The Erosion of Dissent

[Clinamenic]

I agree that people care about how economics impacts their life, but when we start talking about macroeconomics and monetary policy, it becomes more or less entirely remote as far as most people are concerned.

And yet, these things are more important than many of the cultural disputes that we continue to let divide us.

 

[luka]

It is very dull and difficult.

and also probably wrong in almost all cases

 

[Clinamenic]

It is very dull and difficult.

And even at that, it's still not even a proper hard science. It inherits the ambiguity from psychology and other social sciences.

 

[Clinamenic]

Is anything a hard science at this point?

Yeah, the big areas being physics, chemistry and biology, each predicated on the previous, all largely built on math. As data science permeates more and more of science, what was once a soft field can become hard qua minimally ambiguous.

 

[Clinamenic]

One example of an area of science becoming a harder science, as a result of data science, is genomics emerging from genetics. Now we have an expansive body of data from which to derive insights.

I think I'd say that hard science is defined by minimal ambiguity. In math, there are million dollar prizes reserved for those who can crack some of the outstanding ambiguities. Whereas, in psychology, to my knowledge, ambiguity is the norm.

We can extend the epistemological spectrum further into ambiguity yet, moving from hard science to soft science to the likes of alchemy and ultimately art.

 

[luka]

trump got in partly by talking about economic issues. outsourcing production to china and mexico and elsewhere for example. people want to know why their life is rubbish. why is my life rubbish? why do i live in this town which is falling down around my ears? why aren't there any jobs here? why are all the shopfronts boarded up?

 

[Clinamenic]

I'd say its a consequent of the metastasis of the digital. The big one to watch out for is when consciousness studies becomes a hard science. Its still at a stage of soft science and philosophy, but techniques like those in connectomics are the fruit of data science.

 

[luka]

what are all these foreign people doing here? i bet there's an economic reason for that too. i bet it's a way to cheat me.

 

[Clinamenic]

what are all these foreign people doing here? i bet there's an economic reason for that too. i bet it's a way to cheat me.

Yeah just like Poetix's paranoid/neurotic spectrum model.

 

[luka]

i dont know that... sorry Dr Fox.

 

[Clinamenic]

what are all these foreign people doing here? i bet there's an economic reason for that too. i bet it's a way to cheat me.

Yeah and once you start thinking on a systems level, a global level even, the problem becomes framed as "how do we educate these people?" when arguably the chief concern is that they are able to provide for themselves.

 

[version]

That thing I posted a while back about capital adopting progressive language and gestures in order to gain a new moral legitimacy is a big part of this turn re: dissent. You can see it in the way people will stick up for Marvel or Disney in the confidence that they have the moral high ground because of things like casting diversity.

 

[Clinamenic]

True, and as a means of getting people to be complicit with monopolistic scenarios, it's an effective strategy. The counterargument, although one that still doesn't necessary warrant defending corporate actors, is that such increased representation does make a palpable impact on how some kids develop self-expectations and whatnot.

 

[Clinamenic]

By, say, having a few different black women in the MCU to look up to.

 

[Clinamenic]

One selfish reason I want proportionate representation is so that all this discussion about critical engagement with culture can be dialed down a few notches. I'd imagine some conservatives should want this for the same reason.

 

[luka]

Yeah and once you start thinking on a systems level, a global level even, the problem becomes framed as "how do we educate these people?" when arguably the chief concern is that they are able to provide for themselves.

sorry i dont follow this what do you mean?

 

[Clinamenic]

sorry i dont follow this what do you mean?

That is, if you are far enough removed from these basic concerns, you may tend to think in higher-order abstract ways in which people become actors in a system who need to have their incentives accounted for by the engineers of the system.

In some ways, I think this is perfectly reasonable, but when it is severed from a more basic ability to relate, when it becomes out of touch, you can start to enter cybernetic lizard person territory. I can speak to that firsthand, obviously.

 

[Clinamenic]

And one of the higher-order social systems engineering solutions, is better education. Which, again, certainly isn't inherently bad, except when it gets out of touch.

 

[luka]

well this is what people suspect isn't it? that governments would rather ship in labour from abroad than invest in and educate their own populace.

 

[WashYourHands]

Education x 3 = Tony’s spell