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Noam Chomsky Joins Faculty at University of Arizona
- shkibb 9y agoDoes anybody else find these sorts of discussions to be just fundamentally cringey as hell? On both sides. Stuff like "We agree mainstream black culture is terrible." Like I don't think either would have the guts to say that in front of a black person.
- ArialAnemone 9y agoHow could it not be terrible? Black america is screwed. The rate of fatherlessness is apocalyptic. Especially when you combine that with the fact that single parent households, with the mother as the parent, produce far more criminals and mentally ill per "family" than households with both parents. Black america is screwed to be a perpetual underclass. imo.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- catenthusiast 9y agoFuck off.
- purple-again 9y agoBarack Obama and Neil Tysons families are part of black America. Those problems you point out are a huge problem in the massive rural trailer parks filled with white people. They are problems associated with poverty not with blacks. It's easy to confound the two since such a large portion of the black population lives in poverty. How you frame it IS important because yes it's a serious problem that plagues the black community but no it's not a problem created by the blacks. You know damn well how it was created.
- sctb 9y agoWe've banned this account.
- sctb 9y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15052145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15052145 and marked it off-topic.
- otalp 9y agoHe's 88, still mentally very sharp and probably moved there for the weather(aside from the great department filled with old students). His work ethic is incredible, he spends 5 hours a day responding to emails from the public- I've received a detailed response every time I've sent one. The amount of time he spends engaging with even terribly misinformed(but well meaning) people is truly astounding, and unparalleled amongst public figures as far as I can tell. Here's an example(https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/6tz1xp/what_do_you_guys_think_about_ncs_argument_here/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/6tz1xp/what_do_you...) of some random kid badgering Chomsky with emails, and he still takes the time out to respond to every one of his questions, even though he gets more than a hundred mails a day.
- cooper12 9y agoHoly shit that link you shared was so frustrating to read. To think of all the productive things a great intellectual like Chomsky could be doing with his time. Instead he generously chose to engage someone who had already made their conclusion and just wanted to "debate" without actually ceding to any points (take a shot any time OP says "liberal" or "PC"). He even hints at OP's "intentional ignorance" many times too... What a patient soul to debate someone whose entire education on race issues was some /pol/ infographic and right-wing blogs. OP could have taken some time to read some pre-existing literature, to learn the opposing side's arguments and especially when corresponding with an academic, to read their prior writing. Instead we have this..... the state of public discourse on the web 2.0.
- BuckRogers 9y agoThat's why whenever I speak to someone and they have a strong opinion I like to ask them how many books they've read on that subject. It's almost always zero. You can pretty much instantly discard anyone like that as it's a decent baseline litmus test. If you really cared about something, you would read at least one if not multiple books on the subject. Anything less is just laziness and someone who wants to get an endorphin rush from anger or other emotions. What you described is a lot better (read some pre-existing literature, to learn the opposing side's arguments and especially when corresponding with an academic, to read their prior writing). But usually even bad books are going to blow a DuckDuckGo search out of the water on quality. Especially for those who aren't astute enough to identify good and bad information.
- klarrimore 9y agoAs a UofA grad I can tell you the hippies down there are going to go absolutely apeshit. The university is half Rob Gronkowski and half Cesar Chavez. The Gronks all leave after school but the Cesar's all stick around the university and think, act, and look like Noam. He'll fit right in.
- Hasknewbie 9y ago>> and think, act, and look like Noam So they are low-key, patient, and make thorough, very detailed responses when debating?
- galacticpony2 9y agoIf you disregard his halo of authority for a moment, you'll find that most of what he says is usually very laboriously articulated whataboutery. It is "thorough and detailed", but that doesn't make it convincing.
- klarrimore 9y agoI didn't say anything negative about him or his debating style. I'm just saying I'm not so surprised he chose UofA. Tons of east coast aging hippies fall in love with the desert, get a mansion in the foothills, then only come down into the city for the university dressed like they're on a fucking safari.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoChomsky is a great critic of social issues like imperialism, manufactured consent, and state capitalism. However he has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela and as of today won't admit the problems with state socialism. I hope his new students realize this.
- Crye 9y agoI'm not sure what you're referencing, but Chomsky has typically not been aligned with state socialism. I think typically it's viewed as another structure which uses it's position to maintain power.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agohttps://youtu.be/HHTe2Pn7ACg https://youtu.be/HHTe2Pn7ACg He praises the Venezuela's state socialist policies, but manages to blame the problems on private capital.
- thomasahle 9y agoThat video has frustratingly little information. Except for the hosts rage and short quotes from a supposed conversation with Chomsky; the only actual study mentioned is discarded immediately on basis of its author having advised some movie on the topic that he's an expert on.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoJust Google Chomsky Chavez or Venezuela. I've heard him give plenty of interviews where he talks about how great Chavez is. Sorry I had just provided the top search result.
- gt_ 9y agoI have heard these too and that is a misrepresentation of his statements. He does not say Chavez is great. He makes specific and nuanced arguments about value exemplified in some things Chavez did. This probably didn't need saying, but what an obnoxious generalization to make.
- BjoernKW 9y agoWorld-renowned linguist and all people are talking about is his political views (mostly by his own design). Make no mistake, Chomsky's work was significant to both linguistics proper (X-bar theory, generative grammar, universal grammar) and computer science (Chomsky hierarchy). In recent years though he more often than not comes across as a grumpy old man who can't seem to accept the fact that linguistic theory has moved on to often simpler, more elegant approaches.
- foldr 9y ago> linguistic theory has moved on to often simpler, more elegant approaches. As a linguist, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. There have always been alternative approaches. But we have not recently been blessed with any that are clear winners in terms of simplicity and elegance.
- BjoernKW 9y agoHPSG or statistical approaches in computational linguistics, for instance. Now, of course one can argue - as Chomsky himself has done - that statistical approaches are not as elegant as rule-based ones but as human language faculty quite likely behaves statistically to some degree, statistical methods for describing language do have some merit.
- foldr 9y agoLinguistic theory has not "moved on" to HPSG. HPSG originated in the early 90s and remains a minority pursuit. The term "statistical approaches" could mean almost anything. There have always been people who are more interested in building, say, practical machine translation systems than in figuring out how kids acquire grammatical knowledge. But again, the field has not "moved on". There are just different groups of researchers working on different problems.
- red75prime 9y agoI heard that the Universal Grammar reached the peak of simplicity and generality by recursively applying "join-a-word" action. Are those rumors exaggerated?
- jtraffic 9y agoI suspect that when Chomsky dies, a burst of new and valuable linguistics research will arrive. I'm not saying I hope he dies soon. However, I think his current impact on the field is probably negative. My theory derives from these sources: https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21695371-theories-worlds-best-known-linguist-have-become-rather-weird-noam-chomsky https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21695371-theor... (Chomsky's recent theory of how language evolved has not been accepted favorably), and http://www.nber.org/papers/w21788 http://www.nber.org/papers/w21788 (this happens a lot)
- imminentviolet 9y agoThere are some good counter points at http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.ca/?m=1 http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.ca/?m=1 it is an interesting discussion and not as damning as the Economist article wants to imply.
- gboudrias 9y ago> However, I think his current impact on the field is probably negative. This is obvious if you look at other field "champions" such as Claude Lévi-Strauss in cultural anthropology. His admittedly invaluable contributions were followed by 50 years of stagnation. Granted I only studied it for a year but it was one of my reasons for not sticking with it.
- droidist2 9y agoEven if his work has had a negative impact, why would the field have to wait for him to die to progress?
- foldr 9y agoChomsky has far less of a grip on the field than people outside it imagine. There are already lots of people doing research in linguistics that's fundamentally different in its approach. So I would not expect any very sudden sea change once Chomsky dies. Note that the economist article is very badly informed. Since another poster didn't link directly to the relevant article on the 'facultyoflanguage' blog, here is a link: http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/it-never-ends-never.html http://facultyoflanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/it-never-end...
- justin66 9y agoI haven't read his political works but Noam Chomsky as a social phenomenon is interesting. His subject matter is often media and political manipulation and people who haven't read him often feel compelled by an entrenched, opposed political view to voice extremely strong opinions about his work. And they're doing this without any conscious irony.
- swiftting 9y agoCongratulations to Noam Chomsky! I remember when he was giving a talk at Columbia university and the line for entry was literally around the block ! Great man.
- umanwizard 9y agoThe redness of Arizona comes from the affluent suburbs of Phoenix; it doesn't come from Tucson (where Chomsky is presumably moving). If everywhere south of the Gila River (i.e., the Gadsden Purchase) became its own state, it would be deep blue.
- Glyptodon 9y agoIf you exclude Cochise county anyway.
- y0ssar1an 9y agoHe is not a great man. He is an intellectually dishonest enabler of repressive leftist governments. He was a well known supporter of Hugo Chavez - perhaps the only leader in the Americas dumber than Trump. I'm embarrassed at how many of my fellow techies have fallen under Chomsky's sway. http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/77779/hugo-chavez-recibio-a-chomsky-en-el-palacio-de-miraflores/ http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/77779/hugo-chav...
- y0ssar1an 9y agoChomsky's politics can be summarized as: interpret everything the US does in the harshest possible light while torturing the data to make Hugo Chavez sound like a good leader.
- balance_factor 9y agoSix years ago Chomsky wrote an open letter that said actions Hugo Chavez were taking were an "assault on democracy". How exactly is that "torturing the data to make Hugo Chavez sound like a good leader"? When Chavez was elected and freed the oil money of Venezuela from the hands of a small, corrupt, European-descendant aristocracy, being shared with poor and working class Venezuelans of all races, Chomsky was enthusiastic. Six years ago, when the government began taking actions that Chomsky thought were anti-democratic and authoritarian, Chomsky was critical.
- y0ssar1an 9y agoThat's a fair point, but this more recent interview from 2013 shows Chomsky's real opinion of Chavez. He's defensive about the human rights abuses, and his overall tone is one of praise for the "liberator" of Latin America. https://youtu.be/M6BiNppcnaI https://youtu.be/M6BiNppcnaI
- Synaesthesia 9y agoLet’s look at the western response to the horrific genocide in Guatemala compared to the admittedly egregious abuses in Venezuela but which don’t evens approach those atrocities ...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- EternalData 9y agoTIL that Noam Chomsky answers emails. It's always been my thing to reach out to personal heroes of mine. What's the best way to reach out to him?
- otalp 9y agoHis public MIT email
- notadoc 9y agoInteresting move given the hostile AZ political climate.
- tlively 9y agoI just about died when I read, 'He formulated the algorithm "context-free grammar"...'
- GirlsCanCode 9y agoGood. I'm glad MIT finally fired him.