7 ms·

I Was a Bank Robber Until I Read Kant

131 points by lermontov 9y ago

IIAOPSW 9y ago
I feel blue balled. Article ended before we learned how and why he stopped robbing banks. We barely scratched the surface of his thoughts on Kant.
- drenvuk 9y ago
  The writing style is pretty nice but yeah it feels like an introduction more than an entire article. Would read more though.
  - fergie 9y ago
    Yes- A very compelling introduction or first chapter.
    - chongli 9y ago
      My hope at this point is that the article isn't actually finished and somebody hit submit by accident. A faint hope at this point. Oh well. I should go read Kant myself.
      - messel 9y ago
        I last read Kant in an intro to philosophy course in 1991, but a quick search shows Prolegomena as a good intro. https://www.amazon.com/Prolegomena-Future-Metaphysics-Immanuel-Kant-ebook/dp/B00T9TFC88 https://www.amazon.com/Prolegomena-Future-Metaphysics-Immanu...
      - RobertoG 9y ago
        >"I should go read Kant myself." Be ready for very dry reading. If you want something more funny, I read a strange science fiction book by Adam Roberts, called the "The thing itself". The argument of the book takes Kant 'categories of understanding' literally.
    - hyperpallium 9y ago
      Or an MVP.
eksemplar 9y ago
Odd article, the writing style is intriguing but the content just isn’t there. Basically it’s like half a The Clash song “I had a rough start in life, I was a bank robber, criminals and philosophers are both outsiders”. There is no backing, explanation or argumentation of anything except that libraries are cleaner than pron movie theaters. I feel cheated, but I would read more if there was any.
- zamalek 9y ago
  > the content just isn’t there. It's there. You need to search for it. Raw diatribes like this are a window into the innermost nature of the human soul. My idea for a VR killer app was to have the camera attached to the front of a Red Bull airplane or snowboard. My friend, understanding more intimately human nature, realized it should be getting drunk, breaking into a bank and possibly getting involved in homicide. He was, sadly, right. I cannot morally follow that venture, but I know it is true. Here is a man that did, telling his story so that we don't have to follow.
  - ritchiea 9y ago
    The author could certainly go further into detail and while sparse writing can be great writing here it feels like too much is left unsaid.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >My idea for a VR killer app was to have the camera attached to the front of a Red Bull airplane or snowboard. My friend, understanding more intimately human nature, realized it should be getting drunk, breaking into a bank and possibly getting involved in homicide. Isn't that the premise of the film Strange Days? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114558/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114558/
    - zafka 9y ago
      I was just talking about that movie last night. It was a splendid look at one of our possible futures.
  - 9y ago
S7012MY 9y ago
How did the author become founding senior editor at Vice magazine?
mack1001 9y ago
I want to become a bank robber now.
blackflame7000 9y ago
Perhaps this renegade should have studied from Immanuel Kant's unknown brother Immanuel Shouldn't. Why are we writing an article praising a criminal anyway? It's not like Kant was so mystic, He was essentially one of the first anti-machiavellian icons. Which later gave way to MLK's teaching when he said the means are the seeds from which the ends grow. You cannot achieve growth when the planted seeds are not good.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Why are we writing an article praising a criminal anyway? Because, not only being a criminal is a part of the human experience, but non-criminal people are not that great either. Some can be douches.
blackflame7000 9y ago
Must read for most people 5 Basic Laws of Human Dynamics http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/ http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidit... //Take away This person is nothing more than an B2 Bandit that moved to the B1 side
- gkya 9y ago
  That article you have linked is a crystalised instance of human stupidity and a demonstration of how far down it can go WRT the level of intelligence. An idiot that thinks he can connect stupidity and intelligence to genetics without demonstrating the truth of such claim in any way, acceptable or not. One can do nothing but hope all of that article is a joke. edit: I can't sleep if I don't mention that that entire harmful.cat-v.org site is a fractal of stupidity, so it's no surprise that such article appears there. They hiss at all the software out there that has made a nearly completely free computing system possible, and the alternative they propose is an operating system that died some decades ago and compilers that can't compile standards-compliant C code. Go and Limbo as an alternative to Python and Ruby? Really? Where's Django? Matplotlib? Good morning, people have other things to do than reinventing the wheel every other day.
bringtheaction 9y ago
> we cannot know the world as it is, independent of the structure, capacities, and limits of the human mind This resonates with me. For example, I feel that even though mathematics and physics are perfect systems for describing nature and the universe, I am not convinced that mathematics is a property inherent to the universe itself as many people often say. Rather, I think there is a significant chance that these systems are tied closely to the structure and operation of the human brain.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Maths and physics are definitely not perfect descriptions, they approximate nature, they are not nature. If you think they're capable of becoming "perfect" then I'd have to ask under which axioms. Also reflecting on Godel's incompleteness theorem it seems if we had a perfect maths (whatever that means) we couldn't prove it to be such.
- kqr 9y ago
  If at some point you study scientific philosophy, you will learn a lot of terminology that makes it way easier to discuss these things. You might want to look up the anti-realist school of thought and obviously the Kantian view of it.
- Veen 9y ago
  I've been reading some New Realist philosophy recently (Maurizio Ferraris). The basic idea is that although we don't have direct access to reality (Kant), we are constrained by it in ways that give us insight into it and it provides affordances for us that further reveal its nature as something independent of our perceptions and inferences. Sort of an anti-Foucault outlook but informed by Deriddean deconstruction.
gkya 9y ago
Reading philosophy has been an enligthining experience for me. I was no criminal, but a depressive teenager. As I read my first philosophy books---dialogues of Plato initially, then Schopenhauer, Freud, Lao Tzi, etc.---I learnt, not much from the actual informational contents of these texts as most are now outdated, but critical thinking. Through that I defeated the feeling of being abnormal, and the depressive state itself. I proceeded to answer many basic, existential questions with confidence, and to acquire a consistent, secure outlook to the life. We suffer quite a bit because we are not able to, by default, deconstruct what the worlds does before our eyes and to us, and understand the mechanisms that govern the pheanomena. Knowing how the universe works, as far as modern science can explain it to us, and being able to think and observe objectively, are key to living a "free" life, i.e., free of lowly things like being a robber, or being too greedy or too aggressive, etc. The knowledge of the heavens does transfer to the execution of an ethical life: lest one leave himself to the command of "destiny" or dogma. I think thus, for example, astronomy must be a mandatory topic for the younger students as soon as possible, so that they are not raised with the outdated idea that something "up there" governs their life.
- Roritharr 9y ago
  I can only agree. Studying philosophy in my spare time was among the most fundamentally helpful things i've ever done, easily on the same level as programming. Thinking back to my formal education i'm always left dumbfounded that these two things weren't even mentioned in school.
- hutzlibu 9y ago
  ". I think thus, for example, astronomy must be a mandatory topic for the younger students as soon as possible, so that they are not raised with the outdated idea that something "up there" governs their life." First of all, studying astronomy doesn't at all neglect religious beliefs in general (only some of the more simple believe systems who take their bible literally). And secondly, making it mandatory never helps for raising enthusiasm. I really, really wanted to have astronomy in class, when I was in 3. grade. But it only came in 10. and by then I was so bored, like everyone else, for me because it was trivial and for the others, because they didn't care. And besides, I can't imagine raising enthusiasm for astronomy in a class room - you need a telescope and a clear night first! Theory comes later.
Molaxx 9y ago
This seems like a prologue for something interesting, but where the actual mass? It ends very abruptly. Too bad, i'de read more of there was any.
gpapilion 9y ago
The Critique of Pure Reason is such a baffling book; it feels half finished manuscript, complete in thought but lacking polish. It’s harder to grasp what pulled the author in, but maybe it was just the above.
newhomebagel 9y ago
lol the phoney who wrote this is about as convincing as Keanau Reeves in Point Break
elvirs 9y ago
is it first one of the series? feels incomplete.
YPCrumble 9y ago
This is some fantastic clickbait. The article doesn't provide any link as to why the author stopped robbing banks, and the relation reading Kant had to that decision. The title is perhaps true, but if the reader is expecting the answer to "why" it is not there.
- yakitori 9y ago
  > This is some fantastic clickbait. That describe almost everything on HN now.
dmh2000 9y ago
"mostly you’re getting high, hanging out with other crooks, and figuring out where to go for lunch." sounds like its right out of an early Guy Ritchie movie
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
the Police been telling him you Kant be robbing banks for years, and it wasn't until he READ IT that he stopped??

131 points by lermontov 9y ago

I feel blue balled. Article ended before we learned how and why he stopped robbing banks. We barely scratched the surface of his thoughts on Kant.

drenvuk 9y ago
The writing style is pretty nice but yeah it feels like an introduction more than an entire article. Would read more though.
- fergie 9y ago
  Yes- A very compelling introduction or first chapter.
  - chongli 9y ago
    My hope at this point is that the article isn't actually finished and somebody hit submit by accident. A faint hope at this point. Oh well. I should go read Kant myself.
    - messel 9y ago
      I last read Kant in an intro to philosophy course in 1991, but a quick search shows Prolegomena as a good intro. https://www.amazon.com/Prolegomena-Future-Metaphysics-Immanuel-Kant-ebook/dp/B00T9TFC88 https://www.amazon.com/Prolegomena-Future-Metaphysics-Immanu...
    - RobertoG 9y ago
      >"I should go read Kant myself." Be ready for very dry reading. If you want something more funny, I read a strange science fiction book by Adam Roberts, called the "The thing itself". The argument of the book takes Kant 'categories of understanding' literally.
  - hyperpallium 9y ago
    Or an MVP.

eksemplar 9y ago

Odd article, the writing style is intriguing but the content just isn’t there. Basically it’s like half a The Clash song “I had a rough start in life, I was a bank robber, criminals and philosophers are both outsiders”. There is no backing, explanation or argumentation of anything except that libraries are cleaner than pron movie theaters. I feel cheated, but I would read more if there was any.

zamalek 9y ago
> the content just isn’t there. It's there. You need to search for it. Raw diatribes like this are a window into the innermost nature of the human soul. My idea for a VR killer app was to have the camera attached to the front of a Red Bull airplane or snowboard. My friend, understanding more intimately human nature, realized it should be getting drunk, breaking into a bank and possibly getting involved in homicide. He was, sadly, right. I cannot morally follow that venture, but I know it is true. Here is a man that did, telling his story so that we don't have to follow.
- ritchiea 9y ago
  The author could certainly go further into detail and while sparse writing can be great writing here it feels like too much is left unsaid.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >My idea for a VR killer app was to have the camera attached to the front of a Red Bull airplane or snowboard. My friend, understanding more intimately human nature, realized it should be getting drunk, breaking into a bank and possibly getting involved in homicide. Isn't that the premise of the film Strange Days? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114558/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114558/
  - zafka 9y ago
    I was just talking about that movie last night. It was a splendid look at one of our possible futures.
- 9y ago

S7012MY 9y ago

How did the author become founding senior editor at Vice magazine?

mack1001 9y ago

I want to become a bank robber now.

blackflame7000 9y ago

Perhaps this renegade should have studied from Immanuel Kant's unknown brother Immanuel Shouldn't. Why are we writing an article praising a criminal anyway? It's not like Kant was so mystic, He was essentially one of the first anti-machiavellian icons. Which later gave way to MLK's teaching when he said the means are the seeds from which the ends grow. You cannot achieve growth when the planted seeds are not good.

coldtea 9y ago
>Why are we writing an article praising a criminal anyway? Because, not only being a criminal is a part of the human experience, but non-criminal people are not that great either. Some can be douches.

blackflame7000 9y ago

Must read for most people 5 Basic Laws of Human Dynamics http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/ http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidit... //Take away This person is nothing more than an B2 Bandit that moved to the B1 side

gkya 9y ago
That article you have linked is a crystalised instance of human stupidity and a demonstration of how far down it can go WRT the level of intelligence. An idiot that thinks he can connect stupidity and intelligence to genetics without demonstrating the truth of such claim in any way, acceptable or not. One can do nothing but hope all of that article is a joke. edit: I can't sleep if I don't mention that that entire harmful.cat-v.org site is a fractal of stupidity, so it's no surprise that such article appears there. They hiss at all the software out there that has made a nearly completely free computing system possible, and the alternative they propose is an operating system that died some decades ago and compilers that can't compile standards-compliant C code. Go and Limbo as an alternative to Python and Ruby? Really? Where's Django? Matplotlib? Good morning, people have other things to do than reinventing the wheel every other day.

bringtheaction 9y ago

> we cannot know the world as it is, independent of the structure, capacities, and limits of the human mind This resonates with me. For example, I feel that even though mathematics and physics are perfect systems for describing nature and the universe, I am not convinced that mathematics is a property inherent to the universe itself as many people often say. Rather, I think there is a significant chance that these systems are tied closely to the structure and operation of the human brain.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Maths and physics are definitely not perfect descriptions, they approximate nature, they are not nature. If you think they're capable of becoming "perfect" then I'd have to ask under which axioms. Also reflecting on Godel's incompleteness theorem it seems if we had a perfect maths (whatever that means) we couldn't prove it to be such.
kqr 9y ago
If at some point you study scientific philosophy, you will learn a lot of terminology that makes it way easier to discuss these things. You might want to look up the anti-realist school of thought and obviously the Kantian view of it.
Veen 9y ago
I've been reading some New Realist philosophy recently (Maurizio Ferraris). The basic idea is that although we don't have direct access to reality (Kant), we are constrained by it in ways that give us insight into it and it provides affordances for us that further reveal its nature as something independent of our perceptions and inferences. Sort of an anti-Foucault outlook but informed by Deriddean deconstruction.

gkya 9y ago

Reading philosophy has been an enligthining experience for me. I was no criminal, but a depressive teenager. As I read my first philosophy books---dialogues of Plato initially, then Schopenhauer, Freud, Lao Tzi, etc.---I learnt, not much from the actual informational contents of these texts as most are now outdated, but critical thinking. Through that I defeated the feeling of being abnormal, and the depressive state itself. I proceeded to answer many basic, existential questions with confidence, and to acquire a consistent, secure outlook to the life. We suffer quite a bit because we are not able to, by default, deconstruct what the worlds does before our eyes and to us, and understand the mechanisms that govern the pheanomena. Knowing how the universe works, as far as modern science can explain it to us, and being able to think and observe objectively, are key to living a "free" life, i.e., free of lowly things like being a robber, or being too greedy or too aggressive, etc. The knowledge of the heavens does transfer to the execution of an ethical life: lest one leave himself to the command of "destiny" or dogma. I think thus, for example, astronomy must be a mandatory topic for the younger students as soon as possible, so that they are not raised with the outdated idea that something "up there" governs their life.

Roritharr 9y ago
I can only agree. Studying philosophy in my spare time was among the most fundamentally helpful things i've ever done, easily on the same level as programming. Thinking back to my formal education i'm always left dumbfounded that these two things weren't even mentioned in school.
hutzlibu 9y ago
". I think thus, for example, astronomy must be a mandatory topic for the younger students as soon as possible, so that they are not raised with the outdated idea that something "up there" governs their life." First of all, studying astronomy doesn't at all neglect religious beliefs in general (only some of the more simple believe systems who take their bible literally). And secondly, making it mandatory never helps for raising enthusiasm. I really, really wanted to have astronomy in class, when I was in 3. grade. But it only came in 10. and by then I was so bored, like everyone else, for me because it was trivial and for the others, because they didn't care. And besides, I can't imagine raising enthusiasm for astronomy in a class room - you need a telescope and a clear night first! Theory comes later.

Molaxx 9y ago

This seems like a prologue for something interesting, but where the actual mass? It ends very abruptly. Too bad, i'de read more of there was any.

gpapilion 9y ago

The Critique of Pure Reason is such a baffling book; it feels half finished manuscript, complete in thought but lacking polish. It’s harder to grasp what pulled the author in, but maybe it was just the above.

newhomebagel 9y ago

lol the phoney who wrote this is about as convincing as Keanau Reeves in Point Break

elvirs 9y ago

is it first one of the series? feels incomplete.

YPCrumble 9y ago

This is some fantastic clickbait. The article doesn't provide any link as to why the author stopped robbing banks, and the relation reading Kant had to that decision. The title is perhaps true, but if the reader is expecting the answer to "why" it is not there.

yakitori 9y ago
> This is some fantastic clickbait. That describe almost everything on HN now.

dmh2000 9y ago

"mostly you’re getting high, hanging out with other crooks, and figuring out where to go for lunch." sounds like its right out of an early Guy Ritchie movie

throwawaymanbot 9y ago

the Police been telling him you Kant be robbing banks for years, and it wasn't until he READ IT that he stopped??