These observations are also consistent with the collapse of scientism (I.e. appeal to scientific credibility by making irrational arguments with scientific-sounding words) as a rhetorical technique. The reduction of pseudo-rational terminology might actually indicate an increase in net rational thought.
The rise and fall of rationality in language
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Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language
#32These observations are also consistent with the collapse of scientism (I.e. appeal to scientific credibility by making irrational arguments with scientific-sounding words) as a rhetorical technique. The reduction of pseudo-rational terminology might actually indicate an increase in net rational thought.
I had the same thought while reading the abstract but I don't think it can explain Fig 1 / Table 1.
Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language
#33I hope to outlive this age of spectacle.
Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there is way too much identity politics now It's a strategy to divide the working class. With raising inequality you need to do something with the people that are unhappy. Or you give them money, and reduce inequality so they are happier; or you give them an enemy to fight so they forget about the money. A similar thing happened after the great depression of the 30s and culminated with communism and fascism rising…
You can never "end inequality". The best you can hope for is a level playing field, equal opportunity, as much as possible. There's a lot of things we could be doing to make that happen. It probably starts with more fair, universal access to education and trying to make sure that all children have their basic needs met, regardless of age or gender, but I think you are right that identity politics is a distraction for…
You can, however, greatly reduce it. That would be good enough.
Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language
#35Google Books is not a reliable sample of language over time due to shifts in genre representation that are correlated with all kinds of things like university library policies, interactions of OCR with typesetting practices, etc. Also note this is a “contributed by” paper which means it didn’t go through the usual PNAS review process. (Presumably the authors didn’t think it would make it through.)
Instead of arguing why the data sources they have analyzed is limited or not fully representative, I suggest we get interested in their findings and look further into the matter. The authors are open about the limitations and possible biases in the data sources, and how modern use of language could affect the interpretations. I think they've provided good descriptions on how they have taken this into account in their study.
Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
In 2016 plenty of people were calling Trump an illegitimate President, and before that Republicans were questioning Obama's legitimacy due to his birth certificate, and before that Gore and Bush had the Supreme Court settle their contested election, and before that was Clinton's impeachment any less partisan? You act as if this is some new phenomenon, but it's just the latest data point in a dangerous game played by…
>You act as if this is some new phenomenon
It's not new. What's new is having your tribe so convinced that an election was stolen and them so unquestioning that they storm and loot the capitol while being armed.
Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
In 2016 plenty of people were calling Trump an illegitimate President, and before that Republicans were questioning Obama's legitimacy due to his birth certificate, and before that Gore and Bush had the Supreme Court settle their contested election, and before that was Clinton's impeachment any less partisan? You act as if this is some new phenomenon, but it's just the latest data point in a dangerous game played by…
>You act as if this is some new phenomenon, but it's just the latest data point in a dangerous game played by both sides.
Your list supporting "both sides", when in chronological order, starts with three instances in a row of Republicans attacking the legitimacy of Democrats, the third one of which (birtherism) was driven by Trump!
If you're going to spin this as both sides, you can spin it better than that.
For instance, I'm pretty sure that the hatred for the Clintons, at least in the 90s, had a lot to do with Hillary's association with Watergate. So in the minds of Republicans at the time, I believe they felt it was payback for making Nixon resign.
Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language
#38PNAS: Read It, or Not? The reason people are down on PNAS is the way that members of the National Academy can, if they choose, sort of jam things into the journal through a side entrance. Here are all the details. The unusual thing about the journal is the existence of "Track I". Basically, a member of the NAS can publish up to four of their own papers per year. Each of these have to be submitted with the comments of…
>So a reasonable member should be able to get any sort of interesting or at least non-insane paper in there, by judicious choice of colleagues for review.
An easy way to go get interesting papers in does not seem like a reason to be 'down' on it.
Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language
#39In my opinion, objective truth does not exist. “Fact-free argumentation" is good and desirable.
I think therefore I am. And so the world outside can't be confirmed, only your own existence? I get it. But what if the more objective party, society, a collective of subjectives, disagrees with you and your existence? It doesn't matter what you think, you will not think or be if they deem your "truth" an untruth or a threat. I think it's at least for this reason that the ego should be somewhat tamed and not undermine the objective or else the subjective becomes more endangered.
Re: The rise and fall of rationality in language
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there is way too much identity politics now It's a strategy to divide the working class. With raising inequality you need to do something with the people that are unhappy. Or you give them money, and reduce inequality so they are happier; or you give them an enemy to fight so they forget about the money. A similar thing happened after the great depression of the 30s and culminated with communism and fascism rising…
You can never "end inequality". The best you can hope for is a level playing field, equal opportunity, as much as possible. There's a lot of things we could be doing to make that happen. It probably starts with more fair, universal access to education and trying to make sure that all children have their basic needs met, regardless of age or gender, but I think you are right that identity politics is a distraction for…
First what are we making equal? I don't think equal opportunity is a real thing, life is all about very precise starting conditions, some of which will have extraordinary outcomes, others which will fail precipitously, I digress. With Americans, probably material wealth, right? But that's an artifact of conditioning, isn't it? Like that drive to acquisitive behavior is a conditioned thing I reckon.
But if we aren't talking material wealth, y'know, how about equal freedom? Equal leisure time? Equal representation? Autonomy? Respect? Everybody seems to be fixated on material wealth - which I'd infer is the whole basis for equal opportunity, and I don't think that's the question to ask. If you treat janitors with the same deference as you do a CEO, their life would be less shitty, it might even be pretty good; you're minimizing their work and treating them like a human being. Maybe this is a thing and you can get some real Princess and the Pauper (or vice versa) shit going on. And, at that point with their work minimized, maybe they could get some more paid vacation without some eminent disaster looming. And, since people are pretty self-organizing when they're not treated like shit, and they're not high-strung and burning out, they can... Maybe... do without a manager breathing down their neck? And now they don't have to run up a chain of command to fill up their squirt bottle or talk to the person that actually calls the shots, and negotiate with the client directly. Wow.
Like hypothetically, right? Who knows, maybe I'm wrong, but having been on the ground for years in various industries I don't think I am.
I don't think the material shit is what everybody is all about, I think people are fronting with their consumer goods to be able to function in the social hierarchy. I mean, there's a whole class of people who enter into debt obligations just to front like they've got money which is "directly proportional to status and success". If you remove that bar, if you equalize social standing to a singular nominal human value, I don't think most people care to entertain the ratrace. But that's a culture thing, that's an economy thing, that's an identity thing - ethereal and malleable. I think people are lead to believe that they have to run in the ratrace, and buy all the shit, and front like they're a big shot just to get to the home stretch of the human shit, live, love, laugh, family and friends. 'Cause at the end of the day, you can have all the shit, but if you don't have anybody to share it with you just look like a dildo wearing designer bedazzled pants.