posted on June 18, 2019 03:02 PM by
u/MarxismLesbianism
99
u/MarxismLesbianism36 pointsat 1560870572.000000
i don’t actually think the social sciences is the cure fwiw these
fields can be and have been just as reactionary but what gets me here is
the insistence to stay as ignorant as possible while claiming to be
having a debate
I have a theory that what is missing is empathy, and particularly cognitive empathy (as opposed to affective empathy). Like rationality, empathy is a higher-order cognitive skill that needs to be actively developed and practiced; but the basic techniques and skills to do so are not widely understood and practiced, at least in the community of people signified in this post.
Do you mean, cognitive empathy as in 'you can think like how somebody else thinks?' vs affective empathy 'you feel like how somebody else feels'.
E: because if yes, I think you are quite right there.
Yes, precisely. The skill and practice of recognizing that another person has their own cognitions (instead of simply projecting your own on to them), and actively using perspective-taking in trying to understand them.
Going even further, I would define empathy as fundamentally recognizing another person as being a human being (and accepting everything that logically entails, knowing you yourself to be human).
I think you are correct in this yes. The lack of this skill would imho also lead to people shouting 'you are being illogical' while not realizing there is just a difference in perspectives and logic isn't really involved. (To make it sound a bit logic nerdy, people don't realize logic flows from assumptions and people can have different base assumptions, and it isn't illogical to simply not share assumptions).
But I do have heard nerdy people express the 'hmm I never realized I lack cognitive empathy' (in differn't words) in the past. And I certainly have also struggled with it.
There is some recognition of this in Rationalism with discussions of the Typical Mind Fallacy. The issue is that Rationalist attempt to then create simplified typologies of the kinds of cognition that exist and leave it at that. See for example Scott Alexander's writing about Blue/Red/Grey tribes, Conflict/Mistake theory, and high/low decoupling. Different kinds of thinking are recognized but are described in such a way that communicating with or learning from someone who thinks differently is completely denied.
the social sciences as they exist are just additional tools for these tools (ha! see what I did there?) to exploit people with. Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir studied at Frankfurt University with Habermas himself as his adviser. Zuckerberg studies the classics.
I’ve had a STEM education, and I somehow didn’t end up like
this, even as many people around me started to take that road. I still
don’t know why. Sometimes I tell myself my parents raised me
particularly well. Sometimes I think I was just lucky enough to grab the
right books or something. But the truth is I have no idea.
Crazy thing is, I used to find all that stuff funny, in part because
these guys are all English-speaking. So, being French, I tended to just
see them as “crazy American weirdos” or something. But in the last few
years, there’s been a whole crowd of guys calling themselves “penseurs
dissidents,” which is basically the equivalent of the “IDW,” and all
their talking points are word-for-word rehashes of the stuff I used to
see/hear two years ago on the English-speaking Internet, and they pull
all the same tricks. Worse, there’s almost no French-speaking content
mocking/debunking them, and most French people can’t be arsed to
read/listen to anything in English, so some people are under the
impression that their talking points must be 100% correct.
Same sort of stuff is happening here in .nl. [Thierry Baudet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Baudet) for example, has a lot of 'hmm I read about this bullshit 5-10 years ago' things.
> I somehow didn't end up like this, even as many people around me started to take that road. I still don't know why
I think I read too much science fiction as a kid. Even relatively enlightened scifi can can be ridiculously self-congratulatory about STEM capabilities.
> Crazy thing is, I used to find all that stuff funny, in part because these guys are all English-speaking. So, being French, I tended to just see them as "crazy American weirdos" or something.
C'mon, you guys have Houellebecq, he's like the patron saint of faux-deep reactionary edgelords
In Greece these sorts of people don't even take the trouble to translate the concepts they learned from English speaking internet, they just transfer them in English.
this is totally correct. in the beginning I thought we STEMlords were
making fun of artsies in a fun jokey way, with an implicit common
understanding that management kids were the lowest common denominator on
campus
as I slowly started realizing the horror that my friendly jousting
with artsies was giving cover to a wildly reactionary submissive drive
on the part of other engineers, it was too late. I was almost out the
gates.
those who don’t supplement their STEM with some critical reading are
doomed to find Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson impressive.
I remember my Philosophy of Science class had three other students: one other Phil major, a Physics major, and a Nursing student. The two STEM students were impressed when I explained to them what philosophy as a subject actually is other than "just another humanities" and, like, the basic rationale of the divisions of academic disciplines. Because how could there be Philosophy of Science if philosophy is just a humanities subject, like art history?
No joke, I remember the Physics guy, actually a friend of a friend of mine, halfway through the class, though clearly able to understand the relevance of the material, solving everything with the suggestion "What if we just pretend all this [Phil. of Sci.] stuff isn't a problem?"
Hell, every elective philosophy class I took would have some non-major complaining the class was harder than they expected.
i don’t actually think the social sciences is the cure fwiw these fields can be and have been just as reactionary but what gets me here is the insistence to stay as ignorant as possible while claiming to be having a debate
I’ve had a STEM education, and I somehow didn’t end up like this, even as many people around me started to take that road. I still don’t know why. Sometimes I tell myself my parents raised me particularly well. Sometimes I think I was just lucky enough to grab the right books or something. But the truth is I have no idea.
Crazy thing is, I used to find all that stuff funny, in part because these guys are all English-speaking. So, being French, I tended to just see them as “crazy American weirdos” or something. But in the last few years, there’s been a whole crowd of guys calling themselves “penseurs dissidents,” which is basically the equivalent of the “IDW,” and all their talking points are word-for-word rehashes of the stuff I used to see/hear two years ago on the English-speaking Internet, and they pull all the same tricks. Worse, there’s almost no French-speaking content mocking/debunking them, and most French people can’t be arsed to read/listen to anything in English, so some people are under the impression that their talking points must be 100% correct.
I did STEM and I have to say…
this is totally correct. in the beginning I thought we STEMlords were making fun of artsies in a fun jokey way, with an implicit common understanding that management kids were the lowest common denominator on campus
as I slowly started realizing the horror that my friendly jousting with artsies was giving cover to a wildly reactionary submissive drive on the part of other engineers, it was too late. I was almost out the gates.
those who don’t supplement their STEM with some critical reading are doomed to find Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson impressive.
I studied STEM and turned out normal.