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Layperson here, I'll do my best to parse: > People assume that postmodernism is an attempt by the left to weaponize rhetoric for their own ends. Some people s

Layperson here, I'll do my best to parse: > People assume that postmodernism is an attempt by the left to weaponize rhetoric for their own ends. Some people say postmodernism is a way of giving intellectual superiority to left wing political rhetoric > But the right has already weaponized rhetoric. They started it (presumably with religion) > Postmodernism is more like "defense against the dark arts". Postmodernism is the bullshit we use against their bullshit. > Yes, much of the work of e.g. Derrida sounds like long-form trolling, because it is. U mad bro? > It's a form of culture jamming to disrupt the cognitive processes by which we accept things as Derrida is psychological warfare. > "truth" or "reality" Postmodernists make for shitty programmers

danharaj 10y ago
> Postmodernists make for shitty programmers Honestly? I get that people are skeptical and dismissive of postmodernism, but this is just petty tribalism with no basis in fact. Not every programmer is a staunch right-libertarian even though that's the stereotype. Maybe it would surprise you to meet programmers well versed in the humanities that respect or even identify with postmodernism. Human ideologies are absurd, postmodernism is just the investigation of how absurd they are. Here's how to apply postmodernism to science in order to improve science: it helps you identify and analyze the power structures and processes that regulate and sustain the actual act of doing science. If there are systemic biases or failures within those structures they will impact the quality of the science you're doing. There is "objective" knowledge in science, but there's also absolute garbage, and there's no ideological argument to tell them apart. Ideology influences the way we observe and interpret evidence. It even shapes the kind of experiments we run, and the kind of hypotheses we propose. It won't make you misinterpret a thermometer, but science is scarcely ever as simple as aiming a sensor at a piece of spacetime and reading the output.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- 131012 10y ago
  Nowadays postmodernism is mostly used to portray someone and then deploy a critique. It is a rhetorical offensive tool. I understand your need to defend left-leaning coders and to understand the ideological underpinnings of modern science, but I suggest you update your conceptual framework, just as you should be wary using an unsupported browser.
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    Update it to what, I wonder?
    - danharaj 10y ago
      "Objectivity", "rationalism", "freedom", or some other totally non-ideological word, I'm sure.
      - 131012 10y ago
        My point is that I know no contemporary scholar claiming to be postmodernist and I am not aware of recent efforts to build on this theory. I might err, as it is impossible to read everything. What I have witnessed is that people use postmodernism as a strawman, usually in a reactionary stance. This article is no exception, even if it brings some interesting points debated in other comments. As a serious answer to a somewhat rhetorical question: Some have suggested realism and I find their endeavor interesting. This book is one good example. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674004122&content=reviews http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674004122&co...
        danharaj 10y ago
        That's probably because postmodernism isn't a theory. It's a very broad term that encompasses many, many responses to Modernism and the politics of that era. Critical theory is alive and well, especially in law. I do love me some good critical theory since it's effective application can dismantle most ideologies that refuse to acknowledge their basis in violence. I don't think anyone is a "critical theorist" but it's certainly a tool many scholars use. Postmodernism had a lot of fruits. Some of them are still perfectly juicy and nutritious and some turned out to be bitter and indigestible. Certainly, I would prefer to discuss the weirdest pomo over the vulgar scientism that's popular around here :)
SuperPaintMan 10y ago
>Postmodernists make for shitty programmers But yes. post modern word salad is pretty damn meaningless most of the time. Unless there is a oscillation between an objective-proven framework and the relativist nonsense wonders of the subjective getting lost in tulpa-creation is fairly easy. There needs to be checks and bounds, or at least something to contrast against. Metamodernity evolved out of the past years of postmodern headwankery and the absolute ridginess of modernity before hand. Balance is key, see BlackBox, Ronkko, Turner, Shia Labeouf, etc. Metamodernism [1] [2] The compiler is the arbiter of truth, error messages the concrete we come to upon smelling of rye. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EVb8bwuM54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EVb8bwuM54 [2] https://theblackbox.ca/api https://theblackbox.ca/api
wpietri 10y ago
I don't have much opinion on the rest of your translation, but I think this gets it wrong: > Postmodernists make for shitty programmers To me one of the big differences with postmodernism is a deep skepticism for grand overarching theories and perfect understandings. I think that's an immensely useful trait for a programmer. The more I code, the more I treat any digital representation as a deeply distorted image of the reality I'm dealing with. The best I can do is have the distortions match my user's purpose. As Box wrote, "All models are wrong; some models are useful." The modernist continues to seek the perfect model. The postmodernist treats perfection as a fool's errand and ships something that works well enough. I have seen this problem over and over in my career; a lot of architecture astronautics strikes me as rooted in modernism. But perhaps a good example that everybody can look at is early concepts of AI vs today's machine learning. When I compare Cyc [1], which has spent 30 years trying to build the seeds of perfect knowledge versus today's deep learning, that strikes me as a postmodern shift. How does a convolutional neural network recognize a dog? We don't exactly know, not in a way that makes much sense to us. [2] But we don't care. The convnet has its own very bounded, limited version of "truth"; as long as we get a 90% match, we ship it and go out for beers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyc [2] https://blog.keras.io/how-convolutional-neural-networks-see-the-world.html https://blog.keras.io/how-convolutional-neural-networks-see-...

danharaj 10y ago

> Postmodernists make for shitty programmers Honestly? I get that people are skeptical and dismissive of postmodernism, but this is just petty tribalism with no basis in fact. Not every programmer is a staunch right-libertarian even though that's the stereotype. Maybe it would surprise you to meet programmers well versed in the humanities that respect or even identify with postmodernism. Human ideologies are absurd, postmodernism is just the investigation of how absurd they are. Here's how to apply postmodernism to science in order to improve science: it helps you identify and analyze the power structures and processes that regulate and sustain the actual act of doing science. If there are systemic biases or failures within those structures they will impact the quality of the science you're doing. There is "objective" knowledge in science, but there's also absolute garbage, and there's no ideological argument to tell them apart. Ideology influences the way we observe and interpret evidence. It even shapes the kind of experiments we run, and the kind of hypotheses we propose. It won't make you misinterpret a thermometer, but science is scarcely ever as simple as aiming a sensor at a piece of spacetime and reading the output.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
131012 10y ago
Nowadays postmodernism is mostly used to portray someone and then deploy a critique. It is a rhetorical offensive tool. I understand your need to defend left-leaning coders and to understand the ideological underpinnings of modern science, but I suggest you update your conceptual framework, just as you should be wary using an unsupported browser.
- jschwartzi 10y ago
  Update it to what, I wonder?
  - danharaj 10y ago
    "Objectivity", "rationalism", "freedom", or some other totally non-ideological word, I'm sure.
    - 131012 10y ago
      My point is that I know no contemporary scholar claiming to be postmodernist and I am not aware of recent efforts to build on this theory. I might err, as it is impossible to read everything. What I have witnessed is that people use postmodernism as a strawman, usually in a reactionary stance. This article is no exception, even if it brings some interesting points debated in other comments. As a serious answer to a somewhat rhetorical question: Some have suggested realism and I find their endeavor interesting. This book is one good example. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674004122&content=reviews http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674004122&co...
      - danharaj 10y ago
        That's probably because postmodernism isn't a theory. It's a very broad term that encompasses many, many responses to Modernism and the politics of that era. Critical theory is alive and well, especially in law. I do love me some good critical theory since it's effective application can dismantle most ideologies that refuse to acknowledge their basis in violence. I don't think anyone is a "critical theorist" but it's certainly a tool many scholars use. Postmodernism had a lot of fruits. Some of them are still perfectly juicy and nutritious and some turned out to be bitter and indigestible. Certainly, I would prefer to discuss the weirdest pomo over the vulgar scientism that's popular around here :)

SuperPaintMan 10y ago

>Postmodernists make for shitty programmers But yes. post modern word salad is pretty damn meaningless most of the time. Unless there is a oscillation between an objective-proven framework and the relativist nonsense wonders of the subjective getting lost in tulpa-creation is fairly easy. There needs to be checks and bounds, or at least something to contrast against. Metamodernity evolved out of the past years of postmodern headwankery and the absolute ridginess of modernity before hand. Balance is key, see BlackBox, Ronkko, Turner, Shia Labeouf, etc. Metamodernism [1] [2] The compiler is the arbiter of truth, error messages the concrete we come to upon smelling of rye. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EVb8bwuM54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EVb8bwuM54 [2] https://theblackbox.ca/api https://theblackbox.ca/api

wpietri 10y ago

I don't have much opinion on the rest of your translation, but I think this gets it wrong: > Postmodernists make for shitty programmers To me one of the big differences with postmodernism is a deep skepticism for grand overarching theories and perfect understandings. I think that's an immensely useful trait for a programmer. The more I code, the more I treat any digital representation as a deeply distorted image of the reality I'm dealing with. The best I can do is have the distortions match my user's purpose. As Box wrote, "All models are wrong; some models are useful." The modernist continues to seek the perfect model. The postmodernist treats perfection as a fool's errand and ships something that works well enough. I have seen this problem over and over in my career; a lot of architecture astronautics strikes me as rooted in modernism. But perhaps a good example that everybody can look at is early concepts of AI vs today's machine learning. When I compare Cyc [1], which has spent 30 years trying to build the seeds of perfect knowledge versus today's deep learning, that strikes me as a postmodern shift. How does a convolutional neural network recognize a dog? We don't exactly know, not in a way that makes much sense to us. [2] But we don't care. The convnet has its own very bounded, limited version of "truth"; as long as we get a 90% match, we ship it and go out for beers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyc [2] https://blog.keras.io/how-convolutional-neural-networks-see-the-world.html https://blog.keras.io/how-convolutional-neural-networks-see-...