Reminds me that Kierkegaard has written about Google:
"A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of advertisement and publicity. In the present age a rebellion is, of all things, the most unthinkable. Such an expression of strength would seem ridiculous to the calculating intelligence of our times. On the other hand a political virtuoso might bring off a feat almost as remarkable. He might write a manifesto suggesting a general assembly at which people should decide upon a rebellion, and it would be so carefully worded that even the censor would let it pass. At the meeting itself he would be able to create the impression that his audience had rebelled, after which they would all go quietly home – having spent a very pleasant evening."
If this is aiming to invoke the tired "virtue signalling" cliché, it's rather vacuous.
Kierkegaard's alternative was an armed rebellion. Are you seriously advocating for civil war, and dismissing all peaceful methods of achieving change?
That gets to the heart of what's wrong with the concept as it is used by the 4chan crowd these days: The success of democracy is exactly the possibility to effect change without shouldering grave personal risks. Trying to reframe this accomplishment as ineffective, weak, or lazy runs the danger of provoking exactly the sort of dramatic, self-sacrificing gestures that have been in the news recently.
In the specific case, maybe quitting would be slightly less dramatic but more forceful form of protest. But it's quite obvious that exists a gray area where it's perfectly legitimate to try to change an organisation, while still being convinced of its overall benefit. Recruitment & retainment are also huge factors for Google's future prospect, making a walk-out with the implied threat of quitting, an effective tool.
>making a walk-out with the implied threat of quitting, an effective tool.
Unless Google employees are addressing one of the elephants in their house, can any internal criticism of the company be seen as more than showmanship?
Andy Rubin is safe to target. He's already gone, and accused of something uncontroversial to hate.
Show me a walkout over Dragonfly and I'll show you a news story.
“The success of democracy is exactly the possibility to effect change without shouldering grave personal risks. Trying to reframe this accomplishment as ineffective, weak, or lazy runs the danger of provoking exactly the sort of dramatic, self-sacrificing gestures that have been in the news recently.“
Wow, that quote is breathtakingly beautiful...and it’s so relavent today. Many have this self righteous feverish belief that their side is good and the other evil. When we as a society begin taking for granted the benefits of democracy and start truly believing we can’t enact change, the number of nut jobs committing violence will absolutely increase. Tribalism today is insane, and our ability to enact change peaceful,h keeps the violence and the bad acting to an extreme minimum. It’s easy to get lost in the chaos.
Honestly, I’m completly blown away by that quote and I’m using it as a rebuttal when these topics come up.
>The success of democracy is exactly the possibility to effect change without shouldering grave personal risks...
True. In effect, we have a civil war every 4 years. During these civil wars there is zero personal risk to the participants. And even still, the largest bloc of us chooses not to participate.
Describing the process of voting and elections as a civil war is something that I think (and no offense meant by this) only be done by an American. No other democracy would describe voting this way (with the exception of dictatorships in democracy's clothing).
Good comment. But it is not about "forcing" an outcome. These kind of polarizing sensitive issues are never resolved long term through forcing any issue.
At their best these movements make people feel the hurt/injustice and need for safety being expressed underneath all the noise/reactions/counter reactions.
Once a majority in the room feel it the movement has succeeded. This entire process ofcourse doesn't align neatly with our cultural conditioning that change happens through confrontation and punishment.
I don't super disagree, but note that one can argue for a mechanistic explanation of human behavior, with important implications about what we should conclude from that behavior, without implicitly endorsing different behavior or otherwise making an ethical claim.
This in turn reminds me of a Dostoyevski story where a guy thinks he can make an amazing speech of 15 minutes that will convince everybody. I don't think this is how reality works
Reminds me that Kierkegaard seems to have written about social media:
"Man, this shrewd being, ponders day and night how he can invent new means to amplify the noise and how he can spread the sound and the empty talk as hastily as possible everywhere. What one achieves in such a way is probably soon the opposite: the message is soon brought to its lowest level of fullness of meaning, and at the same time, conversely, the means of communication in the direction of hasty and all-flooding distribution have probably reached their maximum, for what is more hastily circulated than gossip?"
I'm guessing this was about newspapers/journalists which probably isn't the message people around here would like.
"The lowest depth to which people can sink before God is defined by the word 'journalist'. If I were a father and had a daughter who was seduced I should despair over her; I would hope for her salvation. But if I had a son who became a journalist and continued to be one for five years, I would give him up." - Soren Kierkegaard
Given the extreme anti-tech sentiment and inaccurate reporting pervasive in among journalists. I think many here would totally agree with this statement.
There's a lot of architecture in Shakespeare. The non-Aristotelian structure of his plays, the highly stylized language, the iambic pentameter, the stage directions. You could endlessly examine the structural characteristics of his works.
The list obviously plays with leaving things vague, ambiguous, uncertain. It's funny how this seems to enrage certain people.
"Philologie nämlich ist jene ehrwürdige Kunst, welche von ihrem Verehrer vor allem eins heischt, beiseite gehn, sich Zeit lassen, still werden, langsam werden –, als eine Goldschmiedekunst und -kennerschaft des Wortes, die lauter feine vorsichtige Arbeit abzutun hat und nichts erreicht, wenn sie es nicht lento erreicht. Gerade damit aber ist sie heute nötiger als je, gerade dadurch zieht sie und bezaubert sie uns am stärksten, mitten in einem Zeitalter der »Arbeit«, will sagen: der Hast, der unanständigen und schwitzenden Eilfertigkeit, das mit allem gleich »fertig werden« will, auch mit jedem alten und neuen Buche: – sie selbst wird nicht so leicht irgend womit fertig, sie lehrt gut lesen, das heißt langsam, tief, rück- und vorsichtig, mit Hintergedanken mit offengelassenen Türen, mit zarten Fingern und Augen lesen... Meine geduldigen Freunde, dies Buch wünscht sich nur vollkommne Leser und Philologen: lernt mich gut lesen!"
"Philology is that venerable art which demands of its votaries one thing above all: to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow – it is a goldsmith's art and connoisseurship of the word which has nothing but delicate, cautious work to do and achieves nothing if it does not achieve it lento. But for precisely this reason it is more necessary than ever today, by precisely this means does it entice and enchant us the most, in the midst of an age of 'work', that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to 'get everything done' at once, including every old or new book: this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read well, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers . . . My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and philologists: learn to read me well!"
I wonder whether Nietzsche wrote that because of his mother tongue... for me, switching between English and German is just like switching down 5 gears in a car...
I think of reading as a process of tuning between the mind of the writer and the reader.. like a dialogue, you can modulate the speed until you both feel comfortable with ..
"The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect."
I think some of the umbrage between the STEMy folks and the philosophers comes from the educational differences. Namely, math. STEMy folks, especially physicists, take a LOT of math. In my limited experiences, most philosophers do not have the calculus, let alone the matrix algebra, diff. eqs., Lagrangians, or the stats background (anecdata, so please rebuke!). Not that those things are required to do philosophy, but the lack of them limits the philosopher a lot. This is especially true in today's world filled with matrix algebra and stats, err... Machine Learning and AI. We constantly hear about the ethics of a self driving car near a school-bus, but it's all so much jawing discussion and shows an infantile understanding of the machines that are doing the driving. The lack of rigorous high level logic (Godel, Escher, Bach comes to mind) hinders many modern philosophers and puts their discipline off at the separate table for kids at Thanksgiving. If they want to be relevant in the modern world, they need to speak one of the important languages: math.
>... most philosophers do not have the calculus, let alone the matrix algebra, diff. eqs., Lagrangians, or the stats background (anecdata, so please rebuke!).
While this is certainly true for many philosophers, it is false for philosophers of physics. The best among them (say, Tim Maudlin, Laura Ruetsche, David Wallace and others) have a very sophisticated understanding of their target science and many hold advanced degrees in it.
You should actually read philosophy. Or maths. Betrand Russel discovered Russel's paradox, which was extremely influential in the development of set theory. Many philosophers are excellent mathematicians. Logic is a discipline that is taught in basically every philosophy course.
To be clear, I am talking about contemporary individuals, not historical ones. Obviously Russell and Godel were excellent logicians and moved philosophy ahead considerably.
You should probably read contemporary philosophy, then! Formal logic is a central tool of most analytic philosophy, to this day. The more logic-oriented side of philosophy typically merges seamlessly into maths.
It's not limited to analytic philosophy, either - continental thinkers like Badiou have sustained engagement with set theory - it's very traditional, actually.
Well, it really depends on what you're interested in. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is actually very good, and contains a bibliography at the end of every article. Philosophy is very diverse in terms of subject matter - and my experience is that people are very different in terms of what questions they find engaging.
"One can be a lover of Space and its possibilities: take, for example, speed, the smoothness and sword-swish of speed; the aquiline glory of ruling velocity; the joy cry of the curve; and one can be an amateur of Time, an epicure of duration. I delight sensually in Time, in its stuff and spread, in the fall of its folds, in the very impalpability of its grayish gauze, in the coolness of its continuum. I wish to do something about it; to indulge in a simulacrum of possession. I am aware that all who have tried to reach the charmed castle have got lost in obscurity or have bogged down in Space."
