posted on June 29, 2018 11:08 AM by
u/anthonyskewspolitics
25
u/DELETED24 pointsat 1530281915.000000
not sure the portrayal is inaccurate but when making analogies to
star trek it’s useful to remember that kirk
drift is a thing- that the cultural perception of these characters
has basically moved on to a life of its own that’s almost completely
independent of the source material, so it often doesn’t make sense to
try to connect aspirational perceptions about the characters-as-recalled
to narrative events in the canonical stories or films about the
characters-as-written
Thanks for the feedback. For the record, this is what I wrote on Troi:
“The New Generation didn't help in this regard by making the McCoy archetype a female alien whose empathy was a literal superpower; Counsellor Troi was a neat concept whose character development and depth was sacrificed to focus on the Picard/Data dyad.”
We are a generation of critics, who can’t simply say that we like or
dislike a cultural product (or policy or social outcome) but must
articulate the reasons why.
What’s wrong with being held to account for reasonable preferences?
Isn’t not being able to simply say that you like or dislike something
essential to ending bigotry like racism or sexism?
My own perception is that the problem starts with hegemonic concepts
not being held accountable on logical-positivist terms, while
marginal ideas are. Or at least that hegemonic ideas can be justified
with a pro-forma performance of logical positivism, while the evidence
for marginal ideas is aggressively scrutinized.
Thanks for the feedback. I'd be grateful for any further detail you can give me about what makes it unreadable.
David Graeber said the same thing more clearly:
> I have made some of these arguments elsewhere (see Fragments) but honestly, it's a bit unreasonable to expect me to trundle out long elaborate arguments about human nature every single book I write, just because some readers will trundle out the kind of sloppy, unthought-out arguments you can only make if you have the entire weight of your own societies' propaganda engines behind you.
> The curious thing is that one's ability not to have to do this, **not to have to prove one's assumptions every single time one writes anything, is the luxury of power**. Let me give an example. Economics - the great power discipline of the moment. Economic theory is based on certain assumptions about human action, how a "rational actor" will allocate resources under certain conditions. These are just premises, they were never originally tested, just assumed. Recently some psychologists decided to see if they were true, and created experimental tests. It turns out people almost never really act the way economists predict and the basic assumptions about human nature are actually wrong. What effect did this have on economics? None. The economists just ignored the empirical studies and carried on just as they had before. Where, on Amazon, do you have readers giving economic theory texts three-star reviews saying the material is interesting but they are based on flawed theories of human nature? As far as I can make out, nowhere. **If you're running the world, the fact that all your equations are based on premises that we know to be wrong is simply irrelevant. Meanwhile, if you're challenging the prevailing orthodoxy, if you don't prove every aspect of everything, you can just be rejected out of hand.** So while I appreciate the reviewers' efforts and am glad he found the overall historical argument compelling and interesting, I'm afraid in this way he really is playing the same role of ideological police as so many others - setting standards for non-mainstream views that no one ever sets for other ones.
It's the third-last comment on [this review](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RGVBYEFT5TCXC/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1612191290) of his *Debt*.
Thanks.
> I am not sure how true some of that is when it comes to econ. E.g. Pretty much everyone I know who is a young econ major accepts that the behavioral econ critique is pretty much true
OK, but how much economic policy is still justified in terms of invalidated models?
> not sure if what you are calling logical positivism is actually logical positivism
Thanks, "evidence-based reasoning" might have been a better term.
I think your original comment might have been clearer if instead of "reasonable," you'd said "mainstream." Because being questioned about a "reasonable" preference makes the questioner sound unreasonable.
This was my reaction as well. The fact that a group of men may feel like women have countless social advantages over them is not comparable to women feeling the reverse precisely because we have material evidence against which to evaluate these claims.
So.. I premise I’m not some 30- or 40-something.. And that I’m not
that much into star trek (for as much, at least, I respect it for being
leagues ahead in intelligence than the other “star series” /s)
And it was really interesting to hear of this “Kirk archetype” - also
the very insightful connection with patriarchy*.
I’m not *entirely* sure this is really most brought up forward in our
society by Star Trek** - and I, for one, am sick of hearing disparaging
of neoliberalism tossed around like it was some wild card. “Do stuff
rationally” is a mantra that exists since french revolution (in
politics, probably earlier in other domains).
And I can imagine both “rationalism” existing without neoliberalism
(of course I mean, like in the soviet union), and its reverse
neoliberalism w/o any much apology of reason (Reagan I guess for
starters?)
privileging of pseudo-scientism as an explanation of inequality
rather than the real culprit (y’know: the capitalist order)
I absolutely agree with this, in fact.
But I really couldn’t get what you meant with “pseudo-scientism”.
to reject that sort of utilitarian calculus and advocate the heroic
position of hope and trust in the future. It’s probably indicative of
the times that the protagonist (Burnham) is both female and
non-white
Now you have intrigued me, and I’ll have to watch Discovery, just to
see if the conclusion really can pierce utilitarianism /s
Albeit to be honest, it’s going to be really hard to justify all this
huuuge amount of authorial intent you sprinkled everywhere.
^(*toxic communities aside - there are indeed hardly, even
individual, self-defined rationalist women)
^(**even though, probably it’s my youngsterism, together with my
europeanism, that have put philosophy much more under the spotlights
than star trek)
>Albeit to be honest, it's going to be really hard to justify all this huuuge amount of authorial intent you sprinkled everywhere.
All writing is an argument for an idea. Being a "dispassionate" author simply "considering ideas on their merit" is the stuff of the rationalists.
Put the human back in human discourse :-)
I mean, if we want to talk about that, tbh I hoped the article could shed some light on whatever "rationalist" has to necessarily be ascribed to lesswrong community (and not just agreeing here or there, but being part of the in-group) or not.
Anyway, what the author wanted is certainly important in seeing the whole picture.. But nobody watches TV "just for the ideas", and certainly a series is more than just its written plot (let alone, when directing sucks, and the purported message is basically impossible to perceive)
the writing is the argument for the idea, didn't say it had to be any good...
What most people consider proper writing is when the argument is well done and conclusions are left to the reader with strong evidence, uh, evident.
For instance, 'the boy who cried wolf' is far more effective in teaching kids to shoot straight than a paean to human moral honesty. The telling of the tale makes the argument for integrity, honesty and non-jackassery for ya.
not sure the portrayal is inaccurate but when making analogies to star trek it’s useful to remember that kirk drift is a thing- that the cultural perception of these characters has basically moved on to a life of its own that’s almost completely independent of the source material, so it often doesn’t make sense to try to connect aspirational perceptions about the characters-as-recalled to narrative events in the canonical stories or films about the characters-as-written
[deleted]
Prior art: Julia Galef’s Straw Vulcan talk.
I think they’re quite aware of the studies of affect, they just use it to debunk other people.
What’s wrong with being held to account for reasonable preferences? Isn’t not being able to simply say that you like or dislike something essential to ending bigotry like racism or sexism?
My own perception is that the problem starts with hegemonic concepts not being held accountable on logical-positivist terms, while marginal ideas are. Or at least that hegemonic ideas can be justified with a pro-forma performance of logical positivism, while the evidence for marginal ideas is aggressively scrutinized.
“Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.”
So.. I premise I’m not some 30- or 40-something.. And that I’m not that much into star trek (for as much, at least, I respect it for being leagues ahead in intelligence than the other “star series” /s)
And it was really interesting to hear of this “Kirk archetype” - also the very insightful connection with patriarchy*.
I’m not *entirely* sure this is really most brought up forward in our society by Star Trek** - and I, for one, am sick of hearing disparaging of neoliberalism tossed around like it was some wild card. “Do stuff rationally” is a mantra that exists since french revolution (in politics, probably earlier in other domains).
And I can imagine both “rationalism” existing without neoliberalism (of course I mean, like in the soviet union), and its reverse neoliberalism w/o any much apology of reason (Reagan I guess for starters?)
I absolutely agree with this, in fact.
But I really couldn’t get what you meant with “pseudo-scientism”.
Now you have intrigued me, and I’ll have to watch Discovery, just to see if the conclusion really can pierce utilitarianism /s
Albeit to be honest, it’s going to be really hard to justify all this huuuge amount of authorial intent you sprinkled everywhere.
^(*toxic communities aside - there are indeed hardly, even individual, self-defined rationalist women)
^(**even though, probably it’s my youngsterism, together with my europeanism, that have put philosophy much more under the spotlights than star trek)