My brain reads “No science, no startups” — alarm bells. This kind of mono-causal oversimplification can only be anti-Trump clickbait — I ignore the post.
A few seconds later, guilt kicks in — “Don’t be so ignorant!” — I click the link. Literally the ninth word is Trump. My brain: “Alright, that says it all.”
I scroll a bit — should I really read this? My brain: “No, let ChatGPT analyze it critically.”
Conclusion:
The same kind of simplistic linear causality is presented without substance — no sources, no data, no valid projections — uncritically carried through. Typical NPC-scripted “science,” representative of much of today’s “NPC academia.” It’s just a patchwork of general knowledge and some combinatorial creativity, pretending to be expertise, seriousness, and understanding — enumerated to suggest strange, subjective, unscientific, and mostly personal goals.
This exact kind of NPC-scripted “science” needs to be exposed and discredited as pseudo. If this is the so-called “defense” of science, then it deserves to be opposed. Simple as that.
PLEASE - for the love of god - spare me with this nonsense!
Information and well-crafted sentences are available on the Language Tree, easily plucked by anyone at zero cost. It's greedy for those so-called novelists and subject matter experts to expect a living wage.
"Information wants to be free," which means that any cost of producing that information can be abstracted away due to ideological inconvenience.
Then show me the easily available "information on the langauge tree" to solve the unsolved problems in science.
Btw. books are not mere information, they are also products of effort and sacrifice and intentions. They are also embedded in an economic system of paper, books, ink, transport and what not producers.
So you are either poor or too lazy to buy a book from the store. But this doesn't justify mind theft or it's distribution.
Governments. You forgot governments. They take the bulk of the money, especially in Europe.
~25% VAT and then the publishers and retailers take their cut. The government takes another 40% in income and payroll taxes from that. The leftovers are what the author gets.
Buying from yourself is probably the biggest markup you can get.
yes, exactly, annas-archive is the modern robin-hood that frees up the knowledge.
it is not a theft, because people using annas-archive were not going to buy a book in the first place and publishers incomes didnt drop due to annas-archive
Very little. Aside from high-profile/best-selling authors who do make a decent amount of money, the vast majority of writers do it because they love doing it, not because they expect to become rich.
But "reading a book is not the same as letting someone else write one for you".
I think that the learning curve from reading docs and forums is not the same as coding with AI. Many will intuitively become lazier, more careless, and dumber, whereas the well-read developer will, in turn, become less and less dependent on external forums.
You can use an LLM as an advanced search engine. The results may vary. Tends to sometimes return hallucinated garbage wasting your time especially for harder queries.
Which are the ones you would want answers to... Everything else is memorized unless you're new.
Usually these things do not have an answer in the search engine either. Or a lousy one like using an insufficiently completed premade library.
Yeah - one can simply feel it, where these people are coming from. I can't imagine anyone would be missing anything if they never published a single thing. I am exhausted of this type of journalism and activism.
There is no contradiction between patriotism, nationalism and science or progress.
Every time I read this kind of leftist propaganda, I lose hope for the world. The very people who present themselves as intelligent and morally superior fail to recognize the most basic contradictions within themselves: they claim that autocrats and populists sow fear and nostalgia, while they themselves are driven by fear of autocrats and long for utopia, while polarizing and dividing society for neglecting real problems and worries, due to idealization and generalization. It’s simply absurd, and I urge every leftist to stop this. I myself left university because of the moralistic and toxic irrationality and ideology I encountered. Isn't it strange that empirical sciences are not in dispute? It is always the same "circle" - the social justice circle. Social justice is not a scientific category.
Just as the paradoxes of quantum mechanics have no direct consequences for politics, we should not treat the humanities as if they do either. Life is not a question or problem to be solved at the university...
Look, in theory you're fine. In practice, the nationalists are dismantling the scientific research required to study climate change (which is happening, because, you know, carbon heating the atmosphere is basic physics). They are claiming that tax cuts and austerity improve the economy, which is not only counter to economics but has been proven wrong over 50 years. And don't get me started on pollution, healthcare, and sexuality. All of these may be studied but are being actively defunded, because they are perceived as leftist for some reason. Without getting moralistic, I can tell you that my children's future is getting worse every day because of this science denialism. As Yogi Berra once said "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."
And the problem with this whole discussion is that I'm not necessarily trying to defend conservatives, but rather to confront progressives with a reality that might, hopefully, prompt some self-reflection. But any criticism of progressives is immediately projected onto conservatives, making genuine self-awareness impossible. And as long as progressives show no forbearance toward conservatives, conservatives will make them pay for it politically. I can't understand why this is ignored, especially in academia. It's completely beyond me how the free West has turned into this ideological hell — in just 30 years.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11098838-oligarchies-throug...
I appreciate the perspective, but it's hard to both sides this one. Progressives come from a place where good faith arguments are expected (and - no question - foolish). The current MAGA right comes from a place where they would siphon the gas from your car and use it to burn down your house.
That's like saying that if someone punches you in the face you should ask them nicely to please stop? Sorry but where I grew up you punch them back until they stop.
> There is no contradiction between patriotism, nationalism and science or progress.
In the abstract, no, I don't believe there is a conflict between nationalism and science. However, nationalism and populism can lead to belief systems and policies that are absolutely in conflict with science. For instance, when nationalism means "our universities should only be for our people", that is directly in conflict with science. Most famously, Hitler purged Jews from German universities, after which David Hilbert said "there is no mathematics at Gottingen". The Trump administration is trying to prevent universities from recruiting foreign students and researchers, and even arresting researchers who advocate for ideas they disagree with. Fundamentally this is incompatible with science. Limiting who can do the research to a small percentage of the world's population, and intimidating and persecuting researchers who express unfavored opinions does not produce good science.
But did this "brain drain" throw Germany back into the Stone Age?
I'm not too familiar with the historical details, but I don't know of any reports suggesting that Germany was scientifically damaged in the post-war period.
Why do we need to start at the post-war period? Germany under the Nazis was obviously bad at science. This is a pretty obvious consequence of being rewarded for parroting the party line and adherence to dogma over actual investigations.
Because National Socialism has become an irrefutable foundation — and I don't want to discuss that. I actually see it as a step backward that the next generations are now necessarily forced to live and think under its shadow, when they could in fact be thinking free.
The US was decisive in defeating Nazi Germany, in no small part due to its science and mathematics. And if Nazi Germany had held on for longer, the atomic bomb would have defeated them too, with a large number of exiled scientists.
Pre-war, much of the scientific literature was in German, especially chemistry. These days it's all in English.
And now it’s falling apart from within due to ideas from the humanities? Where do we even place the temporal benchmark for progress and why do we call it progress in the first place?
Let’s be concrete: Since when has science been driven by the fear of being left behind? And since when has knowledge become the only thing that holds value in a society?
Because unlike many others, I don't pretend to be all-knowing and all-good.
Overconfidence, assertive dominance, and shared convictions often stem from, or lead to, ignorance.
Not that that's my intention, but yes—in a certain sense, fun has to be justified, for example, by competence. Having no competence and having a lot of fun isn't a good mix.
Furthermore, your comparisons are flawed because they are innocently chosen. But shouldn't nefarious capitalists, ruthless politicians, and uncritical managers also be allowed to have fun - at the expense of others?
My biggest problem with these new companies is their core philosophy.
First, these companies generate their own demand — natural demand for their products rarely exists. Therefore, they act more like sellers than developers.
Second, they always follow the same maxim: "What's the next logical step?" This naturally follows from the first premise, because this allows you to ignore everything "real". You are simply bound to logic. They have no "problems" to solve, yet they offer you solutions - simply as a logical consequence of their own logic. Has anyone ever actually asked if coders would use agents if it meant losing their jobs?
Thirdly, this naturally brings to light the B2B philosophy. The customer is merely a catalyst that will eventually become superfluous.
Fourth, the same excuse and ignorance of the form "(we don't know what we are doing, but) time will tell". What if time tells you "this is bad and you should and could have known better?"
