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It's impossible to take you seriously when you use Stalin's Five Year Plans as evidence that "Intellectuals" are negative. That's a flawed argument on so many

It's impossible to take you seriously when you use Stalin's Five Year Plans as evidence that "Intellectuals" are negative. That's a flawed argument on so many levels: 1) It's ridiculous to conflate modern science and Stalin. It's worse than ridiculous. 2) Even if you can somehow convince yourself that it's reasonable to treat Stalin and modern scientists as a homogenous pool, Stalin's actions worked out quite well for Stalin. Which was pretty obviously his goal. 3) Your core argument is 'some systematic approaches to understanding have failed; so we should give up'. That's defeatist nonsense. 4) Your secondary argument is the intellectuals are actually good (and you pretend to respect them), but some aren't, therefore intellectuals are bad. That's not even an argument. Please down vote me if you are an extremist ideologue.

throwanem 10y ago
Take a breath.
- sillyarg 10y ago
  It just sucks that the HN mods think it's fine for dishonest ideological warriors like Jerf to casually conflate modern academia and Stalin, just because he did so without using profanity. It's such an intense and personal attack; and it's so wildly dishonest... It completely eliminates all possibility of a useful conversation in a single sentence. It's poo.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    I think you're taking something personally that isn't at all intended that way, and I think that's making it difficult for you to appreciate the nuance in the statement to which you've responded. I understand why and I don't blame you for it, but I hope you're able to take a step back from the passion of the moment and reconsider; on the one hand, I think there's useful insight here, and on the other, I know it's not pleasant to feel yourself put so thoroughly on the defensive that you have to respond this aggressively, and I'm sorry to see anyone go through that, especially when it may not actually be necessary. 'jerf didn't say that academia is evil because Stalin, but rather that intellectualism which becomes too far divorced from reality can be an extremely dangerous force; he cited Soviet central economic planning as an extreme example of the sort of danger to which he refers. I don't think it is controversial to say that Soviet economic policies were derived primarily from a political theory which was developed by people whom it's accurate to describe as "intellectuals", in the demonymic usage we seem to be taking as conventional in this thread. I also don't think it's controversial to say that these policies produced widespread, severe privation among the population on whom they were tried. And I don't think it is accurate, or fair, to say that 'jerf meant this example as a general indictment of modern academia. Nothing in his comment seems to me to suggest anything of the sort. But I can see how, if I were myself an academic and an "intellectual", I might take some of what he did say as a very direct attack on my identity and sense of self-worth, and respond to that rather than to the arguments actually being made. I hope I'm not coming across as patronizing here. I'm really not trying to be. It's just that, as a tradesman, I don't really have a dog in this fight, and as someone who's worked among academics in the past, I've had the opportunity to develop some insight into some patterns of thought which people who work in that paradigm might share. Among those, I think, is a general feeling of being constantly under attack by a populace which is both ignorant of what science and academia actually do, on the one hand, and on the other deliberately misinformed by a variety of demagogues for their own political benefit. It wouldn't surprise me to see someone, who is accustomed to what I'd almost call this siege mentality, to react aggressively to anything which looked even a little like a critical analysis of the value of academia or intellectualism as a whole. It's very natural to respond in such fashion to an attack on one's livelihood. But I don't think what is going on here really is such an attack, and maybe the conversation we could all have about what 'jerf is saying would be more interesting and mutually satisfactory than the one we currently seem to be having. Either that, or I'm completely wrong about what's going on and I've totally misread the entire situation. I don't think that's the case, but how can I be sure?
    - rbanffy 10y ago
      > he cited Soviet central economic planning as an extreme example of the sort of danger to which he refers. Any intellectualism that's divorced from reality and impervious to critique and verification does not deserve to be called intellectualism. It's ideology. There's nothing preventing you from making 5 year plans, as long as you adjust them continuously enough. The word to best describe the Soviet "intellectuals" you mentioned would be "ideologue". A less polite way would be "a sold-out who sells credibility to a government that pays for it".
      - jerf 10y ago
        "Any intellectualism that's divorced from reality and impervious to critique and verification does not deserve to be called intellectualism." True, but that's a definitional debate. I would be happy to see the huge pile of ideology today masquerading as academia correctly renamed, but before that can happen it seems a lot of people (in the general sense, not targeting this statement at any individual) must be introduced to the idea that there are a lot of things currently labeled "academic" that are just ideology. It's hard because you have to separate it on a case-by-case basis. I'm broadly unimpressed by most of what is called sociology but Jonathon Haidt particularly impresses me, for instance. I'm sure there are others who would impress me if I took the time to learn. But the field as a whole seem to have a gestalt consensus that strikes me as quite resistant to falsification.
        rbanffy 10y ago
        It's very hard to falsify something when you can't run experiments and the number of samples is very limited and the subject of your study changes all the time. Even something supposedly more grounded like Economics suffers from both humans that are not perfectly rational and from "theories" that are nothing more than propaganda (think Mises)
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
jerf 10y ago
"1) It's ridiculous to conflate modern science and Stalin." First of all, I absolutely place Communism in the domain of "intellectualism". The only reason to do otherwise is simply because it failed and you don't want the stain of Communism on the word "intellectualism", but there is no other reason. It was, and remains, an intellectual-driven movement, since Communism is hardly dead. It is impossible to understand it from any other point of view. There were no Communist revolutions I know of led and driven by "the people". There were no Communist revolutions I know of where "the people" ended up in charge, rather than an intellectual who drove it. It started with intellectuals sitting around and theorizing, and was continued by other intellectuals taking the theories as truth and then trying to put them into practice despite the complete lack of evidence in their favor. (One can't help but feel that the fact that it flatters their egos played a significant role.) If there weren't communist intellectuals still running around today, I would let it go, but it is absolutely one of the things I had in mind that are still alive that should have died decades ago. Secondly... Five Year Plans are alive and well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China And I hear the phrase from other places every so often as well. The idea that you can make grandiose plan years in advance is hardly dead. (The word "grandiose" is not extraneous. I have multi-year plans to pay off my mortgage, for instance, but that's not "grandiose".) While I fully intended the Stalinist overtones, the general criticism is about glorious planning disconnected from reality, which many large institutions (governments, corporations, etc.) become prone to. Finally, you missed the true core of the post, which is that I have contempt for so-called intellectuals who react to the failure of their theories by clinging to them all the harder. One of the things about being an intellectual is that you have the mental firepower to rationalize harder than the common man, and I have contempt for those who use their mental firepower that way. Words and theories must not take priority over the facts on the ground. That way lies madness. I do not theorize about how that way lies madness because I need merely look out at the facts on the ground and see a wide variety of "intellectuals" propounding insane theories with epicycles piled on epicycles that they should have given up decades ago, some of which have had devastating consequences on the world. For instance, I lay the bulk of the blame for the obesity epidemic on certain intellectual's disastrous failure to notice how blindingly wrong their theories about healthy eating were when the evidence was staring them in the face (and gut, and thighs, and heart, and cholesterol, ....). So if I seem a bit incensed about false intellectualism, it's this sort of thing that leads me in that direction. Most fat slobs you see waddling down the road next to you are caused by false intellectualism by my reckoning.

throwanem 10y ago

Take a breath.

sillyarg 10y ago
It just sucks that the HN mods think it's fine for dishonest ideological warriors like Jerf to casually conflate modern academia and Stalin, just because he did so without using profanity. It's such an intense and personal attack; and it's so wildly dishonest... It completely eliminates all possibility of a useful conversation in a single sentence. It's poo.
- throwanem 10y ago
  I think you're taking something personally that isn't at all intended that way, and I think that's making it difficult for you to appreciate the nuance in the statement to which you've responded. I understand why and I don't blame you for it, but I hope you're able to take a step back from the passion of the moment and reconsider; on the one hand, I think there's useful insight here, and on the other, I know it's not pleasant to feel yourself put so thoroughly on the defensive that you have to respond this aggressively, and I'm sorry to see anyone go through that, especially when it may not actually be necessary. 'jerf didn't say that academia is evil because Stalin, but rather that intellectualism which becomes too far divorced from reality can be an extremely dangerous force; he cited Soviet central economic planning as an extreme example of the sort of danger to which he refers. I don't think it is controversial to say that Soviet economic policies were derived primarily from a political theory which was developed by people whom it's accurate to describe as "intellectuals", in the demonymic usage we seem to be taking as conventional in this thread. I also don't think it's controversial to say that these policies produced widespread, severe privation among the population on whom they were tried. And I don't think it is accurate, or fair, to say that 'jerf meant this example as a general indictment of modern academia. Nothing in his comment seems to me to suggest anything of the sort. But I can see how, if I were myself an academic and an "intellectual", I might take some of what he did say as a very direct attack on my identity and sense of self-worth, and respond to that rather than to the arguments actually being made. I hope I'm not coming across as patronizing here. I'm really not trying to be. It's just that, as a tradesman, I don't really have a dog in this fight, and as someone who's worked among academics in the past, I've had the opportunity to develop some insight into some patterns of thought which people who work in that paradigm might share. Among those, I think, is a general feeling of being constantly under attack by a populace which is both ignorant of what science and academia actually do, on the one hand, and on the other deliberately misinformed by a variety of demagogues for their own political benefit. It wouldn't surprise me to see someone, who is accustomed to what I'd almost call this siege mentality, to react aggressively to anything which looked even a little like a critical analysis of the value of academia or intellectualism as a whole. It's very natural to respond in such fashion to an attack on one's livelihood. But I don't think what is going on here really is such an attack, and maybe the conversation we could all have about what 'jerf is saying would be more interesting and mutually satisfactory than the one we currently seem to be having. Either that, or I'm completely wrong about what's going on and I've totally misread the entire situation. I don't think that's the case, but how can I be sure?
  - rbanffy 10y ago
    > he cited Soviet central economic planning as an extreme example of the sort of danger to which he refers. Any intellectualism that's divorced from reality and impervious to critique and verification does not deserve to be called intellectualism. It's ideology. There's nothing preventing you from making 5 year plans, as long as you adjust them continuously enough. The word to best describe the Soviet "intellectuals" you mentioned would be "ideologue". A less polite way would be "a sold-out who sells credibility to a government that pays for it".
    - jerf 10y ago
      "Any intellectualism that's divorced from reality and impervious to critique and verification does not deserve to be called intellectualism." True, but that's a definitional debate. I would be happy to see the huge pile of ideology today masquerading as academia correctly renamed, but before that can happen it seems a lot of people (in the general sense, not targeting this statement at any individual) must be introduced to the idea that there are a lot of things currently labeled "academic" that are just ideology. It's hard because you have to separate it on a case-by-case basis. I'm broadly unimpressed by most of what is called sociology but Jonathon Haidt particularly impresses me, for instance. I'm sure there are others who would impress me if I took the time to learn. But the field as a whole seem to have a gestalt consensus that strikes me as quite resistant to falsification.
      - rbanffy 10y ago
        It's very hard to falsify something when you can't run experiments and the number of samples is very limited and the subject of your study changes all the time. Even something supposedly more grounded like Economics suffers from both humans that are not perfectly rational and from "theories" that are nothing more than propaganda (think Mises)
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

jerf 10y ago

"1) It's ridiculous to conflate modern science and Stalin." First of all, I absolutely place Communism in the domain of "intellectualism". The only reason to do otherwise is simply because it failed and you don't want the stain of Communism on the word "intellectualism", but there is no other reason. It was, and remains, an intellectual-driven movement, since Communism is hardly dead. It is impossible to understand it from any other point of view. There were no Communist revolutions I know of led and driven by "the people". There were no Communist revolutions I know of where "the people" ended up in charge, rather than an intellectual who drove it. It started with intellectuals sitting around and theorizing, and was continued by other intellectuals taking the theories as truth and then trying to put them into practice despite the complete lack of evidence in their favor. (One can't help but feel that the fact that it flatters their egos played a significant role.) If there weren't communist intellectuals still running around today, I would let it go, but it is absolutely one of the things I had in mind that are still alive that should have died decades ago. Secondly... Five Year Plans are alive and well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China And I hear the phrase from other places every so often as well. The idea that you can make grandiose plan years in advance is hardly dead. (The word "grandiose" is not extraneous. I have multi-year plans to pay off my mortgage, for instance, but that's not "grandiose".) While I fully intended the Stalinist overtones, the general criticism is about glorious planning disconnected from reality, which many large institutions (governments, corporations, etc.) become prone to. Finally, you missed the true core of the post, which is that I have contempt for so-called intellectuals who react to the failure of their theories by clinging to them all the harder. One of the things about being an intellectual is that you have the mental firepower to rationalize harder than the common man, and I have contempt for those who use their mental firepower that way. Words and theories must not take priority over the facts on the ground. That way lies madness. I do not theorize about how that way lies madness because I need merely look out at the facts on the ground and see a wide variety of "intellectuals" propounding insane theories with epicycles piled on epicycles that they should have given up decades ago, some of which have had devastating consequences on the world. For instance, I lay the bulk of the blame for the obesity epidemic on certain intellectual's disastrous failure to notice how blindingly wrong their theories about healthy eating were when the evidence was staring them in the face (and gut, and thighs, and heart, and cholesterol, ....). So if I seem a bit incensed about false intellectualism, it's this sort of thing that leads me in that direction. Most fat slobs you see waddling down the road next to you are caused by false intellectualism by my reckoning.