Earnestness • Hacker News Board

Re: Earnestness

#281

Post by joshuamorton » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:08 PM UTC

throwawayback wrote: post #272

iWorshipFAANGS wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello! I think I addressed some of the points you are making in my response to the user dvt. TLDR, there's low-quality research in "falsifiable" fields too. But actually, I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding what your point is, could you help me? I mentioned a specific line that Paul Graham wrote, then said it was "dumb" for the reasons I outlined. Then, in defense of Paul Graham, you posted links to tweets…

[flagged]

Are you claiming here that every productive institution in society is capitalist?

Also for what it's worth, I don't see attacks on science in any things you link. I see, perhaps, a call for more empiricism in certain fields, and a call for recognition of our society and it's flaws, and how those flaws may extend into systems embedded within our society, such as the scientific community and our educational system.

I mean, it's clear you agree with some of these criticisms: in the same post you staunchly defend science as, presumably a source of everything productive, but criticize "academia". Yet how do you propose to differentiate between the two? You're both criticizing different parts of the social system scientific discourse is embedded in. What makes the other criticism inherently invalid?

> The end of this line of thinking is to destroy mathematical education and leave children ignorant

I want to call out specifically that there is absolutely nothing you've quoted that supports this claim.

Re: Earnestness

#282

Post by zemo » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:09 PM UTC

fractionalhare wrote: post #277

zemo wrote: post #253

he poses the idea of being earnest about something in a way that is disingenuous. > Why can't there be people interested in self-driving cars or social networks for their own sake? If you are interested in self-driving cars, but you are not interested in the effects that self-driving cars have on society, you are not actually interested in self-driving cars: you are interested in yourself. To be interested only in th…

> If you are interested in self-driving cars, but you are not interested in the effects that self-driving cars have on society, you are not actually interested in self-driving cars: you are interested in yourself. To be interested only in the problem-solving aspect of a domain is, first and foremost, to be interested in your own mastery. This distinction seems completely semantic and vacuous. What do you call it if I…

> What do you call it if I'm interested in my own mastery, but only for some subset of all things I can have mastery in?

specialization. I don't know why you thought this question was some sort of gotcha. I'm not rejecting the idea that someone can specialize or be a domain expert. I'm rejecting PG's argument that "being earnest" means "ignoring externalities".

Re: Earnestness

#283

Post by throwawayback » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

__float wrote: post #255

throwawayback wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defense of Paul, I'm reminded of work highlighted by the twitter account Real Peer Review (once banned and now reincarnated). It highlights various bits of so-called scholarship that looks like political ideology dressed up in fancy words and financed by taxpayers. "Decolonizing math" and things like that. Some recent examples: https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/133532437242123879... https://twitter.com/Rea…

That seems to be a bizarre conclusion, since churches are very often tax advantaged. If these authors are able to write grant proposals and get funding, then clearly someone thinks they are producing something of value. You cannot see the value, so you declare there must not be any?

It is a politico-religious movement. Of course people that side with that movement find value in funding people to produce texts in its tradition and educate students in its ways of talking. I don't.

Re: Earnestness

#284

Post by zepto » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #279

zepto wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If some particular research they thought was bogus was about the concept of whiteness, why wouldn’t they?

Because they could cite the particular research instead.

That doesn’t explain what’s wrong with using the search as an example if a person thinks there is a problem with the research which shows up for that search.

Re: Earnestness

#285

Post by throwawayback » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #281

throwawayback wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Are you claiming here that every productive institution in society is capitalist? Also for what it's worth, I don't see attacks on science in any things you link. I see, perhaps, a call for more empiricism in certain fields, and a call for recognition of our society and it's flaws, and how those flaws may extend into systems embedded within our society, such as the scientific community and our educational system. I m…

I hold a graduate degree. I have a certain affection for academia. It's with great sadness that I watch a once-great institution shamble down the path to perdition.

Hopefully we find a way to renew it, or else to do basic science outside of it

Re: Earnestness

#286

Post by eloff » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:22 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…

I'm going to say bogus is too kind a word many times. There was a famous academic troll[1] that revealed some of these humanities for the make believe they are. These people basically made up garbage papers that sounded like these feminist, gender studies, and critical race disciplines and published them in peer reviewed journals. Even the people in these disciplines can't tell satire from seriousness - and that's damning. They even published a rewrite of mein kampf. Why should my tax dollars go towards that? These people should get a real job and contribute to society. Bogus is being too charitable.

It made for one of my all time favorite episodes of Joe Rogan though. Worth a listen.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/9l1lzs/three_acad...

Re: Earnestness

#287

Post by tbrownaw » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

zemo wrote: post #253

he poses the idea of being earnest about something in a way that is disingenuous. > Why can't there be people interested in self-driving cars or social networks for their own sake? If you are interested in self-driving cars, but you are not interested in the effects that self-driving cars have on society, you are not actually interested in self-driving cars: you are interested in yourself. To be interested only in th…

If I'm interested in A but not how A affects B, then I'm actually just interested in C rather than A? That makes even less sense than saying that altruism doesn't really exist because altruists enjoy being altruistic.

> If we set our ethical standard at "so long as I am interested in doing the building, I am being earnest", our efforts will forever be deployed by others, perhaps with effects that do not align with our values.

Firstly, "earnest" here seems to be about "less likely to get distracted (and so fail to make money)" and has nothing whatsoever to do with what's ultimately to the most social good.

Secondly, demanding control of everything downstream of you is a great way to get nothing done.

You seem to be advocating that innovation should follow an ethic of "do not call up what you cannot put down", when "fail forward" has a history of working rather better.

Re: Earnestness

#288

Post by jkestner » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

nullsense wrote: post #256

adamsea wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>To be fair there's a ton of hand-waviness on HN about the hot new web framework MongoDB xyz thing. MongoDB is webscale.

For the uninitiated: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs

Re: Earnestness

#289

Post by stevofolife » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

zemo wrote: post #253

he poses the idea of being earnest about something in a way that is disingenuous. > Why can't there be people interested in self-driving cars or social networks for their own sake? If you are interested in self-driving cars, but you are not interested in the effects that self-driving cars have on society, you are not actually interested in self-driving cars: you are interested in yourself. To be interested only in th…

I think you misunderstood what earnest is. And more importantly the core of PG's argument.

A genuine fixation or being earnest != interest. Earnest is way more than that. Showing interest is merely a step towards being earnest.

It's easy to be interested in everything but it's hard to be earnest about something.

Re: Earnestness

#290

Post by jonmc12 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

> Can you imagine a more important change than one in the relationship between intellectual curiosity and money?

Semantics and edge conditions aside, no. I can't imagine a more important change; this is truly a concise and meaningful question. The world will be a little bit better if you ask your 3 closest peers this question.

Including semantics, I believe our language must provide a thought framework to guide intellectual curiosity towards sustainability; ie, named classes of intellectual curiosity that create more opportunity for intellectual curiosity. Further, our language must meaningfully relate the concepts of intellectual curiosity, economic productivity and capital. For example, discussing the relationship between global economic productivity and the potential of a viral pandemic could frame problems in a way that promote intellectual inquiry, incentivized by capital, to preserve future economic productivity.

Including edge conditions, I believe we at least need to constrain intellectual curiosity that would harm. Part of this goes back to semantics; ie, what is harm? But another component exists around cultural norms of transparency, regulation and authority.