3 ms·

Humans are social primates. Being willfully unaware of how the other tribes of primates perceive your own tribe is both naive and stupid. And given the fact th

Humans are social primates. Being willfully unaware of how the other tribes of primates perceive your own tribe is both naive and stupid. And given the fact that the other tribes are more numerous, have bigger and hairier and angrier primates with longer and sharper sticks, this particular stupidity may turn out to be of the suicidal kind...

hughw 9y ago
Baffled how you get "willfully unaware" out of my comment, and how I earned "naive and stupid" epithets from you. At least I know how to find an eigenvalue. Can't be all that stupid.
- crpatino 9y ago
  Yeah, sorry about that. It is not really you, it is that I have had this conversation over with more people before, and my tolerance have grown thin. But other than the epithets, my point stands. Knowing what an eigenvalue is, or how to calculate it, is not the only type of intelligence there is around, and not necessarily the most important one. You can tell that is a fact and not an opinion by checking what percentage of the world leaders (both of government and of industry) are engineers or scientists. Furthermore, if you look at people like Angela Merkel, who is a trained scientist and a world leader, you will notice they did not reach that state in life by knowing lots of math and science, but by noticing conventional politicians have a different type of cunning, and by applying their very big brains to outsmart those politicians in their own game. In other words, your complain about lack of scientific awareness in the article is a red herring. It may be accurate, but it is not useful because the political purpose of the article does not depend on that. You could tell it even is a feature because the intended audience of the piece also lack scientific awareness. So, you can freely choose to feel loathing and to disregard the artice, or you can choose to acknowledge it as an attempt to shape public perception in a way that harms the interest of your industry/profession. If you put it in those terms, calling "fault, unfair!!!" in a game with no referee and no explicit rules is a strong indicator that you are loosing and cannot cope.
  - hughw 9y ago
    But I didn't express loathing. I criticized the article, for an audience of peers who understand the criticism. I'm not trying to "shape public perception". There's a time and venue for shaping public perception. But not every thought we express has to be directed as if addressing the readership of The Guardian. We need to preserve free and frank discussion among experts. "Losing and cannot cope"... jesus, lighten up. I'm not trying to win one for our side. Just having a discussion among peers.

hughw 9y ago

Baffled how you get "willfully unaware" out of my comment, and how I earned "naive and stupid" epithets from you. At least I know how to find an eigenvalue. Can't be all that stupid.

crpatino 9y ago
Yeah, sorry about that. It is not really you, it is that I have had this conversation over with more people before, and my tolerance have grown thin. But other than the epithets, my point stands. Knowing what an eigenvalue is, or how to calculate it, is not the only type of intelligence there is around, and not necessarily the most important one. You can tell that is a fact and not an opinion by checking what percentage of the world leaders (both of government and of industry) are engineers or scientists. Furthermore, if you look at people like Angela Merkel, who is a trained scientist and a world leader, you will notice they did not reach that state in life by knowing lots of math and science, but by noticing conventional politicians have a different type of cunning, and by applying their very big brains to outsmart those politicians in their own game. In other words, your complain about lack of scientific awareness in the article is a red herring. It may be accurate, but it is not useful because the political purpose of the article does not depend on that. You could tell it even is a feature because the intended audience of the piece also lack scientific awareness. So, you can freely choose to feel loathing and to disregard the artice, or you can choose to acknowledge it as an attempt to shape public perception in a way that harms the interest of your industry/profession. If you put it in those terms, calling "fault, unfair!!!" in a game with no referee and no explicit rules is a strong indicator that you are loosing and cannot cope.
- hughw 9y ago
  But I didn't express loathing. I criticized the article, for an audience of peers who understand the criticism. I'm not trying to "shape public perception". There's a time and venue for shaping public perception. But not every thought we express has to be directed as if addressing the readership of The Guardian. We need to preserve free and frank discussion among experts. "Losing and cannot cope"... jesus, lighten up. I'm not trying to win one for our side. Just having a discussion among peers.