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Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

independent.co.uk

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Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#51

Post by hughesjj »

turndown wrote: post #29

Intellectual giant whose shadow will be cast deep into the future. I don't need to review any of his work wrt to CS or linguistics to tell you that his legacy will be massive. I think Manufacturing Consent should go down as one of the most important books ever written in our culture. He was right about much, but wrong about much also. His beliefs on Cambodia strain credulity and I still have trouble separating that C…

His thoughts on Serbia/Kosovo, Russia/Ukraine, likely Russia/ Georgia etc have all been problematic too.

Chomsky was illuminating in my personal character development. I grew up in a pretty conservative area, and his name carried a lot of hate like Hillary/Clinton did, but i didn't know why. Later, I saw some of his writings on American interventionism, and I found myself nodding my head in agreement over the mistakes my country/we have made. Later yet, I'm in college going for the math+cs degrees and his stuff on formal languages was probably the peak of my admiration for him... but with the admiration comes research, and perhaps the most important thing chomsky illustrated to me was that you can be a genius, but that doesn't mean you can't be blind, myopic, wrong, an asshole, or ... non-credible.

I don't know why chomsky's beliefs and supported causes are so inconsistent with the morals he pushes, but it's been an exemplar for me regardless -- good and bad, functional and broken.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#52

Post by caycep »

ein0p wrote: post #43
tptacek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zinn's reputation among historians: not all that great.

Reputation of historians according to Zinn: not all that great either. Read him as a counterpoint, and food for critical thought, not as the sole source of truth. He doesn’t hide that he has an agenda.

I did actually see him talk at a rally in Boston Common, around '04 or so. While his written stuff may well be better, what struck me was the gist was basically self promotion about how he know "secret" things from "secret" sources, but never really bothered to elaborate, only that the "US Govt is lying to you". Well yes but...I would say if one had such information, it is not well served by presenting oneself as a conspiratorial crank....

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#53

Post by alexnewman »

First of all he's a hell of a linguist theorist.

I disagree with about everything this guy wrote politically. I totally disagree with this guys perspective, it drives me up a wall frankly. But I have always have had incredible respect and think he played an important role in the dialogue. I read everything he wrote, and generally enjoy his writing. The very definition of the constant loyal opposition. Always getting people to think about things differently and with incredible moral courage. I wrote and argued with him and he always responded. We are all better off because of Chomsky.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#54

Post by yareal »

nailer wrote: post #48
pydry wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And even verbally supported Hamas best I can remember. Did he say something controversial like "Gaza has a right to defend itself?"

[flagged]

I checked sources, turns out literally tens of millions of people vocally and loudly disagree with you.

I think it's not helpful to anyone to come in here and be so resolute and so black and white. Especially in the face of an event that has drawn the eye of the international community as a potential genocide.

I'm not telling you what to believe, just that like, posting like you did is not engaging in any meaningful discussion.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#55

Post by cageface »

turndown wrote: post #29

Intellectual giant whose shadow will be cast deep into the future. I don't need to review any of his work wrt to CS or linguistics to tell you that his legacy will be massive. I think Manufacturing Consent should go down as one of the most important books ever written in our culture. He was right about much, but wrong about much also. His beliefs on Cambodia strain credulity and I still have trouble separating that C…

I grew up taking Chomsky's perspectives on the Vietnam war as gospel. After actually living there for 8 years and talking to many people about it I realized it was a lot less black and white then he paints it.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#56

Post by yareal »

SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #46

Speaking of non-political side of him: was not he wrong about "innate grammar" necessary to understand langage? LLM do not have such circuitry, yet they somehow work well...

LLMs are an approximation of all the human media they consume. An LLM cannot exist with out human circuitry. It's at best an ersatz language user.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#57

Post by [deleted] »

turndown wrote: post #40
feedforward wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US began arming the "Khmer Rouge" (whatever that means) in 1979 as well as protecting them in the UN, so the equivalence seems pretty valid to me. Not to mention the US 1970 invasion of Cambodia and concurrent CIA-backed overthrow of the Cambodian government, which including shooting dead US students who protested against it at Kent State and Jackson State, or the US carpet bombing of Cambodia during and after Op…

I worded that part poorly, and did not bring up what really bothers me about it, that he tried to deny that there was a genocide in Cambodia. I agree with what you said. The idea that the US is innocent in Cambodia or really anything going on in that part of the world at that time is beyond false.

[deleted]

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#58

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

gizmo686 wrote: post #49
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #46

Speaking of non-political side of him: was not he wrong about "innate grammar" necessary to understand langage? LLM do not have such circuitry, yet they somehow work well...

No. Innate grammar has always been about how humans aquire language, not how any possible system which understands human language must posses that innate grammar.

But that has never been proven that this is how indeed human acquire language; it is essentially a hypothesis. We may as well do it the way LLMs do - some undifferentiated networks acquires the grammar by unknown means.

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#59

Post by [deleted] »

euW3EeBe wrote: post #12
woodruffw wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an abbreviation meaning roughly "with the help of God." GP is either saying something neutral with respect to Chomsky's age or being snide. I'm not sure which.

Take a look at their comment history, and keep in mind that Chomsky has been openly critical of Israel for a long time.

[deleted]

Re: Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

#60

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

yareal wrote: post #56
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #46

Speaking of non-political side of him: was not he wrong about "innate grammar" necessary to understand langage? LLM do not have such circuitry, yet they somehow work well...

LLMs are an approximation of all the human media they consume. An LLM cannot exist with out human circuitry. It's at best an ersatz language user.

Unrelated to what I said, with all due respect.
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