Humanities programs issue a license for unlimited and liberal use of the term when you're admitted. Along with some others like "hegemon". Sprinkling those sorts of words in sentences when appropriate (and, if inept, when not) is part of code-switching to "humanitese".
Hmm, this kind of snarky response doesn't really add to the discussion. Why slam humanities programs now, when it's those very skills that will be needed to address many of the societal issues we face today?
Do you disagree that social workers, therapists, child care advocates, educators, economists, and yes - even historians, writers, and artists - will be arguably more important than scientists, engineers, and mathematicians when it comes to issues like stemming racism?
Maybe you don't like the word "systemic." How would you describe fundamental issues that cross economic, social, political, and legal lines?
I didn't slam a humanities education in my post—I applied one. Poorly, perhaps.
> Maybe you don't like the word "systemic."
I do, though. :-)
I intended to communicate that "systemic" is a very common word in certain (largish?) circles, maybe providing insight into its recent mainstream prominence. Since it was a short comment I took some liberty with the tone. I'd hoped the (rather gentle) "snark" would read ironically against the content, but may have missed the mark.
If you think that post meant I dislike the word "systemic" or hold it in contempt, you should try an academic literary critic's paper on their very favorite and most-highly-regarded novel. (Ooooh, more sick humanities burns based on semiotics and the sociology of academia! The hits keep on coming!)
I kind of like the word pervasive or entrenched. Personally I don't feel like the term systemic makes a lot of sense in the context it gets used. It doesn't sound as serious though which I imagine is part of the point.
Neither's a perfect synonym for "systemic", but "systemic" is sometimes thoughtlessly or reflexively applied when it's not quite correct. Though that's true of most words, really. When life hands you "systemic", everything's a nail.
> One of the aspects of Trustworthy Computing is that you can trust what's on your computer. Part of that means that there's absolutely NOTHING on your computer that isn't planned. If the manufacturer of the software that's on every desktop in your company can't stop their developers from sneaking undocumented features into the product (even features as relatively benign as an Easter Egg), how can you be sure that they've not snuck some other undocumented feature into the code.
Reminds me of a story that made it onto HN some months (years maybe? how time flies) back about an entrance exam prompt to some British university program requiring the candidate to craft a message defending some unsavory deed on the part of the UK government. That kind of "gaming" is super-common and very valuable in (for example) political science circles, so wasn't, per se, a bit weird or bad or even unusual, but was made to seem so for a headline.
[EDIT] specifically I think the prompt was something like "It's 10 years in the future, such-and-such party has control of government and can be assumed to hold policy positions basically the same as they do now. General world situation is X. The government has just violently put down mass protests over [something]. Craft a statement for the prime minister defending these actions as necessary for the preservation of the government and protection of general welfare." Which is a completely normal—if simple—sort of poli-sci exercise.
I though school entrance exams, particularly at the high school level, should be selecting for meritocratic principles such as competence and intelligence.
The reason it's controversial to some of us is that currently schools seem to be moving more and more toward selecting for obedience. This creates a feedback loop where the system selects for those that will not want to change it, but instead will play along.
It seems that when a system declares a purpose for an exam and then doesn't comply with that purpose, reasonable people would question it.
It also seems the feedback loops can be so intense the system selects those so willing and desirous to submit to authorities that they categorize anyone even questioning the system as 'ignorant' without any irony.
Being able to craft a statement justifying such an event, with all the mental gymnastics that might be involved if it's not a position you would support normally, is one step in recognizing those statements in real life.
If the student does support the action, accurately anticipating the objections of the other side and explaining why the action is justified in a way meant to mollify them is also useful.
Bottom line, being able to (or attempting to) write a PR document at that level requires a lot of understanding and thinking, and being willing to forego your initial prejudices to explore an idea as fully as possible. That's exactly what a good student does, so I can see why they thought this might be a useful exercise. I don't think a writing exercise causes "obedience" in any way.
Truthfully, I'm much more worried about what I see as the common trend of only viewing and reacting to the surface level of any event or topic, and immediately seeking others lend support and credence to that interpretation rather than trying to understand the motivations and purpose. That's always happened, but it seems to have become much more common.
>That's always happened, but it seems to have become much more common.
That seems like one of those things that has always been extremely common, but is difficult to see when reading history rather than news. People always justify their own thoughts and goals over trying to understand another point of view.
Yes, but I think the differences in the ability to disseminate criticism to a large audience over time have have changed how this affects society. That is, people have always done this, and probably always done it about the same amount, but haven't always had it visible to hundreds, thousands or millions of others as easily as it is now. That's not really what I said before, but I think better encapsulates what I mean (or, at least, what I mean now that you've forced me to think about it a bit deeper ;)
I understand that reaching billions of people seems scarier, but how does it really differ from being able to convince the entire Roman Senate with one skilled oration? Convincing either group could lead to horrendous acts being committed.
The main difference is that there are more people, they can interact more, and their opinions matter slightly more than in the past. Those things also allow us to understand the deeper motives and purposes far better than ever before, even if we still foolishly ignore them.
> Being able to craft a statement justifying such an event, with all the mental gymnastics that might be involved if it's not a position you would support normally, is one step in recognizing those statements in real life.
I did a Poli-Sci degree and this was a standard thing: write me an essay on a position. Cool, now write me a paper that is 100% against that position.
We had an instructor, a former US Navy officer, that required us to write an essay that was a 100% earnest defense of Al Qaeda's worldview. I ended up leaning heavily on "Jihad Vs McWorld" and "Clash of Civilizations", though I think the latter (Clash) isn't really valid or useful anymore.
> Bottom line, being able to (or attempting to) write a PR document at that level requires a lot of understanding and thinking, and being willing to forego your initial prejudices to explore an idea as fully as possible. That's exactly what a good student does, so I can see why they thought this might be a useful exercise. I don't think a writing exercise causes "obedience" in any way.
PR releases are as much about what you think about the issue, but also what you think that others will think about the issue. That does a good job of bringing out your prejudices, and challenges you to think about what their true goals are and why.
100% agree with you. But you are contradicting a point I never made. So... good job taking down your own strawman argument. It ironically really drives home the rest of your post.
I think the argument I laid out also applies towards selecting for obedience, in that it doesn't, at least not obedience to the state. It does select for people being able to follow the rules of the assignment in front of them, which is obedience, but I'm not really interested in a discussion about whether people should rebel against things like simple instructions for an assessment assignment.
> So... good job taking down your own strawman argument.
It would be easier to have a constructive discussion if you engaged with the point, rather than dismissed the argument out of hand. I think the points still apply, but since you've opted to either ignore them based on the assumption they don't apply, or have considered them and refuted them without explaining why, I'm now left to ask you which it is, and whether you can elaborate.
> It ironically really drives home the rest of your post.
Which part? That interpreting the position and arguments of others is hard work and requires skill? I agree with that. Hopefully you weren't implying I was only trying to to understand the position at a superficial level and looking for others to support me while being uninterested in what you're saying. I'm definitely not trying to do that, as evidenced by me replying to you, and engaging with you as to your meaning, and not just advertising to everyone else how wrong your position is without doing so.
First, giving a reply doesn't necessarily entail the person replying did so with a deep understanding for another's perspective. So I'm really not sure why you make that self serving logical step, but let's continue.
In terms of other people's perspective, oh, I see the value. When I was in college studying psychology, it's actually something we're taught to do to relate to patients. I've had to empathize professionally with people whose actions would make your stomach churn, I'm very familiar with the concept and the psychological mechanisms at play and the need for such open mindedness.
I'd absolutely want to see this question brought up by a professor in a class, but I think it's not very well fit for a 13-14 year old's university entrance exam. You can't possibly expect someone of that age to provide a nuance balanced answer so I don't think it's a good quality signal for an openness trait. In fact there's test for openness that have been devised by professionals, so if the university wanted to select for it, they could more objectively measure it. Based on this, I think we can agree the question is not very good for measuring openness.
To be clear, for older people this can be a good entrance question since it shows whether their inherent openness was developed or not. Given the context (13-14 year olds) one of 3 reasons you gave for using it is mostly gone.
Then you're left with it's value as an intelligence estimation. IQ tests are the gold standard for estimating intelligence. Since this type of question doesn't appear on IQ tests (for reasons that to some of us are really obvious), it also stands to reason it's not a very good question for that. So we've removed the 2nd reason you listed to ask it in an entrance exam.
Last in terms of communication, it would seem this type of question will result in very biased grading from the professors. To test the ability to communicate most academics use non-controversial topics. So again, not very useful for the purpose you state.
There was a specific decision to choose a pro-authority question to use for an entrance exam. Could this be random? Possibly.
But it seems in line with a current trend to select for obedience over competence. Since it's not particularly useful to it's stated purpose (as we've gone over) it makes sense it raises eye brows and it makes sense people question it. If there was no such trend, or if professionally developed test designed to objectively measure openness or IQ tests didn't exist, you'd have more of a point.
Notice how my language uses words like 'seem', 'appears', 'it would be reasonable', etc. I'm not saying I'm 100% right. I have a very nuanced and probabilistic point of view. But the parent comment I was answering to if you RTFA and RTFT and follow the conversation that you are jumping into, suggested that even thinking such a question to be controversy is mere 'ignorance'.
I believe I provided a reasonable argument against what I was answering to. And instead of continuing the thread with the kind of carefully crafted language and nuanced that I present, you ironically and sort of pedantically explained why it's important to consider other points of view without really getting my point. If someone doesn't agree with you, or if someone doesn't laugh at your joke, it isn't always because they didn't get it.
I highlighted the fact that you used the word 'causes' since it seems to highlight your lack of through thought toward answering my point, which to me qualifies as "reacting to the surface level of any ... topic". You seem more ready to answer than to understand. That's why I found it ironic and limited my original response to that part. Now since you insisted, you have my full perspective.
> First, giving a reply doesn't necessarily entail the person replying did so with a deep understanding for another's perspective. So I'm really not sure why you make that self serving logical step, but let's continue.
No, but that, and my follow up, means I was attempting to. We're supposed to engage here assuming good faith. I think that includes assuming someone that replies to you and makes arguments on points you've presented (or they think you've presented) is at least trying to understand the other's perspective. And that was what the last paragraph of my earlier comment was about, people stopping at that superficial level, or spreading an assumption of a stance around.
> You can't possibly expect someone of that age to provide a nuance balanced answer so I don't think it's a good quality signal for an openness trait.
Well, it's probably not a good signal for much of anything at that age if used in isolation. It's part of an entrance exam though, so it could be used in any number of ways, I imagine. It could also just be a matter of seeing how the applicants handle an unusual question and stressful question. My guess, given the age group it's targeted at, is that there's no (or very few) "wrong" answers, as long it's backed up. Is it the wrong answer for them to say they they think it was a mistake, and this is how they would relay the problem to the public, and apologize and/or assign blame?
> Then you're left with it's value as an intelligence estimation.
If we presume your assumptions about the reasons it may be in place are exhaustive, then yes. I prefer to assume at best we can approach closely understanding someone else's reasoning from outside observation. I think arguments that have "then all you're left with" generally assume far too much. As an example, in my prior paragraph I gave a possible reason to include it which you haven't covered so far. I could probably come up with one or two more. We aren't close to being able to say "than you're left with", or as I think it was intended to by synonymous to (but I may be wrong), "the only other explanation is".
> if you RTFA and RTFT and follow the conversation that you are jumping into, suggested that even thinking such a question to be controversy is mere 'ignorance'.
That's not how I interpret those comments. I specifically don't interpret them as "even thinking the problem is a controversy is ignorance". I do interpret the first comment from karatestomp as stating that they thought that the issue wasn't very controversial, and the second comment saying it played on people ignorance. I interpreted that as people ignorance of the details of the issue. That doesn't imply it's impossible to be upset about it based on the facts, just that the article is playing on people lack of knowledge regarding the facts.
> I believe I provided a reasonable argument against what I was answering to.
Specifically, I was referring to your response to me when I said you provided little explanation, and your words of that reply are below, in their entirety:
>> 100% agree with you. But you are contradicting a point I never made. So... good job taking down your own strawman argument. It ironically really drives home the rest of your post.
Which while possibly reasonable, wasn't entirely useful, IMO, so I asked for more information.
> you ironically and sort of pedantically explained why it's important to consider other points of view without really getting my point. If someone doesn't agree with you, or if someone doesn't laugh at your joke, it isn't always because they didn't get it.
I laid out some items I though fairly accurate and self evident in a factual manner. My actual argument was not stated so forcefully, and was I can see why they thought this might be a useful exercise. I don't think a writing exercise causes "obedience" in any way.
> I highlighted the fact that you used the word 'causes' since it seems to highlight your lack of through thought toward answering my point, which to me qualifies as "reacting to the surface level of any ... topic".
That wasn't actually the problematic behavior I was calling out. Reacting at a surface level will happen, it's human nature. I think the problematic behavior is what you do next, which is "and immediately seeking others lend support and credence to that interpretation rather than trying to understand the motivations and purpose." Engaging and attempting to understand a point of view, even if it's through argument and discussion, is not what I would consider problematic behavior.
Case in point, you reacted to the surface level of that, and missed what I was actually trying to communicate as what I saw as a problem. Calling someone out for that when they are already engaging is of little practical use, as I'm sure you're aware of at the moment, since it just happened to you. Unless you've run around promoting this misunderstanding as a prime example of someone else's bad behavior, you aren't really doing what I was talking about.
> Now since you insisted, you have my full perspective.
Yes, I do. Thank you. I still don't necessarily agree with you, but at least there was some discussion as to my points with regard to your argument.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. People are deeply different in their world perceptions.
I think you will love the Chinese saying of 'you can you up, no can no bibi'.
It does have a point I'll admit. But then we also need to consider the consequences of having such a perspective in the relationship between those who rule and those who are ruled. Most things are double edged swords. :)
> I think you will love the Chinese saying of 'you can you up, no can no bibi'.
Lol, after learning it the other day, I'm not sure, but I guess it depends on how it's used? I sort of view it as a recent version of "Haters gonna hate." :)
> But then we also need to consider the consequences of having such a perspective in the relationship between those who rule and those who are ruled.
Yeah. I'll fully admit that there's quite a lot of room for the item we were talking about to not be benign, and the consequences of it not being benign are pretty horrible.
It's one of those things where my stance is more along the lines of "well, it's not necessarily bad, and here's an example why." The caveat is that it should go along with "buuut... we should look closer to make sure it's mostly benign."
We agree. It's not necessarily bad. But it's also perfectly reasonable to be concerned.
I think the difference is that I see selection for obedience as something most institutions will do unconsciously. It's literally the primary function of any institution, to self preserve. And self preservation for a system means that it's parts cooperate to the maximum extent possible. So I think we need to have a strong push back against anything that COULD EVEN be an unconscious selection for obedience. Especially in institutions.
An individual professor choosing to bring these questions up would have a VERY different response from me. I'm very open minded and love exercises that promote that.
I'll continue to take the assumption that asking a (prospective) student to conduct an exercise involving a thought experiment implies support of the premises of the exercise on the part of those asking it, an expectation that the student supports them, or an attempt to shape the student to support them, as a sign of ignorance within at least the confines of what those sorts of questions are used and useful for.
That the position the student is asked to assume is a bit uncomfortable is very likely part of the point. Seeing what they make of it—the tone, the message, what they choose to add or leave out, how and whether they fill in the gaps in the prompt WRT the events, circumstances, the state of mind of the prime minister, the mood of the people, and so on, which are numerous, how and whether they balance all this with the particular limitations and goals of the message itself, or hell, whether they reject the prompt and walk out in a huff (bad) or do something else by ignoring all or part of the prompt and its explicit and implied constraints (potentially very good if done just right)—can all be useful, and in ways "craft a message about how awful this was and why it should never happen again" wouldn't be.
Oh, I see the value in ironmanning indefensible arguments.
There was a specific decision to choose a pro-authority question to use as an ironmanning example for an entrance exam. This seems in line with a current trend to select for obedience over competence. So it makes sense it raises eye brows. If there was no such trend, you'd have more of a point. BTW, I'm not saying it was 100% that, I don't know the specific case, just that it falls within certain patterns that people have every reason to be cautious towards.
The question could have been asked to ironman a racist, pedophile or abusive parent. The whole point of ironmanning is an exercise in reasoning, empathy and ability to see other's points even when wrong. So the less reasonable arguments exist, the more the exercise is being applied.
You can ask to ironman any argument, I'm not against that, it's actually something I practice. Just because I don't agree with this doesn't mean I'm ignorant or don't understand things. You assume much, which is ironic for someone talking about ignorance.
> Oh, I see the value in ironmanning indefensible arguments.
The original premise does not call for any such thing, though. The position is uncomfortable. It's far from indefensible. One can even adopt a position well outside what most would consider "authoritarian" and not render it indefensible—and which position the student is able to adopt, or feels they must adopt, to defend it, may be instructive. What else they do with the prompt, which is pretty open, is also valuable signal. Express any regrets? Shift blame? Cite history? Take responsibility? Make promises? Resign? Why does the student seem to have chosen to do these things? Do they do them effectively? This on top of having some basic ability to understand and articulate[1], if not agree with, any of the many common or uncommon positions that allow that state violence can be morally justifiable to maintain order.
> You assume much.
Yes.
[1 EDIT] Understand and articulate and express to a broad and diverse audience which includes many of the very people who were upset in the first place, that is! Simply quoting their preferred political philosopher won't do. The prompt in fact probably asks so much of the student that there's almost no hope they'll do a great job, but then, that's not the point—how much of the subtlety of the task to they even notice, and so attempt to take on? How effective is the attempt? It's a damn good prompt, really.
> not ... indefensible—and which position the student is able to adopt, or feels they must adopt, to defend it, may be instructive. What else they do with the prompt, which is pretty open, is also valuable signal. Express any regrets? Shift blame? Cite history? Take responsibility? Make promises? Resign?
From the article you are literally quoting and bringing up:
> Protesters ... Government has deployed the Army ... twenty-five protesters have been killed by the Army... Write the script for a speech to be broadcast to the nation in which you explain why employing the Army against violent protesters was the only option available to you and one which was both necessary and moral.
Either you are trolling or you are the type of person who doesn't let facts get in the way of making an argument. Either way, I'm done.
P.S. people who assume a lot generally get it wrong. Chomsky is not my favorite political guy. I tend to like Jordan Peterson more as he speaks more to my libertarian tendencies. But again, don't let facts get in the way of you making a caricature of what I think so you can attack it. There's plenty of people who basically play out the white version of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrYbMbudILQ
Yes, I read it. I double-checked to make sure it wasn't actually anywhere near indefensible from most main-stream perspectives on the role of the state first, in fact. Which part makes it indefensible? Why might it have been the only (acceptable, reasonable, effective; any of those might be assumed to be implied and which one chooses might matter) option available? Context from the full prompt might help there. Why might that have been necessary? (Ditto). Which obligations might prompt the prime minister to consider that necessary? How could meeting those obligations, despite the cost, be moral? How could those things be reasonably seen as true?
Not one of those seems anywhere near an insurmountable challenge, even without going all jack-booted. Do they? How's it an indefensible position? It's tense and uncomfortable and grey, but not indefensible nor even requiring an extreme perspective to defend it.
[EDIT]
> P.S. people who assume a lot generally get it wrong. Chomsky is not my favorite political guy. I tend to like Jordan Peterson more as he speaks more to my libertarian tendencies. But again, don't let facts get in the way of you making a caricature of what I think so you can attack it.
Where'd I imply (what I gather you think I thought) that you're a leftist? For that matter where'd I imply I'm not, or that I don't have libertarian tendencies/sympathies? In fact this new information fits my model of what I reckoned your perspective to be pretty spot-on, so if I'd incorporated that into a caricature of you (where's that, incidentally?) I suppose I'd have nailed it.
Quoting someone != saying someone is my preferred political guy. It's a strawman argument. I also never said you implied me to be leftist or even mentioned anything about left/right divide. I was simply pointing out that my preferred political philosopher has a 180 degree different perspective than the one you literally said was my preferred political philosopher. Proving you were assuming incorrectly. Oddly you used the fact that you got it wrong to prove you had me pinned correctly from the start.
Creating strawman arguments is particularly ironic from someone who is basically arguing in favor of learning to create ironmanning arguments.
To be clear, I can create an ironman argument for this type of position, and even for less defensible positions. As stated, it's actually not that hard compared to creating an ironman for an abusive parent. I'm not an extremist and have very moderate positions. This type of exercise IS valuable in a political science class and philosophy.
When I was in college studying psychology, it's actually something we're taught to do to relate to patients. I've had to empathize professionally with people whose actions would make your stomach churn, I'm very familiar with the concept and the psychological mechanisms at play. Having said that, this type of question has no place on a generic entrance exam, let alone an entrance exam for high school kids which should select for potential and intelligence, not obedience or ability to see nuance at the age of 14. It's a good thought exercise though I never denied that.
But please, again, don't let facts and reality get in the way of the narrative you are creating with your powers of assumption and strawmanning. Admitting you were assuming incorrectly would be inconceivable. You do you boo and stick with your original line of thought: I'm simply ignorant or I'd agree with you.
This is very confusing. I believe you've entirely misread the bit of my post you quoted here and taken it to be about your mentioning Chomsky. Particularly at issue is to whom "their" refers.
I took your accusing me of caricaturing you (where?) based on your quoting Chomsky to mean you thought I thought you were a leftist (phew). I'm still not sure what else that accusation could be taken to mean.
As for the matter at hand, you seem to think (wrote that) the position the students were asked to defend qualifies as indefensible and defending it represents "iron manning" (I know it as steel-manning but that probably just means we read different things) and that the value it has is (roughly) comparable to any other exercise in iron-manning.
It's not at all clear to me that this is the case and I'm pretty sure the value of the exercise is, in a sense, well past that issue. I think its use in an evaluation is precisely in the layers it presents—a student who gets hung up on steel-manning the position, especially if they've mis-read the prompt as stating things about the prime minister, government, and situation which it does not and so has read them as harder to defend per se than they actually are, hasn't even noticed the difficult part of the prompt, nor what actually might be indefensible about it, which is the political position the prime minister is in—and defending that well would be very unlike steel-manning an argument one disagrees with.
It is a good exercise, but it is not a steel-manning exercise.
> But please, again, don't let facts and reality get in the way of the narrative you are creating with your powers of assumption and strawmanning. I'm probably just unable to grasp your position since according to you I'm ignorant.
But... well, heh. Ignorance is one of those words that's very risky to use narrowly or precisely, that's for sure. I almost avoided it for that reason. Assumptions can lead to mistakes, it's true.
1- We fundamentally don't agree, you think I'm irrational on this topic and I think you are. That's fine. Personally I believe that any conversation that doesn't involve disagreement is not intelligent, it's dogmatic. So I have no problem agreeing to disagree. In my country they say 'no one owns the truth'.
2- Your fundamental position from the beginning was: agree with you or I'm ignorant. This is not only arrogant, but extremely ironic in a series of posts where you are arguing that people should be more open minded to what they don't like and more self aware of the limitations of their perspective.
3- You are correct, the term I meant to use was Steel-manning. I used ironmanning incorrectly and was wrong for using the wrong words. I always feel anything less than a direct first person acknowledgement shows an appalling lack of intellectual honesty (especially doing things like using 3rd person language to distance myself from my own shortcomings). I'll add also that I was not educated in English and grew up in a non-English speaking culture, so please bear with me on these types of mistakes.
4- Indefensible is a relative position. There are people who defend every conceivable position. So I should have used a more apt choice of words such as 'generally revolting', which more accurately depicts general feelings held by most people toward the army killing civilians on American soil. I thank you for highlighting this as it will allow me to more accurately communicate.
> 1- We fundamentally don't agree, you think I'm irrational on this topic and I think you are. That's fine. Personally I believe that any conversation that doesn't involve disagreement is not intelligent, it's dogmatic. So I have no problem agreeing to disagree. In my country they say 'no one owns the truth'.
Could be, but I do not think you're irrational. I am pretty sure you misread the prompt and suspect (that it's at least in part because) you're not used to these kinds of things—specifically, thought-experiment prompts in this kind of format and having this sort of character.
> 2- Your fundamental position from the beginning was: agree with you or I'm ignorant. This is not only arrogant, but extremely ironic in a series of posts where you are arguing that people should be more open minded to what they don't like and more self aware of the limitations of their perspective.
I think seeing the prompt as pro-authoritarian or as asking the candidate to empathize with an authoritarian position is likely the result of misreading. Seeing that as the primary difficulty or challenge in fully addressing the prompt would represent a further misunderstanding. I actually think its inviting this misreading without being overtly misleading or deceitful is very clever for a prompt like this, and probably improves its utility as a tool for evaluation.
I think any amount of concern that this prompt is part of or representative of some authoritarian grooming or selection process, intentional or otherwise, probably does betray ignorance specifically of how these kinds of questions are used and the character they often take, especially given that, by my reading, the degree to which it's "authoritarian" doesn't place it outside the mainstream of Western liberalism any time since there was such a thing (and I think not being used to these sorts of prompts or questions is likely to manifest as misreading it in the first place).
[omitted: A lengthy analysis of the prompt, including exactly what it says and doesn't say, and what it asks and doesn't ask, and how, as it went over the post-length limit. In short I'm even more convinced that a reading of it as pro-authoritarian, or especially that the primary focus or greatest challenge of a good response would be to empathize with and defend authoritarianism even if it plays along very closely with the premise and request, is all quite off the mark. The main challenge is tailoring a message to an audience to achieve a (not specified by the prompt, crucially!) goal.]
Your bringing up points we've gone over already and which I answered. Like where I talk about my university experience with such thought experiments. But never mind that. According to you, I've never seen such thought experiments.
According to you, I'm ignorant for not agreeing with you. Such a way of seeing things (combined with your reading comprehension skills) must make life really hard. So I'll concede and say sure, you're right buddy and I'm simply an ignoramus.
I hope you have a great evening and I wish you all the best in life (truly and honestly)
People have been making the point long before Chomsky. Education for the masses is about training people to fit into domination based hierarchies[1]. In the past such systems produced better outcomes.
As info explodes and people learn there are other structures besides Hierarchies that can produce outcomes (such as Networks) the Hierarchies start teetering. And training for obedience becomes less important.
Bill Deresiewicz made a similar point in his book Excellent Sheep. Students are rewarded for conforming and following the designated educational path. But is that really what we want?
> Can I agree with his overall premise but disagree with thinking that scheduling weekly one-on-one's with your wife is in any way a good idea?
Some folks have a gut-level extremely bad reaction to structuring or treating relationships (romantic or otherwise) "scientifically" or in some structured way. I'm one of them. Grosses me out as surely as seeing maggots burrowing in my steak. It's not rational and goes against everything I rationally believe about the power of systems and environment to engineer success, and I've had to learn to work against that feeling pretty often, but, there you go. Knowing that doesn't get rid of the feeling and tendency toward aversion.
I suspect the people making posts that "pissed off" OP were largely having this reaction and didn't get that not everyone has it.
> It's not rational and goes against everything [...]
It's a justified reaction to how corporations work[0]. Similar to how people feel viceral revulsion at burn scars, even though burn scars are not in any way contagious, (in part) because they look similar to horrible skin diseases that are quite contagious.
It's (probably) unfair in this particular case, but it's not at all unjustified.
0: As usual, someone more eloquent than me has put it:
"This company is my dream. ...And it's built from the dreams of people who work here. Just the way this building is built out of stone."
"This building is made of concrete. Actually. [...] Stone that's been ripped out of the ground, pulverized, mixed with foreign materials, and forced into molds to fit the will of the designer. Stone that bears no resemblance to its original form."
Fridges are one of those product categories for which the magic of the free market misses completely for me.
I want a basic fridge with maybe $200, tops (manufacturing & material cost) of improvements to things that actually matter (castors on drawers make a huge difference for the feel of fridge drawers, for example) + non-ugly exterior. Counter depth (so less material!). No ice maker, no water integrated, none of that stuff. Certainly no damn screens. Just a compressor with a cabinet. A good and useful layout, or "UX" if you prefer (this adds no cost, or very little, past the initial design, which can be re-used indefinitely). I will pay a $600-800 premium over the most basic model for this, retail. Call it $1500.
... but in fact the nice parts I want aren't available except on very "high-end" models that start at like $2.5k from a dent-n-ding outlet (let alone full retail) with tons of extra crap, and you pay significantly more for counter depth in most cases (I guess economies of scale make them solidly 10% more expensive, despite the savings in materials?). It sucks, I just want a basic fridge that looks & feels nice and doesn't stick out into my kitchen like some kind of menacing mechanical monster, but is not a rip-off. Pretty much doesn't exist.
[EDIT] actually it's fair to say that "nice, simple, and reasonably priced for the extras it takes to achieve 'nice'" is a category markets often fail to deliver for me. They seem to be great at delivering cheap and crappy, cheap and kinda OK (think: all non-Ikea flat-pack furniture for the former, Ikea for the latter), expensive and crappy, and expensive and actually good. There's a middle-market that seemingly never gets served and sends me looking for antiques, when possible. I suspect the reason for these outcomes boil down to information asymmetry, like lots of problems with markets.
Many manufacturers sell to retailers under a unilateral minimum price policy. You can buy from the manufacturer and stock your showroom, but you are not allowed to mark it below a certain price. You'll also see payments from the manufacturer to the retailer in the form of "advertising support" to drive certain models. So you'll end up with a retailer:
* Paying $500 per unit (A) which they cannot mark below $399, but buying a certain amount at a loss to receive a payment from the manufacturer for paper/web/TV advertisements contingent on including A in the advertisement and possibly even presenting it in a certain way on the sales floor (endcap, front display, etc.)
* Paying $450 per unit for unit (B) which they cannot mark below $599
The goal for the retailer is then obviously to buy as few of the first unit as possible to get the manufacturer payment and then push as many customers as possible to buy the second. The manufacturer is happy because unit A was last year's model rebadged and they could clear inventory and move towards retiring it.
The real top end items are sold under unilateral fixed pricing: you pay $X and must retail it for $Y. Manufacturers have people employed to mystery shop and look for violations. If a retailer marks up or marks down, they are blacklisted. Possibly for all lines, not just the marquee brand - depends on your sales.
Unfortunately, it's my understanding that Speed Queen has also succumbed to the cost-cutting measures of plastic parts and things that can't be replaced / repaired easily.
Do most libraries use static types? Or have something widely-used and well-supported available like the @types project for TypeScript to provide them, fairly seamlessly, to consumers of those libraries?
Some projects do, yes. Django, for example, has a library to provide types. In my experience, types are useful even just in my own application, since the libraries I use tend to generally only accept simple/fundamental types anyway. Things could definitely be better when it comes to library type support, though, I agree.
> Are you using an actual GraphDB like Neo4J? Are you putting a graph frontend on Postgres like PostGraphQL? None of the post really makes any sense because GraphQL is a Query Language, not a data store. What are the CAP theorem tradeoffs in the new backend? What does more robust mean? What does more performant mean? This is a source control app. Those tradeoffs are meaningful.
GraphQL isn't particularly "graphy". Its name sucks. But don't worry, plenty of half-techy middle managers are out there making the same mistake and going "we do graph things, why don't you guys look into this GraphQL thing that's getting so much buzz?" It's not a great fit for graph operations, in fact. Not more than SQL, certainly.
As for N4J in particular, don't count on that to improve performance even if you're doing lots of graph stuff. Depends heavily on your usage patterns and it's very easy to modify a query in a way that seems like it'd be fine but in fact makes performance fall off a cliff. OTOH Cypher, unlike GraphQL, is a very nice language for querying graphs.
There are automagic GraphQL layers that sort-of make sense to me, since at least they remove the biggest pain points. But AFAIK they're all single-database.
Actually stitching together multiple services or DBs with it manually seems like it'd be a hellish experience that'd end in a massive data breech or repeated accidental dataloss + restore-from-backup. Or else valid GraphQL going to such a system would be so restricted that the benefit over just using REST (or whatever) is zero.
I don’t get why WSL is better than a Linux VM in hyper-v or virtual box, until it’s way smoother than it currently is. You can full screen the VM to work entirely in dwm or i3 or whatever if that’s your thing, plus Xpra and SSH exist if you want to run Linux stuff alongside Windows (I assume there are free clients for both in Windows?). With that way of working you can even run Linux somewhere else to offload the resource use almost entirely, and if local it takes seconds to suspend the whole thing.
The last thing I’d want, working with Linux tools, is to have another thing I have to eliminate as a source of trouble when anything breaks.
Aha. Is this how folks actually attain worthwhile rates of return on very low-return, low-risk investments?
[EDIT] well no that can't be it because it requires even more money coming in for those loans, which can't provide more expected return than the bonds they're buying or the whole thing would be pointless.
