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Funny you use the word "disrupt" in your ending paragraph, given the HN community is so full of aspirational start up founders and engineers who prided themselv

Funny you use the word "disrupt" in your ending paragraph, given the HN community is so full of aspirational start up founders and engineers who prided themselves on being "disrupters" at least that was the rallying call for a decade. You can read what Peter Thiel or Marc Andressen have to say about academic findings and you can see that attitude re: academia has basically propagated down. Ultimately, a lot of people are scoring points online calling academic research bunk because a lot of it is bunk, published for professional gain instead of pushing human knowledge further which is the entire supposed reason for the author's grant and their institution even existing. I singled out social science cause engineers/hard scientists always have thumbed their nose at social scientists, sometimes for very good reasons (they hijack the language and techniques of hard science to give themselves credibility even when its not appropriate) and sometimes for not good reasons (they can't code as well as me so they are invalid).

wolverine876 4y ago
> Funny you use the word "disrupt" in your ending paragraph, given the HN community is so full of aspirational start up founders and engineers who prided themselves on being "disrupters" at least that was the rallying call for a decade. I don't think it's coincidence. What was a tool has become a religious practice for which the original purpose has been forgotten, and which powerful people have twisted to their own desires - more power and wealth for them by shifting it away from democratic government, the public, by making themselves arbiters of truth who judge, in their monumental, blinding genius, all of the world's scholars - all they need to do is say something disparaging. Now they disrupt everything, including democracy, truth, and freedom. > a lot of people are scoring points online calling academic research bunk because a lot of it is bunk, published for professional gain instead of pushing human knowledge further Isn't that just repeating Thiel's and Andressen's claims (as you describe them)? You say it like it's assumed, but other than everyone repeating it, I don't see much evidence of it. Of course it's flawed, like every human endeavor is flawed, including Thiel's and Andressen's.

wolverine876 4y ago

> Funny you use the word "disrupt" in your ending paragraph, given the HN community is so full of aspirational start up founders and engineers who prided themselves on being "disrupters" at least that was the rallying call for a decade. I don't think it's coincidence. What was a tool has become a religious practice for which the original purpose has been forgotten, and which powerful people have twisted to their own desires - more power and wealth for them by shifting it away from democratic government, the public, by making themselves arbiters of truth who judge, in their monumental, blinding genius, all of the world's scholars - all they need to do is say something disparaging. Now they disrupt everything, including democracy, truth, and freedom. > a lot of people are scoring points online calling academic research bunk because a lot of it is bunk, published for professional gain instead of pushing human knowledge further Isn't that just repeating Thiel's and Andressen's claims (as you describe them)? You say it like it's assumed, but other than everyone repeating it, I don't see much evidence of it. Of course it's flawed, like every human endeavor is flawed, including Thiel's and Andressen's.