71–80 of 209 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's tautological to say that as by definition 1850s white Americans culture is extremely distasteful to a modern HN commenter Which definition would that be?
We'll perhaps there are some HN commenters that have those values, but I hope not! But 1850's American culture is distasteful to me and also to sullyj3 as they say: "it's manifestly obvious that modern American culture is superior to American culture of the 1850s"
- Extreme importance of personal status and sensitivity to insult - Acceptance of personal revenge including retaliatory killing - Obsessive male dominance - Paranoia over female sexual infidelity - Primacy of family rights over individual rights And who do these values remind you of? It is especially funnysad to read this 16 year old American writing today.
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> For instance, by the standard of the general wellbeing of African Americans, it's manifestly obvious that modern American culture is superior to American culture of the 1850s. But it might be hard to convince a 1850s white American to adopt that standard. It's tautological to say that as by definition 1850s white Americans culture is extremely distasteful to a modern HN commenter. Any culture that isn't similar you…
> It's tautological to say that as by definition 1850s white Americans culture is extremely distasteful to a modern HN commenter Which definition would that be?
> For instance, by the standard of the general wellbeing of African Americans, it's manifestly obvious that modern American culture is superior to American culture of the 1850s.
Shouldn't really be controversial, but America is going through a regression right now so who knows..
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> Rape and genocide and embezzlement also exist for a reason, and make sense to people who think a certain way. > Something this author believes that most people (in our coastal bubbles) don't: that some cultures are better than others. I think you can ask people in coastal bubbles about the rape and genocide cultures of various wars and embezzlement subcultures of various corporations. My money is on them saying tho…
Actually i would argue the opposite. Not to the extent of genocide but the lid has really blown on Hollywood's sexual harassment problem (read: rape culture). Let's not forget Uber's contribution there and of course the whole gamer gate scandal which is still fresh in the minds of the people involved in the community. Racism, classism, and authoritarianism's roaring 2017 comeback. Then there's Madoff, Exon (classic)…
Executing people for being gay? Oh well, at least the Saudis aren't setting up kickstarter scams.
You can criticise consumerism and sexism and racism all you like, don't let me stop you, but don't for a minute think it's reasonable to suggest that that means that all cultures are equivalently good or bad.
I would describe the "honor" system as like treating the world like a big MMORPG where the only goal in life is to accumulate "honor" points. The whole point of life is to grind away everyday to gain more honor points. Someone insults you = lose honor points. Revenge on the insulter = gain honor points. Wife cheats on you = lose honor points. Revenge on wife = gain honor points. Someone cheats you out of 10 cents = l…
You could replace "honor" by any other kind of value system and you could still interpret is as a points system. That's because of the Von Neumann-Morgenstern theorem [1], which basically says that any kind of well-behaved (i.e., not self-contradictory) preferences can be modeled as a points system (called utility function ). Heaven points. Money points. Sex points. Altruism points. Whatever you are trying to achieve…
This article, while interesting, is incredibly presumptive and totally non-scientific. As such, I consider it pablum. Surely no one culture is universally "better" than another. Pick some metric(s), some cultures will be better, some worse. What's left unstated and undefended in this article is the metric for comparing the "goodness" of cultures. With that, at least we would have some quantitative things to compare -…
Firstly, one culture being better than another does not mean that it is better in every way. I'd rather be punched in the stomach than kicked in the balls, but clearly my stomach is still better off in the latter scenario, even if I'm worse off overall.
Secondly, I'd really love to hear on what 'metrics' you think Arabian culture is better than say, German culture. Today's German culture, too, and today's Arabian culture. Too often people will say stuff like 'Nazis and 1400s scientific progress in the middle east'.
You can see how the author extricates Japan from his 'analysis', but not so for other Asian nations; in fact much of this can be said to be true of China and India (amongst others), but many here and elsewhere will somehow extricate China, but not India for obvious fiscal reasons. This trend is striking if you're old enough to have followed the reporting on a topic for many years.
Yet, little of the culture and the way of doing things have 'changed' in a significant way.
It's kind of like ML, you have some terribly useless set of features, and you use it to fit some dataset. The thing with ML is that you know this is stupid, and you have a test set to tell you it's stupid.
Not so, sadly, with our 'intellectuals'.
> I will use the Arabic word thar, "blood vengeance," for this value system Do I see a strawman there?
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Well let's say that someone criticizes a "honor" system person for being violent. Someone interested in the truth would not react violently to that criticism because they would acknowledge that as a contradiction and that doing so would prove their critic correct. Someone only interested in "honor" points would react violently toward the critic because that's how you get "honor" points, by getting revenge for insults…
> Someone interested in the truth would not react violently to that criticism because they would acknowledge that as a contradiction and that doing so would prove their critic correct. But wouldn't proving their critic correct give them "truth" points? Presumably, you actually mean "someone I'd call a reasonable person, who can recognize the truth; but who has other aims beyond making things true". That person's acti…
The methods of the "honor" points system never changes in response to any empirical feedback. The "honor" points are the way and the end in themselves. They are not subject to backpropagation in the "honor" points system. They were burned into ROM and the "honor" automotaun faithfully executes the program until it dies. The "honor" system does not evolve. The truth system does not know what it will be in several decades, but it will seek truth and incorporate feedback. It is fundamentally incomplete and will remain so. The "honor" points system is complete -- forever.
This takes a strange detour towards the end. > Even more disturbing is a rise in a mean-spirited resistance to any kind of honors for Confederate soldiers. Seems a bit contradictory to insist that we honor immoral people for the sake of... I'm actually not sure how the author got here. Especially after the bit about not accepting responsibility. The Confederacy was a moral failing, and the best way to take responsibi…
While the reasons behind the war and its intended results can certainly be called immoral, I don’t think we can apply the same label to enlisted / conscripted soldiers. Most of those guys didn’t join up to protect slavery but rather their homes; and many didn’t have a choice about fighting at all. Agree that slavery was a moral failing; but the cause of the war was economic — the main reason people were pro-slavery w…
Obviously since The Atlantic was founded by abolitionists it might tend to favour one side, but I feel pretty confident in the righteousness of their cause. :) - https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/08/small-t...
Protecting their homes is different from fighting for slavery in what way - I am having trouble understanding what protecting their homes means in this case. It seems like an after the war mytho to fit Shermans march to the sea burning everything as the army went or the Union army seizing Lee's homestead for what became roughly Arlington National Cemetary (and for which Lee's son was later compensated).