4 ms·

Not sure why this was down-voted to hell; I imagine it is because you turned the criticism political in that last part. This otherwise contains good points, and

by 3gg 6y ago

Not sure why this was down-voted to hell; I imagine it is because you turned the criticism political in that last part. This otherwise contains good points, and knowing that alternatives exist, as opposed to just what is out there in some particular part of the world, should also be part of the "literacy" that the blog post touts. Progress is not uni-dimensional after all.

082349872349872 6y ago
Was it really even political? GP saying that alternatives exist[1] seems about as political to me as observing that water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn. [1] and there may be an implicit claim they may be better in some sense but there's certainly no explicit claim these alternatives are better in the GDP sense. Edit: apparently some HN'ers disagree. Not knowing the specific nature of their disagreement, may I humbly suggest that just as with nationalism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23847087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23847087 IMX here, a heterodox-for-HN truth is that other ways of being, beyond a unique Whiggish Consensus, exist.
NalNezumi 6y ago
Probably because it's a bad criticism? Really the only solid criticism in his comment is pointing out the charcoal usage, albeit quick Japanese wiki lookup on kotatsu show some conflicting information too. - Pesticides: counter arguments based on anecdotes without factual backing that is not refuting the core argument either. (Straw-man) - The specialization point in sewing: Straw-man. Sure specialization existed, but that wasn't even the point of the original argument. (and sewing was more to fix bought clothes; because they were too expensive to replace every-time they became unusable) - laundering clothes: again Straw-man, and also mixing up "hand washing your cloth" today compared to back in the days; it's not that hard to imagine that the condition of the cloths, the tear and wear, material of the clothes etc is pretty different from now. - People didn't live in remote area: factually incorrect (except the energy for laying roads). The political touch in the end just shows the true biased color of the criticism. The article is not perfect but those criticism are at best anecdotal counter examples, with nothing to back it up.

by 3gg 6y ago

082349872349872 6y ago

Was it really even political? GP saying that alternatives exist[1] seems about as political to me as observing that water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn. [1] and there may be an implicit claim they may be better in some sense but there's certainly no explicit claim these alternatives are better in the GDP sense. Edit: apparently some HN'ers disagree. Not knowing the specific nature of their disagreement, may I humbly suggest that just as with nationalism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23847087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23847087 IMX here, a heterodox-for-HN truth is that other ways of being, beyond a unique Whiggish Consensus, exist.

NalNezumi 6y ago

Probably because it's a bad criticism? Really the only solid criticism in his comment is pointing out the charcoal usage, albeit quick Japanese wiki lookup on kotatsu show some conflicting information too. - Pesticides: counter arguments based on anecdotes without factual backing that is not refuting the core argument either. (Straw-man) - The specialization point in sewing: Straw-man. Sure specialization existed, but that wasn't even the point of the original argument. (and sewing was more to fix bought clothes; because they were too expensive to replace every-time they became unusable) - laundering clothes: again Straw-man, and also mixing up "hand washing your cloth" today compared to back in the days; it's not that hard to imagine that the condition of the cloths, the tear and wear, material of the clothes etc is pretty different from now. - People didn't live in remote area: factually incorrect (except the energy for laying roads). The political touch in the end just shows the true biased color of the criticism. The article is not perfect but those criticism are at best anecdotal counter examples, with nothing to back it up.