4 ms·

In defense of Paul, I'm reminded of work highlighted by the twitter account Real Peer Review (once banned and now reincarnated). It highlights various bits of s

In defense of Paul, I'm reminded of work highlighted by the twitter account Real Peer Review (once banned and now reincarnated). It highlights various bits of so-called scholarship that looks like political ideology dressed up in fancy words and financed by taxpayers. "Decolonizing math" and things like that. Some recent examples: https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/1335324372421238795 https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/133532437242123879... https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/1326556860418314242 https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/132655686041831424... https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/1282344397393272840 https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/128234439739327284... https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/1312742522674917382 https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/131274252267491738... (NSFW) https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/1282261189091905538 https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/128226118909190553... (NSFW) https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/1309790018219761664 https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/130979001821976166... I wouldn't expect taxpayers to finance my church. I'm not sure why I'm on the hook to fund this particular non-falsifiable dogma that I vehemently disagree with.

__float 6y ago
That seems to be a bizarre conclusion, since churches are very often tax advantaged. If these authors are able to write grant proposals and get funding, then clearly someone thinks they are producing something of value. You cannot see the value, so you declare there must not be any?
- throwawayback 6y ago
  It is a politico-religious movement. Of course people that side with that movement find value in funding people to produce texts in its tradition and educate students in its ways of talking. I don't.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    > It is a politico-religious movement. Well, what isn't? LOL. That and 'cultural marxism' are just scary/meaningful-sounding terms people make up to label and then defame something they don't like. They're terms that are broad and just accurate enough to describe something, but too vague and imprecise to actually describe anything. Let me help. You dislike academics who study and analyze society and culture to discover it's biases, unspoken assumptions, and so on, and you don't like that they critique society for the oppressive elements which they believe they've found. I.e. social justice. Critiques of capitalism. Critiques of systemic racism. Criticize something specific so we can talk about it. But, the reason you aren't accurate or specific is because if you were, whatever argument you are trying to make would rapidly fall apart. And I'd love to be proved wrong! Share a specific critique. We can talk about Marxists, neo-Marxists, communists, libertarian anarchism, Progressive Democrats, Social Democrats, The New Left, Poststructuralism, Structuralism, Critical Theory, Postmodernism (though that one's a bit vague), Feminism, Intersectionalism, Third-wave Feminism, Liberation Theology (the current Pope has roots in Liberation Theology, which was a point of contention), and so on. Or maybe you don't like Democrats? Social Progressives? The entire field of Gender Studies? Pick something you don't like and let's talk about it. But, I'd bet your own lack of education (which I don't mean as an insult, more so a factual description - I'm uneducated about, say, genetics) on the things you criticize makes it difficult to do so. And I'd bet your true dislike is something you'd be shunned for expressing, which is why you hide behind nonsense-phrases that function as dog whistles. Because we all kinda know what you mean, even though you didn't actually say it.
iWorshipFAANGS 6y ago
Hello! I think I addressed some of the points you are making in my response to the user dvt. TLDR, there's low-quality research in "falsifiable" fields too. But actually, I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding what your point is, could you help me? I mentioned a specific line that Paul Graham wrote, then said it was "dumb" for the reasons I outlined. Then, in defense of Paul Graham, you posted links to tweets to snippets of research absolutely without any context at all. How would I know whether that research is good or not? I have no training in any of those fields. I'm really confused about how what you posted defended Paul. Did you want me to see that someone wrote the words "decolonizing" and "math" together and subsequently think that it is stupid, after all, to write the words "hegemonic" and "whiteness" in the same paper?
- throwawayback 6y ago
  An attack on "whiteness" is often paired with an attack on scientific and/or capitalist principles. In my experience, if you see someone use the word "whiteness", what follows is blatant bad-faith racism, often attacking the foundations of every productive institution in society. Somehow, it is granted academic legitimacy. See for example: https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1283372233730203651 https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1283372233730203651 https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/1203784021148340224 https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/120378402114834022... https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1290645039572496385 https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/12906450395724963... Paul is painting with a broad-brush here. "Hermeneutic" for example is sometimes used in good faith inquiry. But academia has burned so much credibility with me as it has become more of an activist enterprise, that I understand the impulse to dismiss it. At this point, I put the burden on defenders of postmodern linguistics to convince me that a piece of writing isn't dishonest, evil, or fluff. Here's a recent paper from Seattle Public Schools on adding social justice principles to Mathematics. It includes such topics as "What is my mathematical identity?", "Who holds power in a mathematics classroom?", "Who gets to say if an answer is right?" and "Can we change mathematics from an individual to a collective enterprise?". The end of this line of thinking is to destroy mathematical education and leave children ignorant. But at least when they underperform in life, they will be left with the political tools to blame it on "hegemony" and "whiteness". This is an ideological cancer. https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/socialstudies/pubdocs/Math%20SDS%20ES%20Framework.pdf https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/socialstudi...

__float 6y ago

That seems to be a bizarre conclusion, since churches are very often tax advantaged. If these authors are able to write grant proposals and get funding, then clearly someone thinks they are producing something of value. You cannot see the value, so you declare there must not be any?

throwawayback 6y ago
It is a politico-religious movement. Of course people that side with that movement find value in funding people to produce texts in its tradition and educate students in its ways of talking. I don't.
- adamsea 6y ago
  > It is a politico-religious movement. Well, what isn't? LOL. That and 'cultural marxism' are just scary/meaningful-sounding terms people make up to label and then defame something they don't like. They're terms that are broad and just accurate enough to describe something, but too vague and imprecise to actually describe anything. Let me help. You dislike academics who study and analyze society and culture to discover it's biases, unspoken assumptions, and so on, and you don't like that they critique society for the oppressive elements which they believe they've found. I.e. social justice. Critiques of capitalism. Critiques of systemic racism. Criticize something specific so we can talk about it. But, the reason you aren't accurate or specific is because if you were, whatever argument you are trying to make would rapidly fall apart. And I'd love to be proved wrong! Share a specific critique. We can talk about Marxists, neo-Marxists, communists, libertarian anarchism, Progressive Democrats, Social Democrats, The New Left, Poststructuralism, Structuralism, Critical Theory, Postmodernism (though that one's a bit vague), Feminism, Intersectionalism, Third-wave Feminism, Liberation Theology (the current Pope has roots in Liberation Theology, which was a point of contention), and so on. Or maybe you don't like Democrats? Social Progressives? The entire field of Gender Studies? Pick something you don't like and let's talk about it. But, I'd bet your own lack of education (which I don't mean as an insult, more so a factual description - I'm uneducated about, say, genetics) on the things you criticize makes it difficult to do so. And I'd bet your true dislike is something you'd be shunned for expressing, which is why you hide behind nonsense-phrases that function as dog whistles. Because we all kinda know what you mean, even though you didn't actually say it.

iWorshipFAANGS 6y ago

Hello! I think I addressed some of the points you are making in my response to the user dvt. TLDR, there's low-quality research in "falsifiable" fields too. But actually, I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding what your point is, could you help me? I mentioned a specific line that Paul Graham wrote, then said it was "dumb" for the reasons I outlined. Then, in defense of Paul Graham, you posted links to tweets to snippets of research absolutely without any context at all. How would I know whether that research is good or not? I have no training in any of those fields. I'm really confused about how what you posted defended Paul. Did you want me to see that someone wrote the words "decolonizing" and "math" together and subsequently think that it is stupid, after all, to write the words "hegemonic" and "whiteness" in the same paper?

throwawayback 6y ago
An attack on "whiteness" is often paired with an attack on scientific and/or capitalist principles. In my experience, if you see someone use the word "whiteness", what follows is blatant bad-faith racism, often attacking the foundations of every productive institution in society. Somehow, it is granted academic legitimacy. See for example: https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1283372233730203651 https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1283372233730203651 https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/1203784021148340224 https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/120378402114834022... https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1290645039572496385 https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/12906450395724963... Paul is painting with a broad-brush here. "Hermeneutic" for example is sometimes used in good faith inquiry. But academia has burned so much credibility with me as it has become more of an activist enterprise, that I understand the impulse to dismiss it. At this point, I put the burden on defenders of postmodern linguistics to convince me that a piece of writing isn't dishonest, evil, or fluff. Here's a recent paper from Seattle Public Schools on adding social justice principles to Mathematics. It includes such topics as "What is my mathematical identity?", "Who holds power in a mathematics classroom?", "Who gets to say if an answer is right?" and "Can we change mathematics from an individual to a collective enterprise?". The end of this line of thinking is to destroy mathematical education and leave children ignorant. But at least when they underperform in life, they will be left with the political tools to blame it on "hegemony" and "whiteness". This is an ideological cancer. https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/socialstudies/pubdocs/Math%20SDS%20ES%20Framework.pdf https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/socialstudi...