Overrated Intellectuals - Michel Foucault

[Ex-User (9062)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQHm-mbsCwk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHkZvRQIQ5s

discuss!

 

[Absurdity]

Agree with thread title, but am not interested enough to dedicate two hours of my life to learning about how he is overrated.

 

[Ex-User (8886)]

Agree with thread title, but am not interested enough to dedicate two hours of my life to learning about how he is overrated.

yeah, too long

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Dig his books, that's what will really burn your lifetime like nothing else.

 

[Architect]

Neil Degrasse Tyson

Michio Kaku

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Neil Degrasse Tyson

Michio Kaku

I agree on Kaku.
Haven't heard of Neil Degrasse Tyson yet, to be honest.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

I'd be interested in the why.

 

[doncarlzone]

Haven't heard of Neil Degrasse Tyson yet, to be honest.

That's actually impressive.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

That's actually impressive.

I'm a soft sciences guy.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

I'd be interested in the why.

I will come back to this when i have a little more time.
In the meantime, you could make arguments about "why not".

 

[TBerg]

Apparently Neil Degrasse Tyson needs to switch from PBS to CBS to get himself known. I think he does a better job than Michio Kaku at inspiring interest in science.

 

[Architect]

I'd be interested in the why.

There are different personalities in Physics. Loosely I'd categorize them as

• The Real Deal
• The Administrator
• The Entrepreneur

Most are the first (INTJ's, ISTJ's, INTP's), a few are the second (charismatic high energy people oriented ENTP's usually) and there are few more who are the last. These two fall into this last category. They rarely have made any significant contributions to the field, but they got their PhD and more importantly are charismatic, at least for a physicist. Meaning they don't stare at their belly button and drool while they talk.

Kaku has the cool hair Asian thing going, and he's a smooth talker. Tyson is a dork, but he's black and managed to become the blessed "science guy" for the US. So he ends up on a lot of panels, and PBS knows who to call when they get budget for a show. Very rarely you'll get real scientists on high profile panels and such*, the last I can think of is Feynman and the Shuttle explosion. Another doofus physicist is Fritjof Capra, there are a few dozen who kept to writing grandiose books and lectures. Basically their ticket is a winning smile and a PhD (which isn't that hard to get, depending on where you go).

This is why I refute most of the physics gaa-gaa around here, because it spewed from one of these charlatans and the public laps it up. The reality is that this is all speculation that theory doesn't refute. Of course theory doesn't refute pink aliens getting a suntan on Mars either.

Tyson, other than being a dork, at least keeps his wits about him and is sensible, but Kaku talks too much about things he knows too little about. That's the "inside view". I think Tyson is OK, at least he seems to be doing something useful, if clumsily.

* Consider, what real deal working Physicist would go near any public spokesperson job? They avoid that kind of stuff like the plague, they know it would be death to their all-important career.

 

[redbaron]

Agreed on Kaku and Tyson.

Add Ray Kurzweil to the list: hate at me all you singularity b0ner enthusiasts.

 

[Architect]

Add Ray Kurzweil to the list: hate at me all you singularity b0ner enthusiasts.

Nope, he's the real deal. Got my nose rubbed in that shit, took years to realize he was right and I wasn't.

Edit: Specifically, notice he's not at all charismatic (he's a stiff dork), but has made big and successful contributions and inventions.

 

[redbaron]

Got my nose rubbed in that shit, took years to realize he was right and I wasn't.

A few more years and you'll realize you were both wrong. Prepare thine nose for pungent friction.

 

[Architect]

A few more years and you'll realize you were both wrong.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Analyzer]

Paul Krugman

 

[kris]

I think just about any intellectual who achieves some measure of celebrity in the general public ends up overrated. There is a point where one's name starts lending credibility to their ideas rather than their ideas lending credibility to their name*. Einstein would be an archetypal example. Marylyn vos Savant is another.

*I don't mean that as a dichotomy.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

A few more years and you'll realize you were both wrong. Prepare thine nose for pungent friction.

I haven't read Kurzweil but the idea is very inventive and alluring however I tend to agree with you. My reasons might be different from yours...

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

"Good", nobody yet addressed Foucault.
I think we should have a "Overrated Intellectuals" thread to have everybody vent their frustrations.
Sound proposition?

 

[Pfness]

Well,

I think Foucault is interesting insofar as to his theories about power being determined in the relationships as opposed to power simply emanating from an entity. Though, I might not understand this theory correctly, don't chastise me. I've been reading some of his lectures & will probably pick one of his books up this summer.

Overall, I think his ideas are interesting insofar as being another well-documented philosophical viewpoint, and he is also is sort of recent. Archaeology of knowledge does seem to be interesting, but I personally get bored of anything that tends to jump the gun too much into conspiracy theory.

Like I said, another viewpoint that I think doesn't hurt to incorporate if one is into philosophy.

 

[Variform]

Apparently Neil Degrasse Tyson needs to switch from PBS to CBS to get himself known. I think he does a better job than Michio Kaku at inspiring interest in science.

Is this the black dude I see on a show called 'Cosmos'? The guy that comes across as a man of faith, a priest? I mean with the intonation and reverie of science?

 

[Variform]

I haven't read Kurzweil but the idea is very inventive and alluring however I tend to agree with you. My reasons might be different from yours...

I think these futurists are full of shit. They discuss technologies as if they are to save mankind in some way or another.

It all goes on the assumption that we can keep our civilization running, yet we enter into an era of peak resources, climate change and the subsequent disorganization that will disable much of current R%D.

These people are not grounded very well. They are high priests of technology with a belief system, not anything solid.

Our society cannot go on for much longer because of climate issues and resource scarcity and of lack of values and morals.

I cannot see our way of life endure much longer or even stretch into the far future. I think within the next 100 years we will see so much resource warfare, migrations of refugees, soil erosion, diminished yields in agriculture, pollution, aquifer issues, access to drinking water and so on and so forth that globalism will collapse, economies will suffer and come to a grinding halt, society will shrink to proportions of around 1850.

Imagine the last ice age, when in the Indus valley a blossoming civilization rose to greatness and that there were great floods that wiped out entire regions of the Earth suddenly and changed the climate. And so they dwindled.

We think our civilization lasts forever. But our way of life is unsustainable, and no matter what technology we throw at it, this technology will cause new problems. Technology is the problem and you cannot solve a problem by doing more of the same thing.

So these futurists are all in the grip of delusional thinking.

There is not going to be a technology that saves us from ourselves. Kurzweil and his nanobots... It amazes me how someone can dream up that shit while we have people dying because in the 50's and 60's they drilled, sawed and broke asbestos used in construction. And now he wants to infect people with nano-scale technologies, as if somehow that won't cause any harm. Futurists rarely look back, so they don't know what and why things went wrong and why the world is what it is today because they have their heads stuck up the ass of the future.

We need less technology and we need technology that helps all mankind. Not some type that mainly benefits the rich western lifestyle paradigm.

Who wants an Ipod when a poor bastard dies of some trivial disease in Bangladesh?

 

[Hadoblado]

I think these futurists are full of shit. They discuss technologies as if they are to save mankind in some way or another.

It all goes on the assumption that we can keep our civilization running, yet we enter into an era of peak resources, climate change and the subsequent disorganization that will disable much of current R%D.

These people are not grounded very well. They are high priests of technology with a belief system, not anything solid.

Our society cannot go on for much longer because of climate issues and resource scarcity and of lack of values and morals.

I cannot see our way of life endure much longer or even stretch into the far future. I think within the next 100 years we will see so much resource warfare, migrations of refugees, soil erosion, diminished yields in agriculture, pollution, aquifer issues, access to drinking water and so on and so forth that globalism will collapse, economies will suffer and come to a grinding halt, society will shrink to proportions of around 1850.

Imagine the last ice age, when in the Indus valley a blossoming civilization rose to greatness and that there were great floods that wiped out entire regions of the Earth suddenly and changed the climate. And so they dwindled.

We think our civilization lasts forever. But our way of life is unsustainable, and no matter what technology we throw at it, this technology will cause new problems. Technology is the problem and you cannot solve a problem by doing more of the same thing.

So these futurists are all in the grip of delusional thinking.

There is not going to be a technology that saves us from ourselves. Kurzweil and his nanobots... It amazes me how someone can dream up that shit while we have people dying because in the 50's and 60's they drilled, sawed and broke asbestos used in construction. And now he wants to infect people with nano-scale technologies, as if somehow that won't cause any harm. Futurists rarely look back, so they don't know what and why things went wrong and why the world is what it is today because they have their heads stuck up the ass of the future.

We need less technology and we need technology that helps all mankind. Not some type that mainly benefits the rich western lifestyle paradigm.

Who wants an Ipod when a poor bastard dies of some trivial disease in Bangladesh?

Damn that is loaded.

 

[Hadoblado]

For what it's worth, I actually really like Tyson. He's got the thinks and the feels, and he is great at what he does (spreading scientific literacy). I think he's more valuable to science as a whole than the vast majority of scientists.

For people that are already clued in with the science, he's probably not telling you much you don't already know. But that's not what he's there for. He might be 'over-rated', but that's his fucking job (to generate ratings for science). Being over-rated is under-rated.