BC FOR LATER READ
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

This is what happens when you train neural networks largely on tone and its stylistic relics. They pick up formal features of arguments (not so much fallacies as tics) that have almost nothing to do with semantic content (focus on connotation over implication).

 This is a secular problem in the discipline. It's got nothing to do with the Analytic/Continental split in the anglophone world. They've both got the same ramifying signal/noise problem, it's just that the styles (tics and connotations) are different in each pedagogical context.
And this is before we start talking about tone policing and topic policing, which are both rife and essentially make the peer review journal system completely unfit for purpose, populated as it is by a random sampling of pedants selecting for syntactic noise over semantic signal.
We've allowed a system of self-reinforcing and ratcheting filters to evolve that effectively *fuzzes* our contribution to the growth of human knowledge (https://t.co/VmW15pGt7J), because it selects for properties only loosely related to those we claim to want. Let that sink in.
This is literally the opposite of what a filter is supposed to do: extract signal from noise, syntactic compression that preserves semantic content. Instead we are awash in syntactic artifacts optimised for minimal criticisable content and maximal pedantic posturing.
When you suspend the assumption that anyone who has been selected by the system *must* understand what they're talking about and/or have something to say, taking the maxim 'fake it till you make it' as a methodological frame, it all looks like competition over formal prowess.
Yet here 'formal' no longer means 'logical', but something closer to 'rhetorical' and 'bureaucratic'. Once you see this, you see that it's exactly the same effect that debating societies and MBAs have had on political and industrial management in the neoliberal era.
Once mighty cognitive institutions (e.g., universities, political parties, and industrial corporations) have gradually devolved ways that are essentially synergetic, as the stupidity in one provides leverage on the growth of stupidity in another. This is the cunning of stupidity.
And so we return to the (social) epistemology of ignorance, but with a couple new points of reference: the anthropologically inspired theories of James C. Scott (cf. https://t.co/kOJPRNzDLj) and @davidgraeber (cf. https://t.co/CMQoBVd44o).
What we find in their work is an account of the socio-epistemic dynamics through which power breeds stupidity and stupidity breeds power, the genesis of stubborn knots around which active ignorance crystallises, generating complex defences that impede the flow of knowledge.
Here's what I mean by synergy between the devolution of cognitive institutions from various domains: the establishment of active ignorance in one place provides points around which alliances form, and through which leverage is exerted to establish it in other places.
The cunning of stupidity climbs the cognitive cliff face by finding purchase wherever it can within a given set of institutions and without. Bureaucratisation and managerialism are secular trends that have spread through the ratcheting the petty personal powers of the ignorant.
The real story of the dissolution and dissipation of the counter-culture of the 60s in the US and Europe is the story of its failure to generate new administrative norms to accompany the ethical, political, and aesthetic ones it had such success with: no persistent counter-power.
Instead we got the slow integration of the acceptable remnants of those norms into a different administrative culture, not simply that which had preceded the 60s (e.g., the party form), but which was born in the 60s, in the form of general purpose management and business schools.
The result was not simply the constitution of a new class of *managers* distinct from industrial workers, whose culture is projected downward through org charts in a way that aligns the interests of *bureaucrats*, but the universalisation of HR as the blueprint for its power.
I think most people on the left appreciate the point that media consolidation created an unprecedentedly homogeneous epistemic landscape in which the formation of political counter-consensus was effectively suppressed. I don't think they see the analogy in the dominance of HR.
I should show them the online forms I've had to fill in to complete academic job applications, whose mind-boggling irrelevance is nothing so much as a trap to discourage those who cannot play the relevant formal game. They build the filters, the obstacles, and the ignorance.
When you arbitrarily empower people who have no idea what it is they're exerting power over, the best intentions in the world will not stop the systemic proliferation of these knots of power/incompetence. The old banality of evil has a new face (https://t.co/XAZxtOFHLP).
I'm neither an anarchist nor a Quaker, but their critiques of these institutional forms, rooted in the autocatalytic growth of power (both centralised/distributed and personal/impersonal), and the serious alternatives they have tried to build are incredibly instructive here.
To return to my story about administrative culture, I think this lets us understand the split between the socially liberal left and the economically progressive left that became formalised in the 90s, and which haunts every attempt to push us out of this autocatalytic nightmare.
Every liberal concession to the counter-culture of the 60s and the liberation movements that have persisted since then has been channeled through the administrative culture of which HR is the nexus. This produces some positive results, but they're always systematically skewed.
For instance, it's great that hiring processes have been evolving in a direction that actively tries to compensate for demographic bias, but when this is merely one aspect of broken filter that otherwise removes the most useful signals, it's a depressingly pyrrhic victory.
Similarly, it's great that the technical language of liberation movements and the deep thinkers who to bring their struggles to self-consciousness disperses into the wider world, but when its principal use is to play out petty micropolitical feuds in formal games, it's maddening.
Managerial overreach, bureaucratic metrics, and quasi-academic jargon are different facets of the same secular process of self-reinforcing power/ignorance. My hope is that academics' perennial hatred of management might form the basis of a teachable moment regarding our own sins.
That's the end of my thoughts on this topic for now, but as usual I will refer you to some more of my extant work on these themes:
1. My recent thread on communicative interaction, dynamic fallacies, and the (synthetic a priori) maxim 'fake it till you make it': https://t.co/2k2QHRYaC7
2. A couple recent threads responding to @cstross, discussing the broken education system and the relation between the plague of terrible metrics and general purpose management: https://t.co/SW2keOnZcv
3. Another recent thread on the Foucault Wars, which lays out the basics of my theory of jargon as pathological technical vocabulary: https://t.co/ZEu1i39QaC
4. A discussion with @Chican3ry about the difficulties of reading philosophy and how to navigate the canon, which includes thoughts on Sellars idea that 'the history of philosophy is the language of philosophy' and a brief critique of 'Sokal Overfitting': https://t.co/NLvAfU0aQT
5. A very old, but theoretically fresh post on 'The Systemic Problems of Contemporary Academia' with an eye to philosophy in particular. This contains my first attempt to think through these issues in information-theoretic terms: https://t.co/sUvKjlf85M
6. Some more recent threads that begin to think through some solutions, by narrowing the problem down to the role of public philosophy:

a) Video Essays as a Philosophical Medium: https://t.co/a6epfzXYLS

b) Enlightenment and Opportunism: https://t.co/V8DJcgf9jm
7. 'The Going Price of Power' (https://t.co/aa2rcbOc40): An outline of the broader economic narrative I'm trying to construct, which ends with a discussion of managerialism and the secular trends I'm complaining about.
Finally, I'm going to reference a couple recent pieces by @OlufemiOTaiwo and @lastpositivist that have been jostling around in my brain as I'm articulating these thoughts:
1. https://t.co/K9z8XUxSIu
2. https://t.co/e76UYs5Zkq
3. https://t.co/ThvjoWStHQ
4. https://t.co/5izUq7ufea
And that's the morning thread! Additional thanks to @deonteleologist for occasioning some of these thoughts.

More from pete wolfendale

pete wolfendale
pete wolfendale
@deontologistics
I think one way of looking at the economic pathologies of our society, without using words like 'capitalism' and 'rentiership', is to talk about inequities in the distribution of risk. Some have more taste for risk than others, sure, but risk is not distributed on this basis.

In the UK, so much of our political troubles come from the growth in the landlord class, who if nothing else, wield disproportionate power relative to their social worth: at one and the same time claim to be martyrs to the risk of investment, and demand these risks be minimised.

Of course, it's possible to make claims like this: e.g., nurses have every right to claim that they shoulder not merely more risk than most, but far more risk than is strictly necessary. The pandemic has made this brutally obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.

However one chooses to tally up compensation for this social role, be it financial, social, or some other privilege, it's pretty obvious that every last 'essential worker' is shouldering more societal risk than most non-essential workers compensated far better than they.

The way this trade off gets (implicitly) articulated as 'pay vs. purpose' is one of the enduring insights of @davidgraeber's Bullshit Jobs. Yet there are many essential workers who don't even get the illusion of purpose in compensation for personal risk (e.g., warehouse staff).
ECONOMY
pete wolfendale
pete wolfendale
@deontologistics
So, here’s a way of reframing this question: which societies enabled coexistence and collaboration between people with divergent social styles, rather than imposing a dominant social style? Such social pluralism is very important indeed.


I suspect that the vast majority of the answers to the original question will fall foul of the tendency to project ideal social arrangements that reflect our own style of social understanding and engagement, and that this will lead them to talk past one another.

Consider the perspective of someone far away from you on in the neurological map, who doesn’t overlap with your socially calibrated genetic resources for social intelligence: the social heaven of an autist introvert may be the social hell of a bipolar extrovert, and vice versa.

I’ve had many good conversations about this with people in different parts of the map who overlap with me in different ways (h/t @tjohnlinward, @dynamic_proxy, @maradydd, @mojozozoe, @UnclePhobic) whose personal heavens I would like to visit, but maybe not live in full time.

We get to see glimpses of these heavens not merely in the past, but in the present, and abstract their geometries, both in spatial/architectural terms (https://t.co/aTcRgtJOVJ) and in temporal/dynamic terms (). The physical/computational platforms around us configure our agency.
SOCIETY
Advertisement
pete wolfendale
pete wolfendale
@deontologistics
My morning thought. I think what's most incompatible about the way I think and the journal article format as a means of capturing and validating thought is that I have a completely different sense of the relation between tentativeness, rigor, and informatic compression.

The characteristic Pete thought is: wait a minute, this whole area is dominated by an assumption that no one seems to be questioning, and I've got two options to express that: i) outline the logic of the issue in a quick and compressed way, ii) write a small book with references.

The discipline seems to want something in between these poles every single time, and this makes me extremely anxious because I feel (with good reason) like any partially referential engagement with the issue will get instantly torpedoed by anyone outside its referential remit.

To repeat something I've said before: I'm actually quite good at being *concise*, I just find it very hard to be *brief*, because most of the thoughts I have don't permit brevity. Consider what your (referential) reactions are to this brief piece:

One of the main genres of publication I've actually excelled in over the years is dictionary articles, which I take a lot of joy in writing, and include some of the pieces of which I'm most proud. Consider this one on the crux of Meillassoux's project:
FOR LATER READ
pete wolfendale
pete wolfendale
@deontologistics
@paulkreinerhere @schulzb589 I accept that I haven't given a proof of this impossibility, but I believe the concerns I've laid out could probably be formalised in a way that would lead to one, though it'd involve something like a combinatoric diagonalisation similar to Russell's paradox.

@schulzb589 To state my issue in a more philosophical way, I think the desire to combinatorially totalise mathematical syntax is an effect of something like a transcendental illusion, what I sometimes call the Mythos of Logos.

@schulzb589 It's the Leibnizian desire to obviate creative dialogical interaction (dialectical reason) by providing a deductive system (monological reason) that would allow us to simply 'shut up and calculate'; the desire to obviate the pragmatic autonomy of discovery by automating it.

@schulzb589 It doesn't matter how many times this desire is betrayed by its own formal tools: Russell, Godel, Turing, Chaitin, etc.; it doesn't matter that these betrayals are what drive the externalisation of thought by producing new tools to automate computation. It always comes back.

@schulzb589 The desire to brute force reality, be it mathematical or empirical, is always lying in wait, whispering seemingly 'reasonable' lies about what is and isn't rationally possible. This is as close as I come to endorsing Heidegger and Adorno's worries about technoscience.
FOR LATER READ
pete wolfendale
pete wolfendale
@deontologistics
I’m beginning to think that the left has been too obsessed with GDP as a broken economic metric governing the global shitshow, when inflation is more insidious. Deflation may be a more radical demand than degrowth. Burst bubbles. Deflate the price of fossil fuel infrastructure.

It’s amazing just how much political economy is still determined by the threat of stagflation. This has created a weird metonymy in which as long as you’re fight inflation (preserving the interests of (older) savers) you’re also fighting stagnation (supporting (younger) earners).

To some extent the residual fear of deflationary spirals lies behind this, waiting in the wings for any suggestion that stagnation must be fought with deflation. This is entirely understandable, as uncontrolled deflation hits the poorest hardest.

The assumption that conjoins these fears into an engine of unbridled economic stagnation is that there’s a unitary market effectively mediating between the markets in different sectors, be this unity micro-economic or macro-economic in flavour. But this just isn’t how it works.

There is so much more logistic friction in the price system than the popular story of just in time production suggests, not least in the concrete details of differentiated trade between economic actors from local businesses to nation states.
ECONOMY

More from For later read

Par!x!t
Par!x!t
@parixit111
A name has caught the radar of agencies investigating #GretaToolkit- FRIEDRICH PIETER. Delhi Police expressed shock over the appearance of Pieter's name as "Who to Follow" in g-doc as he is under cops' scanner since 2006 for his Anti-India activities. Some shocking details..
1/9


Pieter is close associate (read hired by) Bhajan Singh Bhindar, founder of OFMI (Org for Minorities of India) that considers itself an anti-Gandhi 'crusader' & is Pro-Khalistan. They also campaigned to free Bhullar (convicted Khalistani terr0r!st) & lobby against Modi in US.
2/9


Bhinder has alleged connection with ISI & had records of owning inter-state drugs cartel & DVD piracy for terr0r funding. They also took control Fremont Gurudwara, US back in 2003 for millions of donation. Details of this 'Info-War' by @DisinfoLab
https://t.co/oIDFSoaDX2
3/9


Back to Pieter. Take a glance at his work. His TL is filled with anti-BJP/RSS/Modi propaganda. From his speeches to articles, everything have few keywords in common- RSS/Fascism/gen0c!de/k!ll!ing/Kashmir/Hindutva, as if running a non-stop unrest in India is his bread & butter
4/9


He picks every topic with an extreme narrative that potentially hurts integrity of nation, be it Kashmir,CAA,1984 & with his recent projects- Farmer protest & campaigning heavily against Sri Kulkarni. Despite all, Kulkarni appointed as Chief of Ext Affairs at Biden admin.
5/9
FOR LATER READ
Dani\xeblle Stotijn
Daniëlle Stotijn
@DDay35962863
If it doesn,t make sense...
something else is going on.....

#xrp
#xrpcommmunity

Expand your thinking

This thread is updated and can be approached from multiple perspectives.
That is how big Platform 2020 is
#TheGreatAwakeningWorldwide

Connect the dotes
FOR LATER READ , THREAD PLEASE
Advertisement
Robbie Maakestad
Robbie Maakestad
@RobbieMaakestad
@The_Rumpus is open for essay submissions until February 28, so here’s a #RumpusEssays thread in which our amazing editors share what they would like to see in submissions. Give them a follow and send your essay our way via @submittable

Features Editor @happiestwerther is “still (forever) in love with the researched essays that teach me something about a subject while I also learn about a narrator.” #RumpusEssays

Assistant Features Editor @sarahkasbeer would like to see “essays with unexpected engines / innovative structures / emotional and intellectual depth / good ole narrative tension.” #RumpusEssays

Features Editor @kaytaybayy: “I'd love to see essays that are imbued with kinetic energy. I don't care what they're about. Just sweep me into your experiences and thoughts. Compel me to shake my dust off.” #RumpusEssays

Asst Feat Ed @DJ_theoretical: "I’d love to read about that weird, niche topic you’re obsessed with. Your Pog collection, those ribbon candies that seemingly only grandmas buy, your new obscure hobby. Distract me from the horrible big picture with your hyperfixations."
FOR LATER READ
Dr Claudia Antolini \U0001f30c\U0001f680#BLM she/her \U0001f42f
Dr Claudia Antolini 🌌🚀...
@CA_AstroComm
People! Have you seen people being rude to each other during meetings, maybe directed at women/people of colour/disabled people/LGBTQ+ people? Do you want to help prevent this abuse?

Some tips you can consider as a bystander depending on the situation (thread)

Have a code of conduct and circulate it. Make it clear that abusive behaviour will not be accepted. Build in accountability strategies (what happens if someone violates it). Have a moderator/chair to observe the dynamics of your group.

This kind of behaviour is very normalised and insidious, so train yourself to spot it. Is there somebody that usually interrupts? Is there somebody that usually gets interrupted and silenced? Are there signs of aggressive communication?

Not everyone might like that you jump at their defense - your heart might be in the right place but it can come across as patronising. Try to bring up the subject with your colleagues and see what they think. Foster a culture of positive communication.

Once you see that somebody is trying to interrupt - politely redirect the discussion towards the person that was originally speaking. Eg "thank you for that, now I'd really like to hear what person xyz was saying earlier".
FOR LATER READ
MALUME ZANO
MALUME ZANO
@ZanoUrban
The Misrepresentation of the Levites

[A Bonus Smallanyana Thread]

Disclaimer:

This thread is not part of the Angelology Threads we are focusing on this month of February but it is a response to what uNkulunkulu laid on my heart when I was finishing up Part 3 of the main threads.

This thread is also not an attack but a personal observation.

Let's Begin 📖

The Levites or the Tribe of Levi was/ is one of the original 12 tribes of Israel. Descended from Levi the son of Jacob. Descendants of Aaron, the first high priest of Israel. The Levites were designated as the priestly class, also known as the Kohanim.

Principal roles:

Singing Psalms during temple services
Teachers of the Word
Judges (Politics)
Construction and Maintenance of the Temple
Serving as Guards

The Levites were known to stand for truth, at all cost. Some considered them an army set apart by and for uNkulunkulu.

Numbers 18:6

And behold, I have taken your brothers the Levites from among the people of Israel. They are a gift to you, given to the Lord, to do the service of the tent of meeting.
FOR LATER READ

You May Also Like

Erik Torenberg
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg
1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.
LIFE
ArmaniTalks \U0001f399\U0001f525
ArmaniTalks 🎙🔥...
@ArmaniTalks
Your Most PRECIOUS Currencies:

-Energy

-Time

-Attention

-Trust

-Love

-Loyalty

-Respect

Only give these currencies to high value people. Never spend these currencies on low value shitheads eg: trolls, weasels, snakes, naysayers etc.

'Wait, I thought money was the most important currency?'

Nah.

Once you adopt abundance mentality, you realize their is no shortage of money.

Making the dollars your most important currency will have you leading an empty life.

Time to flip your perspective.

👇

▪Energy

When you strip yourself to the core, you are an emotional creature.

Emotions are your internal worlds energy.

Harnessing that energy is crucial for leveraging yourself to obtain whatever you want.

You have a finite amount everyday, so spend it wisely.

▪Time

A second that is lost will never be returned.

You start valuing the hell out of this currency the more you mature.

As the years start adding up, you realize time is precious.

You must always have a scarcity mindset towards time.

Once you do so, you will not be lazy.

▪Attention

You can be here, but not present.

Attention is completely mental.

Giving someone your attention means you are clearing up mental bandwidth to make room for them.

Only give your attention to people who help you grow.

For the negative ones?

Ignore their existence
LIFE
Advertisement
Mo Rajabifard
Mo Rajabifard
@morajabi
👨‍💻 Last resume I sent to a startup one year ago, sharing with you to get ideas:

- Forget what you don't have, make your strength bold
- Pick one work experience and explain what you did in detail w/ bullet points
- Write it towards the role you apply
- Give social proof

/thread


"But I got no work experience..."

Make a open source lib, make a small side project for yourself, do freelance work, ask friends to work with them, no friends? Find friends on Github, and Twitter.

Bonus points:

- Show you care about the company: I used the company's brand font and gradient for in the resume for my name and "Thank You" note.
- Don't list 15 things and libraries you worked with, pick the most related ones to the role you're applying.
-🙅‍♂️"copy cover letter"

"I got no firends, no work"

One practical way is to reach out to conferences and offer to make their website for free. But make sure to do it good. You'll get:

- a project for portfolio
- new friends
- work experience
- learnt new stuff
- new thing for Twitter bio

If you don't even have the skills yet, why not try your chance for @LambdaSchool? No? @freeCodeCamp. Still not? Pick something from here and learn https://t.co/7NPS1zbLTi
You'll feel very overwhelmed, no escape, just acknowledge it and keep pushing.
LIFE
Peter McCormack [Jan/3\u279e\u20bf \U0001f511\u220e]
Peter McCormack [Jan/3...
@PeterMcCormack
1/ So here is a thread on how I turned $32,000 into $1.2m and back to pretty much zero (once taxes are paid).

Just note, I am not bitter or salty in any way at all, the last 2 years have been an amazing ride - travelled the world, been wealthy, been poor.

2/ Dec '16, my advertising agency folded, I had a little bit of money left and I put $32k into Bitcoin and Ether. As it started to go up I diversified into everything, Monero, Dash, this that, any crap - even Ripplecoin. Everything just kept going up.

3/ By March I think I had around $300k and $500k by the summer. I used to take 25% out but towards the end of the summer I got greedy and put it all back in and by December it was $1.2m.

4/ Thinking I was an absolute genius I decided to start a bunch of businesses. As silly as it sounds I had this goal of making $5m as I wanted to buy Bedford Town Football Club and get them in the league, and as Crypto was going up forever I needed 6 months.

5/ So:
- Trading (income 1)
- Podcast (income 2)
- Mining (income 3)
- Mining pool (income 4)
- Consulting (income 5)

Yes - all of the above as a one-man army :)
LIFE
XVIII Airborne Corps\U0001f409
XVIII Airborne Corps🐉...
@18airbornecorps
1 of 16: WE ARE ALL JEWS HERE: THE STORY OF RODDIE EDMONDS

One of the most moving and relevant stories of the Battle of the Bulge, or any American Soldier in any war, is that of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a Knoxville, Tennessee native, who served with the 106th Infantry.


2 of 16:

Roddie was captured early on in the Battle of the Bulge, on December 19th, when Panzer forces plowed through his unit.

He, along with almost his entire regiment, was forced to surrender.


3 of 16:

The men were transported to the Stalag IX-A POW camp in Ziegenhain, Germany.

Roddie was the senior enlisted American Soldier at the site. As such, he was the conduit between all American Soldiers and their German captors.


4 of 16:

In late January, the camp’s commandant, Major Siegmann [pictured here], ordered Roddie, a Christian, to identify all Jewish Soldiers and order them to stand in formation by themselves the next day.

[Jewish Soldiers were a minority within American units]


5 of 16:

Throughout WWII, captured Jewish Soldiers were often tortured and then killed by their German captors.

In fact, Jewish Soldiers had been told to bury their dog tags before capture. The dog tag identified Jews with the letter “H” for Hebrew.
SOCIETY