Earnestness • Hacker News Board

Re: Earnestness

#211

Post by crispyambulance » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

iWorshipFAANGS wrote: post #192

If you click on the hyperlink Paul Graham hyperlinks as "academic bogus," you'll find a google scholar search for "hermeneutic dialectic hegemonic whiteness." First of all, I don't think Paul Graham read those 5000 article returned by the search. Instead I think he just typed in a chain of academic words he thought represented useless academic research, and then told himself these "tee-hee postmodern bogus." I think…

> he just typed in a chain of academic words he thought represented useless academic research, and then told himself these "tee-hee postmodern bogus."

Yep. That rubs me the wrong way too.

One characteristic of truly earnest people is that they're non-judgemental and open to new ideas and experiences. If one can get past the boilerplate, there's some really cool ideas in postmodernism. I think PG is being the opposite of earnest in that pithy, incurious takedown.

Re: Earnestness

#212

Post by dj_mc_merlin » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

iWorshipFAANGS wrote: post #192

If you click on the hyperlink Paul Graham hyperlinks as "academic bogus," you'll find a google scholar search for "hermeneutic dialectic hegemonic whiteness." First of all, I don't think Paul Graham read those 5000 article returned by the search. Instead I think he just typed in a chain of academic words he thought represented useless academic research, and then told himself these "tee-hee postmodern bogus." I think…

Have you ever read a codebase that accomplishes very little, yet has a million layers of abstraction? With classes like `MainApplicationBeanInjectionFactoryBuilder`?

I think the scathing point was that much can be written about nothing, and one way to obscure your content is to use language such as "hermeneutic dialectic hegemonic whiteness".

Re: Earnestness

#213

Post by boh » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

Quarrelsome wrote: post #2

Earnest is my favourite word for describing that beautiful part during a child's development where they haven't yet had a negative experience from expressing themselves earnestly. That window of time where if you ask if they know something they would proudly reply "no!" because they have no idea that there might be shame in not knowing something. I seek to try to make myself more earnest and undo the damage of fear o…

I think you have too much optimism regarding the value of people's earnest expressions. Children are children and so their earnestness is cute and endearing (in most instances)--adults are far less charming and far more petty, self-indulgent, spineless, fickle, fearful.

Social media is a cesspool largely due to all this earnestness. Fear of retribution and shame is helpful in mitigating the self-absorption embedded in most people. We'd all like to think there's something special in all of us and that the world will benefit from the light of our creativity if it was set free. Truth be told, very few people are capable of much past mimicking and repeating what already exists.

People should appreciate the template of conformity that allows them to find a place in the world and not let advertising, that often leverages the idea of uniqueness to sell things, diminish the value of their mediocrity. No, given the proper "freedom" to be "earnest" you wouldn't be the next Picasso or Steve Jobs. We know because if that's who you were, that's who you'd be. Some people seem to find success in art and innovation operating in the same repressive environment, so maybe the environment is not the problem. Maybe earnestness just isn't your thing and fear/conformity is the better strategy.

*grammar edits

Re: Earnestness

#214

Post by adamsea » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

dvt wrote: post #208

iWorshipFAANGS wrote: post #192

If you click on the hyperlink Paul Graham hyperlinks as "academic bogus," you'll find a google scholar search for "hermeneutic dialectic hegemonic whiteness." First of all, I don't think Paul Graham read those 5000 article returned by the search. Instead I think he just typed in a chain of academic words he thought represented useless academic research, and then told himself these "tee-hee postmodern bogus." I think…

I'm upvoting you because I think you make a fair and well-thought-out argument. With that said, there's certainly a hand-waviness to "soft" fields like gender studies or ethnomusicology (I took classes in both, just out of curiosity). And no matter how much you think Derrida or Focault contributed to philosophy, I would argue it pales in comparison to their Analytic contemporaries (Godel, Lewis, Anscombe, Moore, etc.…

To be fair there's a ton of hand-waviness on HN about the hot new web framework MongoDB xyz thing. It's not that different, IMHO : ).

> PG studied philosophy, often talking about it in a very positive light, so the claim that he doesn't see value in humanities is -- apologies -- bogus.

True but with the Analytic / Continental divide in philosophy you still get a lot of folks on the Analytic side of things who think that anything not quantifiable in the way that they are used to is bunk.

Also I'll just throw out, in terms of impact, Baudrillard's work kinda hits the nail on the head when it comes to the internet. You can't quantify the impact of literature or more qualitative philosophy as easily, and, one can only know as time goes on.

I'm not the first to say this, obviously. Baudrillard's quote seems scary-accurate of today:

“Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: A hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory - precession of simulacra - that engenders the territory.”

Re: Earnestness

#215

Post by warent » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:19 PM UTC

Quarrelsome wrote: post #127

bluntfang wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you here buddy. seems like he was doing something shady the way he expressed it. probably lonely and providing alcohol/drugs for minors in order to have company.

> it sounds shady so it probably was c'mon catch people a break. Maybe they were a former alchy giving AA advice to troubled kids, maybe they don't like talking about their religion online

Great point, thanks for the perspective

Re: Earnestness

#216

Post by crispyambulance » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:20 PM UTC

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #212

iWorshipFAANGS wrote: post #192

If you click on the hyperlink Paul Graham hyperlinks as "academic bogus," you'll find a google scholar search for "hermeneutic dialectic hegemonic whiteness." First of all, I don't think Paul Graham read those 5000 article returned by the search. Instead I think he just typed in a chain of academic words he thought represented useless academic research, and then told himself these "tee-hee postmodern bogus." I think…

Have you ever read a codebase that accomplishes very little, yet has a million layers of abstraction? With classes like `MainApplicationBeanInjectionFactoryBuilder`? I think the scathing point was that much can be written about nothing, and one way to obscure your content is to use language such as "hermeneutic dialectic hegemonic whiteness".

Exactly! Whoever said humanities academics have a monopoly on obscurantism?

Re: Earnestness

#217

Post by adamsea » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #212

iWorshipFAANGS wrote: post #192

If you click on the hyperlink Paul Graham hyperlinks as "academic bogus," you'll find a google scholar search for "hermeneutic dialectic hegemonic whiteness." First of all, I don't think Paul Graham read those 5000 article returned by the search. Instead I think he just typed in a chain of academic words he thought represented useless academic research, and then told himself these "tee-hee postmodern bogus." I think…

Have you ever read a codebase that accomplishes very little, yet has a million layers of abstraction? With classes like `MainApplicationBeanInjectionFactoryBuilder`? I think the scathing point was that much can be written about nothing, and one way to obscure your content is to use language such as "hermeneutic dialectic hegemonic whiteness".

Parent's point was that while those phrases sound like word jumble to some, they actually have very specific and well-understood meanings.

Imagine a non-techie person listen to two software engineers talking. Closures, event bubbling, monads, abstract classes - they'd say the same thing.

Can someone without CS / programming knowledge really judge a good abstraction versus a bad one? Similarly, it's arrogant of us to assume we can do the same in the humanities, because it means we assume the humanities are easy / trivial and so on, which they are not.

It's like the "my kid could paint that" cliche of Modernist painting - maybe your kid could, but, you saying that just indicates that you aren't educated about what the artist is doing, why they choose to do it, and the previous works of art the artist is responding to or in dialogue with.

Kind of like, "why can't everything be HTML/CSS, with maybe a little JQuery?" Sure, you have a point, but there are clearly more sophisticated use-cases where that approach is not the most effective, and, your saying that kinda indicates you may not have encountered or had to deal with those use-cases.

Truth be told I think computer science, at least the parts of it where you get to create abstractions which then define the bounds of what is possible within that programming paradigm (see - word jumble!) is closer to the "soft" humanities than many are aware of or would care to see.

Tech folks tend to love/desire "certainty" in one form another, and, the easiest way to achieve that is to rule out everything which is "uncertain", and, constrain your domain until "certainty" can be achieved. Which can be a great approach for certain technical problems, but also IMHO results in ignorant behavior towards anything which threatens said certainty.

Re: Earnestness

#218

Post by silvestrov » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #63

kabirgoel wrote: post #42

> The most earnest part of Europe is Scandinavia, and not surprisingly this is also the region with the highest number of successful startups per capita. I find it hard to take sweeping statements like this seriously. What makes Scandinavian countries any more or less earnest than, say, Germany or France? This seems no better than to say, “The French make great lovers,” or “The British are terrible cooks.” Absent any…

Scandinavian countries have very high trust societies, based on any survey that looked into this. Why that is is a difficult question and leads us very far. Is it money? Where did the money come from? Oil (but that's not there in all Nordic countries)? Lack of war? Did the lack of war come from their high trust? Or the geographic distance to warring nations and empires of Europe? Is it related to the cold environment…

> Lack of war?

Denmark and Sweden have been at war with each other so many times you can't give an exact number as it becomes difficult to say when it's a prolonged war and when it's 2 seperate wars.

A simplified list: https://useless-denmarkfacts.tumblr.com/post/125179860721/al...

Re: Earnestness

#219

Post by ritchiea » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #19

croissants wrote: post #10

My perception is that one drawback of earnestness is that it often comes off as just being boring. The most earnest people I know are not popular. The most popular people I know are more like twinkle-in-the-eye-kind-of-BS-but-not-pathological-liars. I don't mean to say "grr, why aren't nerds more popular!". I mean more that this specific kind of earnestness seems to preclude the playing of certain conversational game…

Earnestness is what happens when people "let the guard down" and just be themselves. That's a rare state for a lot of people, who have spent a lifetime trying to be anyone but who they really are.

Exactly, there’s nothing inherently boring about being earnest. You can be earnest and boring but you could also be earnest with a good sense of humor and an interest in film history or software engineering. I’m not going to go all in on pg’s earnestness essay but it’s a positive trait and if you have genuine interests, there’s a good chance being earnest makes you more interesting when discussing interests because you are less likely to be invested in impressing other people with your interest. If you’re earnest your interests tend to scratch your itches of curiosity. But if you are earnest and uncurious then yes you may be boring.

Re: Earnestness

#220

Post by rewqpoijdlgh » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

adamsea wrote: post #214

dvt wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm upvoting you because I think you make a fair and well-thought-out argument. With that said, there's certainly a hand-waviness to "soft" fields like gender studies or ethnomusicology (I took classes in both, just out of curiosity). And no matter how much you think Derrida or Focault contributed to philosophy, I would argue it pales in comparison to their Analytic contemporaries (Godel, Lewis, Anscombe, Moore, etc.…

To be fair there's a ton of hand-waviness on HN about the hot new web framework MongoDB xyz thing. It's not that different, IMHO : ). > PG studied philosophy, often talking about it in a very positive light, so the claim that he doesn't see value in humanities is -- apologies -- bogus. True but with the Analytic / Continental divide in philosophy you still get a lot of folks on the Analytic side of things who think t…

Baudrillard was definitely onto something with his analysis of the Gulf War. For Americans it was advertised as a war, but it wasn't much more than a one-sided slaughter.