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June 28, 2011
Intellectual Remant Sale
- It's always dawning just before the dark:
"Life seemed to be going well after the war, then things got strange. One evening, right before sunset, large packs of well-groomed, standard poodles sporting massive, translucent pink wings, flew low over neighborhoods throughout the land. As we gathered in the streets to watch this barking nightmare descend, the dogs spoke to us in arrogant, clipped tones, "Once you've grown fat, we'll dine on your flesh again. You'll never be anything more than fodder for our feast." -- Nightscapes « Jaded Haven
- Is there a new geek anti-intellectualism? Does it really matter that much if geeks are anti-intellectuals?
Well, the question is whether the trend will move on to the population at large. One does not speak of "geek chic"these days for nothing. The digital world is now on the cutting edge of societal evolution, and attitudes and behaviors that were once found mostly among geeks back in the 1980s and 1990s are now mainstream. Geek anti-intellectualism can already be seen as another example. Most of the people I've mentioned in this essay are not geeks per se, but the digerati, who are frequently non-geeks or ex-geeks who have their finger on the pulse of social movements online. Via these digerati, we can find evidence of geek attitudes making their way into mainstream culture. One now regularly encounters geek-inspired sentiments from business writers like Don Tapscott and education theorists like Ken Robinson -- and even from the likes of Barack Obama (but not anti-intellectualism, of course).
- Larry Sanger Blog » Geek anti-intellectualism: replies
What about books, and classics in particular? Well, geek anti-intellectual attitudes here are easily explained as a combination of laziness and arrogance. The Iliad takes a lot of effort, and the payoff is quite abstract; instead, they could read a manual or write code or engineer some project, and do a lot more of what they recognize as "learning." The advent of new social media and the decline of the popularity of books are developments that only confirm their attitude. It doesn't hurt that geek is suddenly chic, which surely only inflates geek arrogance. If they admit to themselves that there is something to philosophy, history, or anything else that takes time, hard study, and reflection to learn, but which does not produce code or gadgetry, then they would feel a little deflated. This doesn't sit well with their pride, of course. They're smart, they think, and so how could they be opposed to any worthwhile knowledge?
- In living black on white: The Racism Everyone Pretends Doesn't Exist
- The "Missing" Women of the World:160 Million and Counting - NYTimes.com
Twenty years later, the number of “missing” women has risen to more than 160 million, and a journalist named Mara Hvistendahl has given us a much more complete picture of what’s happened. Her book is called “Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.” As the title suggests, Hvistendahl argues that most of the missing females weren’t victims of neglect. They were selected out of existence, by ultrasound technology and second-trimester abortion.
- CONELRAD Adjacent: AN INDELIBLE COLD WAR SYMBOL: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE FALLOUT SHELTER SIGN
Walk around any major American city today and you will still be able to see at least a few rusty Fallout Shelter Signs attached to buildings of a certain vintage.[iii] These distinctive metallic, reflective signs remain the most durable—literally and figuratively—symbol of the Cold War. But how did the sign come to be and who exactly was responsible for its creation?
- Why Cities Keep Growing, Corporations And People Always Die, And Life Gets Faster
When manufacturing companies are on a down turn, they decrease research and development, and in fact in some cases, do actually get rid of it, thinking this is "oh, we can get that back in two years we'll be back on track." Well, this kind of thinking kills them. This is part of the killing, and this is part of the change from superlinear to sublinear, namely companies allow themselves to be dominated by bureaucracy and administration over creativity and innovation, and unfortunately, it's necessary. You cannot run a company without administrative. Someone has got to take care of the taxes and the bills and the cleaning the floors and the maintenance of the building and all the rest of that stuff. You need it. And the question is, “can you do it without it dominating the company?” The data suggests that you can't.
- The Argumentative Theory | Conversation | Edge
"Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments. That's why they call it The Argumentative Theory of Reasoning. So, as they put it, "The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality. Reasoning can lead to poor outcomes, not because humans are bad at it, but because they systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or their actions. This explains the confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reason-based choice, among other things."
- Automation will make you obsolete, no matter who you are
Surely, we won’t replace politicians by robots? We may not replace them, but they will become obsolete anyhow. I believe that computers enable a different from of government altogether where we have little need for politicians. In most of the western world, we use representative democracy, with local politicians being elected and sent to a central government, where they form the ruling class. Yet with an entire population having Internet access, we don’t need politicians to represent the people, people can speak for themselves. Most politicians are already more or less powerless since nobody really believe they represent their people. You think that government without professional politicians would be chaos? I am sure there are people who think that without newspapers, individuals cannot be informed.
- The Return of the Barbarian
One-on-one, a lower barbarian can outthink, outfight, and out-innovate a civilized citizen any day. But a settled civilization at its peak can blow a lower barbarian civilization away. Not least because at the very top, you still have Veblen’s “uncivilized” higher barbarians (or, to use the Ribbonfarm term, sociopaths). But once it begins its decline, the greater live intelligence of the barbarians begins to take effect.
- Declinism Should Always Strive To Be More Funny
Declinism, however, strikes me as springing from that very same impulse, a longing for chaos, for drama, for "interesting" things to be happening. This explains why wealthy, coddled entertainers without cares in the world can pop up (when the leaders have the wrong letters after their name) spouting declinism, conspiracy theories and the like. They have literally nothing else interesting in their lives to be going on about.
- Not just because you can't scribble notes in the margin either: 5 Reasons Why E-Books Aren't There Yet
- More Gore Slop: Bad to the Bone at Hildegarde
There is an enormous, gaping disconnect between the book’s central thesis (we aren’t using reason and logic anymore because we don’t read enough, but watch television instead) and what the book actually does. Or, rather, doesn’t do. And what it doesn’t do is make an reference to books.
- "It's a cosmic rule that hippie action is always met by the equal and opposite force of unintended consequences."Hippies Heathrow Horror ｫ The Daily Bayonet
Posted by Vanderleun at June 28, 2011 10:57 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
That was no gizzards and bourbon nightmare of Daphne's. Them's real dogs, and they're scary ugly.
Posted by: Jewel at June 29, 2011 12:02 PM
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