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That was certainly an interesting if not completely ridiculous read... The author seems to spend most of his time generalizing and erroneously misinterpreting t

by spauka 14y ago

That was certainly an interesting if not completely ridiculous read... The author seems to spend most of his time generalizing and erroneously misinterpreting the view points of those he perceives as skeptics (the most heinous of which include his characterization of skeptics as people who "hate and fear" philosophy, which is just about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard). He seems to have misguided views on everything from modern medicines use of the placebo, to the development of fields such as computation linguistics and medical science. Here's the deal, if the author can demonstrably prove that people who use homeopathy know that it is just a placebo, then they can go for it. But they don't. If the author can show that there exist better methods for researching language, then go for it, but he doesn't. In fact, as someone who is interested in the field and friends with many computational linguists, let me tell you they are trying to look for better models to deal with the uncertainty inherent in NLP, and I'm not even sure where his statement that computational linguists fear pragmatics comes from. That is complete crap. Wrapping bullshit around some kernels of truth does not make it true. I.E. yes, the atheist community on reddit can have misguided views, and yes people like Hitchens and Dawkins and the like are subject to their own personal biases, but both those people and indeed most of these communities are acutely aware of this fact and spend a lot of time trying to come to terms with it (look at the recent furor about whether the glorification of people posting snarky remarks made to "fundies" on reddit constituted a positive step). His rant against the skeptic conspiracy against feminism is also something which I found incomprehensible, and as far as I can tell completely untrue. I would encourage people to read this in its entirety, if only to convince yourself that the title is an attention grab, and that the contents, while pointing out some valid truths, are largely filled with conspiracy theories and facts which are not backed up, and based on vast generalizations and oversimplifications. P.S. I did enjoy the bit about the skeptics movement being a neoliberal conspiracy.

koide 14y ago
- He's assuming people go to alternative medicine after real medicine, that assumption might be wrong, but it's not even a main point in his argument. - He talks about Linguistics, not NLP, so I don't know what your friends have to do with that part. - The only thing about conspiracies there is where he says he understands why conspiracy theorists create the theories: to avoid reality becuase reality sucks for them. - There is no mention of a conspiracy against feminism, only that there is a sexist background in the whole group. - Also, no conspiracy about neoliberalism, only an argument: If you believe science should be in charge of revealing all reality to us, you should support an environment in which science can thrive with nothing that would take it back, and that is liberal democracy nowadays. It seems we read a different article. There are lots of worthy discussion points, but lets discuss them, not just vaguely oversimplify or dismiss them.
- andreasvc 14y ago
  > - He talks about Linguistics, not NLP, so I don't know what your friends have to do with that part. He specifically talks about computational linguistics, which is practically synonymous with NLP (there is a minor difference in connotation--the former is scientific rather than engineering, but it's really very minor).
  - koide 14y ago
    That's right. After paying more attention to the paragraph in question I'd love the grandparent asking his friends about the new models that are being tried and how are they based on Wittgensteinian pragmatics. I haven't seen any, but I've only been exposed to the applied mainstream of NLP, not to the bleeding edge of the research.
    - andreasvc 14y ago
      I have the impression that Wittgenstein's musings were of an informal, philosophical nature, and that they are difficult to translate to a practical real world application. That doesn't have to mean that he's necessarily wrong, just that for practical work such as in NLP you are forced to make some rather strong assumptions which are actually just wrong, but which allow us to approximate language to an extent where current technology can do something useful with it.
      - koide 14y ago
        Please correct me if I'm wrong, but current applied NLP is building parse trees and applying probabilistic rules to classification problems. With those two you can indeed build some awesome tools but we are so, so far away from actual language that it hurts.
irahul 14y ago
> Wrapping bullshit around some kernels of truth does not make it true. > I would encourage people to read this in its entirety, if only to convince yourself that the title is an attention grab, and that the contents, while pointing out some valid truths, are largely filled with conspiracy theories and facts which are not backed up, and based on vast generalizations and oversimplifications. Personally I found it extremely painful to read. This article is like a small piece of chocolate hidden inside shit ton of dog shit. That small piece of chocolate is totally negated by heaps of dog shit. You just keep reading in the hope that the hidden chocolate would be worth it, but you find out what you believed to be chocolate was few crystals of household sugar, and you ploughed through dog shit for nothing. Also, this experience left a bad taste in your mouth.
- batista 14y ago
  >Personally I found it extremely painful to read. This article is like a small piece of chocolate hidden inside shit ton of dog shit. That small piece of chocolate is totally negated by heaps of dog shit. You just keep reading in the hope that the hidden chocolate would be worth it, but you find out what you believed to be chocolate was few crystals of household sugar, and you ploughed through dog shit for nothing. Also, this experience left a bad taste in your mouth. Notice how you didn't manage to come up with one iota of actual criticism on specific points?
  - irahul 14y ago
    > Notice how you didn't manage to come up I would replace that "didn't manage to come up" with "didn't come up" - trolls, feeding etc. The whole article is full of straw-man and false generalizations. If you got anything out of it, superb. I didn't; and I simply stated that. I don't see why I am obliged to write a full rebuttal.
    - koide 14y ago
      You aren't obliged, but it would be nice to read some explicit counterarguments and some strawmen exposed. Given your strong opinions about the piece, at least rebutting the worst part of the article should be easy and not take much effort. It would also make the thread more interesting.
batista 14y ago
>That was certainly an interesting if not completely ridiculous read... The author seems to spend most of his time generalizing and erroneously misinterpreting the view points of those he perceives as skeptics (the most heinous of which include his characterization of skeptics as people who "hate and fear" philosophy, which is just about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard). Having spent quite some time in sceptic forums and circles, I can assure that the article is 100% spot on. (Oh, and the sceptics love philosophy, but only if it's the 1% of positivist anglo-saxon philosophy that caters to their prejudices).
- irahul 14y ago
  > Having spent quite some time in sceptic forums and circles, I can assure that the article is 100% spot on. I can assure you that you and the author aren't the only skeptics around; and this article isn't 100% spot on.

by spauka 14y ago

koide 14y ago

- He's assuming people go to alternative medicine after real medicine, that assumption might be wrong, but it's not even a main point in his argument. - He talks about Linguistics, not NLP, so I don't know what your friends have to do with that part. - The only thing about conspiracies there is where he says he understands why conspiracy theorists create the theories: to avoid reality becuase reality sucks for them. - There is no mention of a conspiracy against feminism, only that there is a sexist background in the whole group. - Also, no conspiracy about neoliberalism, only an argument: If you believe science should be in charge of revealing all reality to us, you should support an environment in which science can thrive with nothing that would take it back, and that is liberal democracy nowadays. It seems we read a different article. There are lots of worthy discussion points, but lets discuss them, not just vaguely oversimplify or dismiss them.

andreasvc 14y ago
> - He talks about Linguistics, not NLP, so I don't know what your friends have to do with that part. He specifically talks about computational linguistics, which is practically synonymous with NLP (there is a minor difference in connotation--the former is scientific rather than engineering, but it's really very minor).
- koide 14y ago
  That's right. After paying more attention to the paragraph in question I'd love the grandparent asking his friends about the new models that are being tried and how are they based on Wittgensteinian pragmatics. I haven't seen any, but I've only been exposed to the applied mainstream of NLP, not to the bleeding edge of the research.
  - andreasvc 14y ago
    I have the impression that Wittgenstein's musings were of an informal, philosophical nature, and that they are difficult to translate to a practical real world application. That doesn't have to mean that he's necessarily wrong, just that for practical work such as in NLP you are forced to make some rather strong assumptions which are actually just wrong, but which allow us to approximate language to an extent where current technology can do something useful with it.
    - koide 14y ago
      Please correct me if I'm wrong, but current applied NLP is building parse trees and applying probabilistic rules to classification problems. With those two you can indeed build some awesome tools but we are so, so far away from actual language that it hurts.

irahul 14y ago

> Wrapping bullshit around some kernels of truth does not make it true. > I would encourage people to read this in its entirety, if only to convince yourself that the title is an attention grab, and that the contents, while pointing out some valid truths, are largely filled with conspiracy theories and facts which are not backed up, and based on vast generalizations and oversimplifications. Personally I found it extremely painful to read. This article is like a small piece of chocolate hidden inside shit ton of dog shit. That small piece of chocolate is totally negated by heaps of dog shit. You just keep reading in the hope that the hidden chocolate would be worth it, but you find out what you believed to be chocolate was few crystals of household sugar, and you ploughed through dog shit for nothing. Also, this experience left a bad taste in your mouth.

batista 14y ago
>Personally I found it extremely painful to read. This article is like a small piece of chocolate hidden inside shit ton of dog shit. That small piece of chocolate is totally negated by heaps of dog shit. You just keep reading in the hope that the hidden chocolate would be worth it, but you find out what you believed to be chocolate was few crystals of household sugar, and you ploughed through dog shit for nothing. Also, this experience left a bad taste in your mouth. Notice how you didn't manage to come up with one iota of actual criticism on specific points?
- irahul 14y ago
  > Notice how you didn't manage to come up I would replace that "didn't manage to come up" with "didn't come up" - trolls, feeding etc. The whole article is full of straw-man and false generalizations. If you got anything out of it, superb. I didn't; and I simply stated that. I don't see why I am obliged to write a full rebuttal.
  - koide 14y ago
    You aren't obliged, but it would be nice to read some explicit counterarguments and some strawmen exposed. Given your strong opinions about the piece, at least rebutting the worst part of the article should be easy and not take much effort. It would also make the thread more interesting.

batista 14y ago

>That was certainly an interesting if not completely ridiculous read... The author seems to spend most of his time generalizing and erroneously misinterpreting the view points of those he perceives as skeptics (the most heinous of which include his characterization of skeptics as people who "hate and fear" philosophy, which is just about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard). Having spent quite some time in sceptic forums and circles, I can assure that the article is 100% spot on. (Oh, and the sceptics love philosophy, but only if it's the 1% of positivist anglo-saxon philosophy that caters to their prejudices).

irahul 14y ago
> Having spent quite some time in sceptic forums and circles, I can assure that the article is 100% spot on. I can assure you that you and the author aren't the only skeptics around; and this article isn't 100% spot on.