4 ms·

I had a very hard time following the point of this article. Didn't make it. It felt like the template was somethink like this: Step 1: Make a claim about time/

by gtsop 5y ago

I had a very hard time following the point of this article. Didn't make it. It felt like the template was somethink like this: Step 1: Make a claim about time/clock Step 2: Throw a bunch of random facts that are true and conceptually related to time but really don't prove at all the claim made previously. Step 3: Repeat Also, clocks absolutelly do measure time and not produce it. Time was a thing before clocks came to be

prometheus76 5y ago
You've just outlined how deconstruction works. It's a cancer, and the ironic part is that those currently employing it against past structures do not see the time coming where their own "new structures" are deconstructed.
- gtsop 5y ago
  Your comment intruiges me but I don't quite understand it. Can you rephrase it please? What are past and new structures you are talking of?
  - Mezzie 5y ago
    I don't completely agree with him, but I interpreted him as saying: Deconstruction is often employed in intellectually dishonest (or lazy) ways to discredit concepts by creating/employing tenuous links between a concept and its socio-cultural associations and refusing to actually elaborate on why they matter. This is often done in order to attack a concept for political reasons (as opposed to strictly intellectual ones), and people who do this are committing a tactical error. Giving legitimacy to these intellectually vacuous attacks as a tactic ensures that they'll be used against currently popular ideas in the future when they fall out of vogue.
  - prometheus76 5y ago
    I think Mezzie did a good job of elaborating in an eloquent way what I was saying in a hurry as I was walking out the door. I would only add to their comments that deconstruction is an ouroboros and will continue to devour itself as the morality spiral towards utopian ideological purity continues. You might be the most moral leader of the movement today, but future leaders will cast what you are doing now as "not enough" and "misguided" and especially "problematic" and you will be cast out and replaced. The history of the early years of the Soviet Revolution are the best historical example of what I'm talking about with the Trotskyites, the Leninists, and the Stalinists all accusing each other of not being the "real" or "true" form of communism using the same deconstruction techniques.
- kelseyfrog 5y ago
  I love this argument. It's the same with science. We shouldn't collect evidence that overturns the current theories because in the future we might collect even more evidence that and overturn future theories. We must remain intellectually stunted lest we make any progress at all.
barryfandango 5y ago
The human experience of linear time predates clocks, yes. But before clocks, we used natural phenomena as trigger events for our activities - the rising of the sun to wake up, the blooming of a certain flower to start plowing the fields. When, exactly, do we start plowing? At "flower bloom" o'clock. But you can't coordinate larger activities with these natural phenomena, which are regional and also variable. So instead we invent a system of trigger events that are not tied the natural world. We call the event the second, and it happens whenever this device says it does. The clock, and the second-events it produces, are our invention. That's what I got, anyway :)
- gtsop 5y ago
  > So instead we invent a system of trigger events that are not tied the natural world Not quite, all measurement is tied to the natural world, we've just been moving away from less stable and predictible events to more deterministic. Yes we have made up units of measurements that maybe arbitrary, but still tied to the physical world and dependent on natural properties. Nevertheless, it felt like the article was trying to prove there is something inherently evil with clocks that has been under our radar for ages, which is silly. And even if that was true (clocks being strictly tied to constructs of power)... this still doesn't mean that "clocks produce time". Maybe the title is just wrong?
  - MikeDelta 5y ago
    Indeed, a day is still a day and a year a year, even if we split a minute into 60 seconds. It is all tied to the sun (stars) and the place of our planet relative to it. We have leap years and seconds to keep our time synchronized with the universe (because of small round-off errors, if I may call it like that).
  - bulleshah 5y ago
    I just made this account to respond to this criticism. Let me see if I can do that :- > Not quite, all measurement is tied to the natural world, we've just been moving away from less stable and predictible events to more deterministic. That is very true, but measurements are not natural world. Just to take an example from software world, ability to solve leetcode questions is tied to general software engineering ability, but it would be a mistake to say that it is the ability. Leetcode style questions do not sit at the root of software engineering ability, its at best an important branch of the tree. Note that the problem here is not with a good measure or a bad measure of software engineering ability. The question is more about what it means to be a good software engineer, and thats not an objective question, thats a moral question and we will all disagree on an answer. Note that if time was just part of natural sciences like Physics, then we could come up with one theory and test it out. But time is not just a laboratory thing, its also a tool that humans use. And that makes it more than a natural science question, its also a humanities question, just like leetcode and iq tests are. > Nevertheless, it felt like the article was trying to prove there is something inherently evil with clocks that has been under our radar for ages, which is silly. And even if that was true (clocks being strictly tied to constructs of power)... this still doesn't mean that "clocks produce time". Maybe the title is just wrong? Every technology has an ideological bias to it, but technologies will try to convince you that they are neutral. A very good example would be how you say "inherently" evil. Actually, clock has both inherent evils and inherent goods. You're already aware of the goods and the article pointed out the evils. This has not been hidden and such technological criticism can even be found in Plato's works. More accurately, for clocks specifically, Lewis Mumford gave the thesis the book expands upon in 1930s and he lists out references in his work about folks who have pointed out these things even earlier.
dpark 5y ago
> Didn't make it. Same. I got halfway through and gave up because it didn’t say anything meaningful. I was hoping there was something interesting in there but no. At least not unless it was hidden in the last half of the drivel.

by gtsop 5y ago

prometheus76 5y ago

You've just outlined how deconstruction works. It's a cancer, and the ironic part is that those currently employing it against past structures do not see the time coming where their own "new structures" are deconstructed.

gtsop 5y ago
Your comment intruiges me but I don't quite understand it. Can you rephrase it please? What are past and new structures you are talking of?
- Mezzie 5y ago
  I don't completely agree with him, but I interpreted him as saying: Deconstruction is often employed in intellectually dishonest (or lazy) ways to discredit concepts by creating/employing tenuous links between a concept and its socio-cultural associations and refusing to actually elaborate on why they matter. This is often done in order to attack a concept for political reasons (as opposed to strictly intellectual ones), and people who do this are committing a tactical error. Giving legitimacy to these intellectually vacuous attacks as a tactic ensures that they'll be used against currently popular ideas in the future when they fall out of vogue.
- prometheus76 5y ago
  I think Mezzie did a good job of elaborating in an eloquent way what I was saying in a hurry as I was walking out the door. I would only add to their comments that deconstruction is an ouroboros and will continue to devour itself as the morality spiral towards utopian ideological purity continues. You might be the most moral leader of the movement today, but future leaders will cast what you are doing now as "not enough" and "misguided" and especially "problematic" and you will be cast out and replaced. The history of the early years of the Soviet Revolution are the best historical example of what I'm talking about with the Trotskyites, the Leninists, and the Stalinists all accusing each other of not being the "real" or "true" form of communism using the same deconstruction techniques.
kelseyfrog 5y ago
I love this argument. It's the same with science. We shouldn't collect evidence that overturns the current theories because in the future we might collect even more evidence that and overturn future theories. We must remain intellectually stunted lest we make any progress at all.

barryfandango 5y ago

The human experience of linear time predates clocks, yes. But before clocks, we used natural phenomena as trigger events for our activities - the rising of the sun to wake up, the blooming of a certain flower to start plowing the fields. When, exactly, do we start plowing? At "flower bloom" o'clock. But you can't coordinate larger activities with these natural phenomena, which are regional and also variable. So instead we invent a system of trigger events that are not tied the natural world. We call the event the second, and it happens whenever this device says it does. The clock, and the second-events it produces, are our invention. That's what I got, anyway :)

gtsop 5y ago
> So instead we invent a system of trigger events that are not tied the natural world Not quite, all measurement is tied to the natural world, we've just been moving away from less stable and predictible events to more deterministic. Yes we have made up units of measurements that maybe arbitrary, but still tied to the physical world and dependent on natural properties. Nevertheless, it felt like the article was trying to prove there is something inherently evil with clocks that has been under our radar for ages, which is silly. And even if that was true (clocks being strictly tied to constructs of power)... this still doesn't mean that "clocks produce time". Maybe the title is just wrong?
- MikeDelta 5y ago
  Indeed, a day is still a day and a year a year, even if we split a minute into 60 seconds. It is all tied to the sun (stars) and the place of our planet relative to it. We have leap years and seconds to keep our time synchronized with the universe (because of small round-off errors, if I may call it like that).
- bulleshah 5y ago
  I just made this account to respond to this criticism. Let me see if I can do that :- > Not quite, all measurement is tied to the natural world, we've just been moving away from less stable and predictible events to more deterministic. That is very true, but measurements are not natural world. Just to take an example from software world, ability to solve leetcode questions is tied to general software engineering ability, but it would be a mistake to say that it is the ability. Leetcode style questions do not sit at the root of software engineering ability, its at best an important branch of the tree. Note that the problem here is not with a good measure or a bad measure of software engineering ability. The question is more about what it means to be a good software engineer, and thats not an objective question, thats a moral question and we will all disagree on an answer. Note that if time was just part of natural sciences like Physics, then we could come up with one theory and test it out. But time is not just a laboratory thing, its also a tool that humans use. And that makes it more than a natural science question, its also a humanities question, just like leetcode and iq tests are. > Nevertheless, it felt like the article was trying to prove there is something inherently evil with clocks that has been under our radar for ages, which is silly. And even if that was true (clocks being strictly tied to constructs of power)... this still doesn't mean that "clocks produce time". Maybe the title is just wrong? Every technology has an ideological bias to it, but technologies will try to convince you that they are neutral. A very good example would be how you say "inherently" evil. Actually, clock has both inherent evils and inherent goods. You're already aware of the goods and the article pointed out the evils. This has not been hidden and such technological criticism can even be found in Plato's works. More accurately, for clocks specifically, Lewis Mumford gave the thesis the book expands upon in 1930s and he lists out references in his work about folks who have pointed out these things even earlier.

dpark 5y ago

> Didn't make it. Same. I got halfway through and gave up because it didn’t say anything meaningful. I was hoping there was something interesting in there but no. At least not unless it was hidden in the last half of the drivel.