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Every time an engineer writes a screed against the humanities, I feel like I'm going to break out in hives. Engineering and the sciences have, to a greater deg
by jgg 13y ago
Every time an engineer writes a screed against the humanities, I feel like I'm going to break out in hives.
Engineering and the sciences have, to a greater degree, been spared this isolation and genetic drift because of crass commercial necessity.
Unsubstantiated bullshit. Most theoretical backbones of math and science were discovered/formalized for anything but commercial reasons.
It is clear to me that the humanities are not going to emerge from the jungle on their own. I think that the task of outreach is left to those of us who retain some connection, however tenuous, to what we laughingly call reality.
You could start with your own field(s), which are full of mediocre paper-pushers milling around other people's theory, publishing uninteresting observations which, as long as they are "logical" and "correct", are shit into a godawful paper that no one will ever care about or read. "A Novel Method for Applying a Trivial Modification of an Already-Known Algorithm to Some Type of Specific Data" could be the title of about 35% of the CS papers in existence.
- anaphor 13y agoEven if you're publishing nothing really new, you can publish something that looks at something in a slightly different way and it can be useful to some people. I agree that a lot of these papers are poorly written, but there's nothing wrong with being unoriginal, not everything has to be groundbreaking. I recommend watching Simon Peyton Jones' talk on how to write a great research paper: http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1464870 http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1464870
- icebraining 13y agoUnsubstantiated bullshit. Most theoretical backbones of math and science were discovered/formalized for anything but commercial reasons. How does that contradict what the author said? His argument is that any field closed over itself, over time, will tend to distance themselves from reality - obviously, the initial impetus of a field happens far too early to experience such effects.
- jgg 13y agoHis argument is that science and engineering haven't drifted from reality due to commercial interest. I am saying that whether or not science and engineering are tied to reality has little to do with being relevant to the commercial world.
- icebraining 13y agoI realize that, but I don't think you have a valid counter argument, since it doesn't contradict what was claimed.
- jgg 13y agoWhat was claimed: Field X has resisted "uselessness" (to some arbitrary extent, assumed to be noticeable since the author felt like mentioning it as being significant in relation to the humanities) due to influence of the commercial world. My claim: influence of commercial world is extremely unimportant for most of the important parts of Field X, ergo, commercial influence has had almost no bearing on keeping Field X "useful", regardless of whether or not Field X is actually useful. Statement to support claim: the vast majority of what we consider 'science' (lumped in with engineering by the author) consists of a theoretical backbone tested against reality, which has nothing to do directly with commercial interests in theory, and often in practice. Examples include mechanics, EM theory, quantum mechanics, relativity, genetics, number theory, integral calculus. You would have a hard time proving that these things, which all have a basis in reality, are that way because of "crass commercial necessity", as the author claimed.
- mjw 13y agoAn aside, but: > A Novel Method for Applying a Trivial Modification of an Already-Known Algorithm to Some Type of Specific Data Papers sharing empirical findings on applications of existing research can be very useful to those of us also, you know, looking to apply said research. Don't underestimate the amount of value (and legwork!) involved in figuring out how to adapt and apply theoretical work to real problems in some CS-related fields. Obviously that kind of thing isn't accepted at the top conferences, so you know where not to look if you're not interested in it.
- philwelch 13y ago> Most theoretical backbones of math and science were discovered/formalized for anything but commercial reasons. And if they end up serving no practical use they end up discarded and ignored by scientists and engineers (if maybe not pure mathematicians). The author's point is that there is no such selective pressure on lit crit. Also, poststructuralist lit crit is not the be all and end all of "the humanities".
- jgg 13y agoAnd if they end up serving no practical use they end up discarded and ignored by scientists and engineers (if maybe not pure mathematicians). The author's point is that there is no such selective pressure on lit crit. Practical use ≠ commercial use! Also, I have no idea where you got the idea of "disgarding" research, especially in regards to pure mathematicians. What is "practical" to you? Also, poststructuralist lit crit is not the be all and end all of "the humanities". No, it's not, and yet when I deconstructed the author's paper (I crack me up), I found that he made a generalization about all of the humanities following his limited experience with the given topic.
- philwelch 13y agoI didn't read any general statements about the humanities until people read a laser-focused discussion of deconstruction and said "he's attacking the humanities!". That's like reading a scathing Yelp review of a dodgy restaurant and saying "he hates food!"
- jgg 13y agoI have no idea what in the Hell you're blathering about. If you read the goddamned article, he generalizes the humanities. That's like reading a scathing Yelp review of a dodgy restaurant and saying "he hates food!" Your analogy is like doing meth in a bathtub with a small chimpanzee playing a xylophone to the tune of, "Pachelbel's Canon" while shoving a sharpened pencil into my urethra to wash away the pain of dealing with ridiculous comments on Hacker News.
- 13y ago
- derleth 13y ago> "A Novel Method for Applying a Trivial Modification of an Already-Known Algorithm to Some Type of Specific Data" This is how science builds on itself. Every well-known paper has citations to 'lesser' works which laid the foundations.
- jgg 13y agoI studied mathematics and computer engineering, and I've probably read more papers than you. Just because I have the ability to write doesn't make me an English major - you're just a moron! Insert 3 credits and try again, dumbfuck. * kicks back and waits for impending ban * EDIT: Nice job editing your comment to remove the attack, you fucking dipshit.
- derleth 13y ago> you're just a moron! If you're so much smarter than me, why do you resort to insults? > Nice job editing your comment to remove the attack, you fucking dipshit. I can edit to remove insults, but you can only edit to add them. What does that say about you?
- jgg 13y agoBecause the teacher's puppet touched me in a bad place, and I project my self-hatred onto others.
- derleth 13y ago> Because the teacher's puppet touched me in a bad place, and I project my self-hatred onto others. And now you're making fun of molestation victims to score points on a website. You have no idea what kind of history the people here have with molestation, and you're potentially dragging up some very painful memories just to score points on me. Why? People commit suicide over this stuff.