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Although I'm not a fan of Chomsky, neither of his political-philosophical, nor his linguistic work, he's never come across as dishonest, and I won't believe implications until corroborated by hard evidence.
He has been intellectually dishonest in his political writings for a long time.
One of the crazy things about these files is: it’s clear that the root motivation for a huge number of these guys is just to get with very young girls (and sometimes boys). Nothing sophisticated. Nothing inspired. Just what the most atavistic parts of the brain stem want. They were billionaires and high ranking academics and politicians. They could have done so many things but that’s where a huge portion of their ene…
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Amazing when it comes to Epstein (and other controversial actions/decisions) how detailed and open minded we are when it comes to someone we liked and supported, and how cut and dry we want things to be when it's someone we don't like.
Although I'm not a fan of Chomsky, neither of his political-philosophical, nor his linguistic work, he's never come across as dishonest, and I won't believe implications until corroborated by hard evidence.
It is entirely in line with Chomsky's historical pattern that Epstein could walk up to him, say "the US government hates me and claims I'm a pedophile" and for Chomsky to then treat him like his best friend. It is also worth noting that when he eventually recanted his Cambodian genocide denial, he basically said something along the lines of "how could anyone have possibly known just how bad the regime was?" which is... essentially what this response is attempting to be, "how could we have possibly known that Epstein was actually a pedophile?"
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no, they are not.
I'm not even coming at this from a political angle since I'm more left than right. I just stay true to my perception of the world. Being left of center does not make you somehow morally superior and there are many areas of life where left leaning people have worse morals. And in particular when it comes to intimate relationships, I do feel like many of them have rather loose morals, including around areas of what counts as consent. Maybe that's also the reason why predominantly leftist women are so outspoken about the topic, because they have had so much experience with it. Whereas more conservative leaning women tend to just not fall prey to the sleazy pony tailed guy.
One of the crazy things about these files is: it’s clear that the root motivation for a huge number of these guys is just to get with very young girls (and sometimes boys). Nothing sophisticated. Nothing inspired. Just what the most atavistic parts of the brain stem want. They were billionaires and high ranking academics and politicians. They could have done so many things but that’s where a huge portion of their ene…
Ah yes, Noam Chomsky, the famous right wing authoritarian.
That and I'm not sure what Chomsky actually advocated. He was a tireless critic of American and Western imperial ambitions, but what would he replace them with? I get the impression it'd be some kind of authoritarian command economy socialism, which anyone with half a brain knows will turn into a totalitarian system where the ones running it are "more equal" than everyone else. These days, knowing what I know now, I wonder if he's always just been a Russian asset or useful idiot.
I've never been a Chomsky fan anyway. His criticisms are sometimes valid but it's easy to criticize. It's orders of magnitude harder to propose better alternatives. Being a witty and incisive critic is easy compared to fixing.
LLMs have also indirectly proven a lot of his linguistic theories wrong. We didn't crack natural language with NLP and grammars. We cracked it by loosely imitating biology.
Although I'm not a fan of Chomsky, neither of his political-philosophical, nor his linguistic work, he's never come across as dishonest, and I won't believe implications until corroborated by hard evidence.
Chomsky is very well known for the fact that his anti-US imperialism stance is strong enough that he becomes a standard bearer for any malodorous regime the US is against, starting from his denial of the Cambodian genocide and attempted habilitation of the Pol Pot regime through to, most recently, his denial of any Russian atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine (his last major public commentary before his stroke). It is entire…