by jdunck » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 6:52 AM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #103

DigitalJack wrote: post #37

I found the following review of the book interesting. I always like to read the "negative" reviews of something because I find it easier to make a decision whether to read something or buy something (books, software, food, etc...) based on whether I can identify with the negative comments or not. If someone has recommended something to me, and the negative comments are inconsequential to me (or absurd, etc...), I'm m…

People who disagree with Chomsky usually characterize his views as this review does, as blind, wholesale demonization of the United States . Chomsky's views are in fact the ultimate form of patriotism. he expects more of our nation and isn't sentimentally attached to the kind of hero and "good guy" stories that so many people need in order to be able to sleep at night. Anyone who truly cares about America will read a…

Manufacturing Consent is unavailable for streaming via Netflix. It is available via DVD.

It is also available on Amazon Instant Video: http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Noam-Chomsky-Med...

Re: Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

#143

Post by kinleyd » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 6:54 AM UTC

javert wrote: post #138

kinleyd wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't count how many times I've looked up Chomsky's views over the years, and every single time I've looked them up, it's become immediately clear that he is completely dishonest. It would be interesting if you gave us a few examples of where you looked up his views, and found him to be completely dishonest.

He contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one's self to an owner or "wage slavery". (from Wikipedia) There is just one example, taken relatively randomly. "Wage slavery" is a completely invalid concept. If I want to work, and somebody wants to pay me a wage, that is moral and proper and free . It's called trade. Someone who holds a gun to my head to force me not to engage f…

From the Wikipedia article that you mention: The term wage slavery has been used to criticize economic exploitation and social stratification, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital (particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, e.g. in sweatshops), and the latter as a lack of workers' self-management, fulfilling job choices and leisure in an economy. [1]

I think the article itself is quite clear. The notion of wage slavery does not imply everyone who accepts wages is a slave. Taken without the qualification of bargaining power and such, Chomsky would be MIT's slave. I don't think he subscribes to that view.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

Re: Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

#144

Post by Confusion » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 8:13 AM UTC

javert wrote: post #53

DigitalJack wrote: post #37

I found the following review of the book interesting. I always like to read the "negative" reviews of something because I find it easier to make a decision whether to read something or buy something (books, software, food, etc...) based on whether I can identify with the negative comments or not. If someone has recommended something to me, and the negative comments are inconsequential to me (or absurd, etc...), I'm m…

I pretty much agree with this analysis, minus the dig against atheism. I haven't read Chomsky in detail, but this seems to be an accurate description of what he claims on the surface (e.g. in public interviews). It seems likely that hatemongerers like Chomsky were an influence in leading to Aaron Schwarz's eventual suicide. I apologize for the insensitivity towards Aaron here, but it seems worth saying.

You missed an essential point in the introduction of the review. Chomsky is not a hatemongerer: he is honest, hard-working and idealistic. It's just that the worldview underlying his arguments, the worldview that guides how he chooses subjects and supporting arguments, may be unbalanced and consequently 'wrong' in the eyes of many others.

Re: Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

#145

Post by rosser » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 8:16 AM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #127

neilk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you judge Chomsky by his fans, it is easy to dismiss him as a conspiracy theorist. That's not what he's doing. He's presenting another view of the world where, even in a free and democratic society, the media has institutional, structural weaknesses that cause it to serve power. To amplify certain messages, and attenuate others. It's an attempt to explain how a free society could have committed such atrocities as…

Per Chomsky, suckered into both Gulf Wars and Afghanistan. It would help Chomsky's case a lot if he identified a post-WW2 "good war". Does he think intervening in Korea was a good idea?

It would help Chomsky's case a lot if he identified a post-WW2 "good war".

It would help him identifying a "good war" if there were one.

EDIT: I'm not saying there's no such thing as a "good war", though I probably have a vastly higher bar for what might qualify for that than most. Instead, I'm saying that the "wars" the US has engaged in post-WWII have largely been motivated by cynical self-interest, and often at the expense of everyone involved, including — perhaps even especially — itself.

Re: Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

#146

Post by Confusion » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 8:27 AM UTC

klochner wrote: post #14

Jun8 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your glasses analogy is interesting but I think is misleading, in that it assumes there's a correct way to view things. This approach is one of the major problems I have with Chomsky and other writers like him, i.e. "you have been duped by the (mostly US) media, the military-industrial complex, by the secret powers that may be; here is the real truth about matters". Rather than being presented as the truth, these opi…

Chomsky is extremely methodical in citing references and providing evidence to back up his narratives. Any over correction is on the part of the reader, not the writer.

You can always support any position with ample evidence. The problem is balance. Chomsky doesn't cite the evidence that does not support him, even though there is always plenty of such evidence. This is considered normal, but it means you always only get part of the story, need to get the other parts elsewhere and then make up your mind. It's daunting.

Re: Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

#147

Post by jules » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 9:40 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #132

jules wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norvig (Director of Research at Google, and author of the most popular AI book [1]) has written a criticism of Chomsky's linguistics in relation to AI: http://norvig.com/chomsky.html tl;dr: Norvig argues that language is best modeled statistically, Chomsky's model is deterministic. He also disagrees about what makes good science (usefulness for engineering is a valid criterium & gathering facts over developing theori…

Norvig has written criticism about specific ideas that Chomsky uttered in some convention (which are also reflected in some of his written works on natural languages and their computational models). But Chomsky's contribution to linguistics in general and computational linguistics in particular goes well beyond anything like that, e.g. [1]. I'm not sure, but I suspect that linguistics and computational linguistics wh…

You are minimizing the criticism, which isn't just about some utterance at a convention, it's about the core premise on which Chomsky's entire work rests, namely determinism. And more generally, that success of a model should be tested empirically rather than that it should "provide insight" in some abstract way. There is no doubt that Chomsky has done great work in the area of formal languages, it's just that the relationship with natural language is not as strong as initially hoped.

Re: Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

#148

Post by bromang » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 9:46 AM UTC

Volpe wrote: post #119

cynicalkane wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read some amount of Chomsky and do not find these to be strawman arguments. An "us vs them" attitude pervades his writing. One common pattern is overweening assumption backed by laser-guided cherry picking of examples. You can see the above pattern all throughout this thread, in fact. Broad assumptions that seem true enough at first, but are overwhelmingly applied in a toxic way. Meanwhile people are sick of t…

Chomsky does round up a lot of criticisms and put them in one place. I'm not sure what 'ideology' you are referring to, unless you view 'reason' as an 'ideology'. But perhaps I am missing some over arching agenda Chomsky has... ? They ARE strawmen arguments because they present partially related items as reasons for chomsky being wrong. If Chomsky is cherry picking, then the way to respond is to bring ALL the informa…

"unless you view 'reason' as an 'ideology'."

hah. talk about an inability to self-examine...

Re: Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

#149

Post by bromang » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 9:57 AM UTC

obstacle1 wrote: post #112

jonny_eh wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the amount, it's the fact that it's wide-spread (i.e. horizontal) but when you examine deeply any one piece you find it to be quite weak, i.e. shallow. It's a similar technique used by conspiracy theorists and Creationists.

The author is quite explicitly saying that the problem is the volume and variety of information. There is no mention of the 'shallowness' of any one particular reference. The author justifies this by saying no reader can reasonably be expected to be "familiar with" the references Chomsky uses. So what? The references are all there and available for the reader to look up. Once looked up, the reader is familiar with it…

I think it is quite obviously implied that Chomsky's understanding of all his examples is quite shallow and that they are being used mainly to add weight to a predetermined world view. falkenstein's point is that it is almost impossible to understand such a variety of examples in real depth and it is also unlikely that Chomsky himself is using them all correctly. To dismiss this criticism as simply an acceptance of "lazy reading" seems a little naive.

Re: Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

#150

Post by david927 » Wed, Jan 16, 2013, 10:07 AM UTC

Zimahl wrote: post #48

I remember vividly clutching at the door to my room, trying to hold on to something while the world spun around. Maybe I'm a bit too simple or pragmatic but I sincerely hope that this was simply hyperbole. If not, I think we might have an early glimpse into a special, yet troubled, mind. From a lot of things I've read about Mr. Swartz since his suicide, it doesn't seem like he was all that mentally stable.

Are you really stating that his feeling physically dizzy at comprehending something that changed his world view is a "glimpse into troubled mind"? Seriously?

Please, for all that is holy, unless you have a background in mental health, please avoid making armchair diagnoses. (Those that have that background are loathe to jump to conclusions, for example.) It's neither your place, nor your field. Don't do it.