4 ms·

At the time of writing, there are three humanities articles on the front-page and they are the only articles that have 0 comments: this, Spinoza's Ethics, and A

by dgut 8y ago

At the time of writing, there are three humanities articles on the front-page and they are the only articles that have 0 comments: this, Spinoza's Ethics, and A Defence of Common Sense. So why are people upvoting these entirely subjective articles (because I don't see how they belong here)?

dang 8y ago
Such articles are welcome and have been part of HN from the beginning. If people don't comment when they have nothing to say, so much the better. Would that were the case with every thread! Part of the DNA of Hacker News is a polymathic sensibility. That comes from pg, who's interested in a lot of things. Diversifying the subject matter here is why Hacker News exists, as you can see from https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. That's the origin of the phrase "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", which became the mandate of this site.
smhost 8y ago
I really despise this kind of extreme reductionist binary thinking. Not only is it wrong, it makes tech people look like the intellectually empty caricatures that the general public thinks we are.
- dang 8y ago
  We probably have a similar view, but please don't call names or post so uncharitably. It only makes things worse.
- dgut 8y ago
  Except there is nothing intellectual about it. It's an article about what somebody believes GS was doing/thinking during the World War II and a couple of anecdotes. If you already know the premises (GS was a Jewish writer who lived in Vichy France where she also worked as a propagandist) you end the article like you started, knowing nothing more. Besides, all "modernists" have done is produce __trash__ and it will be remembered as such no matter how deeply the humanities try to paint it as intellectual and deep, it will never reach the level of Caravaggio, Velazques, Rubens, Cervantes and the like. Nope, it will be forgotten because it's neither beautiful nor good in any objective sense. It's not that tech/STEM people are intellectually empty, many people in STEM simply don't buy the bullshit.

by dgut 8y ago

dang 8y ago

Such articles are welcome and have been part of HN from the beginning. If people don't comment when they have nothing to say, so much the better. Would that were the case with every thread! Part of the DNA of Hacker News is a polymathic sensibility. That comes from pg, who's interested in a lot of things. Diversifying the subject matter here is why Hacker News exists, as you can see from https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. That's the origin of the phrase "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", which became the mandate of this site.

smhost 8y ago

I really despise this kind of extreme reductionist binary thinking. Not only is it wrong, it makes tech people look like the intellectually empty caricatures that the general public thinks we are.

dang 8y ago
We probably have a similar view, but please don't call names or post so uncharitably. It only makes things worse.
dgut 8y ago
Except there is nothing intellectual about it. It's an article about what somebody believes GS was doing/thinking during the World War II and a couple of anecdotes. If you already know the premises (GS was a Jewish writer who lived in Vichy France where she also worked as a propagandist) you end the article like you started, knowing nothing more. Besides, all "modernists" have done is produce __trash__ and it will be remembered as such no matter how deeply the humanities try to paint it as intellectual and deep, it will never reach the level of Caravaggio, Velazques, Rubens, Cervantes and the like. Nope, it will be forgotten because it's neither beautiful nor good in any objective sense. It's not that tech/STEM people are intellectually empty, many people in STEM simply don't buy the bullshit.