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Post by robeiae on Jun 29, 2021 8:26:33 GMT -5
I swear, his tweets are getting dumber and dumber by the day. He's like Thomas Friedman: someone who once had some smart things to say, but now has nothing to offer, yet still imagines every thought he has is significant and deep. Look at this crap:
That's just sad. He's like a college freshman in his first philosophy survey course.
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Post by Optimus on Jun 29, 2021 10:01:54 GMT -5
Yeah, he seems to be falling a bit into the same trap of " epistemic tresspassing" that a lot of "public intellekshuals" do, where they start to believe that expertise in one thing makes them an expert in understanding everything. Then, they start bloviating with their intellectual hot takes on a slew of different topics, many of which turn out to be embarassingly stupid/wrong. Hell, Bill Nye has made an entire career out of it. Michio Kaku has also been guilty of this multiple times. That "intellectual dark web" bullshitter Eric Weinstein has also been shown as an "intellectual dark fraud" for his bloviations on topics outside his area of expertise (namely, physics, which seems to be a common theme among the people who are guilty of this). His conspiracy quack brother, Bret, is also guilty of this with too many examples to list (though he's unique in that he's also often wrong about what he claims to actually be an expert in). However, this is a good pod on him and his bullshitting brother, which gives a nice overview of both: decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/eric-and-bret-weinstein-a-dark-horse-gallops-through-the-portal |
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Post by robeiae on Jun 29, 2021 11:01:35 GMT -5
Honestly, Tyson's tweets sound like they came from Jose Conseco...
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Post by michaelw on Jun 29, 2021 23:40:22 GMT -5
Yeah, he seems to be falling a bit into the same trap of " epistemic tresspassing" that a lot of "public intellekshuals" do, where they start to believe that expertise in one thing makes them an expert in understanding everything. I dunno, I think the tweets are kind of dumb, but he's talking about aliens, mathematics, and daylight savings time. And he's an astrophysicist, right? Doesn't really strike me as a very strong example of epistemic trespassing. |
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Post by robeiae on Jun 30, 2021 7:36:49 GMT -5
Well, he's not really talking about aliens, per se, but using the idea of aliens as a way to offer up sophomoric observations on human nature. He might as well just tweet "why can't we all just get along?"
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Post by michaelw on Jun 30, 2021 8:01:20 GMT -5
Not sure about that. It seemed like the tweets above were taken from a much larger string of tweets, all mentioning aliens in some way, but not all of them necessarily about human nature or not getting along. I took the thread as a whole to be a response to the recent UFO report from the Pentagon, which a lot of people seem to be making a big deal out of lately.
Take this, for example...
To me, that seems like a valid point. (Though I guess the conspiracy theorists out there might not like it too much.)
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Post by robeiae on Jun 30, 2021 8:10:34 GMT -5
Disagree. Multiple tweets can be making multiple points. When he talks about humans having multiple languages etc., about them killing each other because of this, he's making stupid observations and using a dumbed-down idea of "alien" to do it (assuming that space aliens would--for some reason or another--be morally and ethically superior to humans as a matter of course, which is, in and of itself, just stupid).
As to him noting that fuzzy videos aren't great evidence and there should be better evidence, sure that's valid. It's totally unoriginal, but valid.
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Post by michaelw on Jun 30, 2021 8:30:32 GMT -5
Disagree. Multiple tweets can be making multiple points. Nah, I don't think that's really a point of disagreement. I agree. I'm just noting where I think all this stuff came from, initially. Tyson's always been really into aliens. And as I noted, there had been a lot of alien stuff in the news recently. If not for that, I am not sure we'd be seeing any of these particular tweets. So to me, it's just a physicist talking about aliens. (And some of it is kind of sophomoric, I agree.) Now, that whole thing about Dawkins and Kafka, that was some pretty hilarious epistemic trespassing, IMO.  |
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Post by Optimus on Jun 30, 2021 13:24:58 GMT -5
Yeah, he seems to be falling a bit into the same trap of " epistemic tresspassing" that a lot of "public intellekshuals" do, where they start to believe that expertise in one thing makes them an expert in understanding everything. I dunno, I think the tweets are kind of dumb, but he's talking about aliens, mathematics, and daylight savings time. And he's an astrophysicist, right? Doesn't really strike me as a very strong example of epistemic trespassing. I'd agree that these aren't strong cases of epistemic trespassing, but then again I never said that they were. You seem to be imputing something onto my post that I didn't say. I specifically said they seemed to fall "a bit into the same trap of epistemic trespassing" that a lot of other public intellectuals do engage in. I didn't outright condemn them as that bad, but he's at least sticking a toe in a few bodies of water that he's not good at swimming in. The issue here, at least for me, is that these tweets fit a recent pattern of NDT's where he pontificates about things in ways which seem to use his stature and knowledge as an astrophysicist to lend more credibility to things he says outside his area of expertise (or areas where it makes little sense for him to draw these comparisons). For instance, he uses "space aliens" as an anchor to throw shade at the practice of daylight savings time and the human tendency to kill over political/religious/geographic disagreements. It's a neat trick - hide an intellectually lazy social critique under the veneer of "I'm just talking about space aliens...no really" tweets - but it's kind of trite, annoying, and obvious. I don't have a huge issue with him doing it, but my eyes often grow tired from rolling them at some of his tweets. And, as I said, this fits a recent pattern that I've noticed from him. The last time he did this, delicately sliced sheets of frozen meat proved to be more educated in the nuances of critical thinking and rational epistemology than NDT, and pretty much "nuked him from orbit," as the kids say, when they were responding to some of his tweets about those topics: www.newsweek.com/steak-umms-twitter-account-feuds-neil-degrasse-tyson-over-science-log-off-bro-1583236To be clear, his tweets aren't really a big deal, and his not the only person with a PhD on twitter to post meandering, pedantic hot takes about a wide range of issues. I find them more groan-worthy than anything else. |
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Post by michaelw on Jun 30, 2021 18:13:03 GMT -5
To be clear, his tweets aren't really a big deal, and his not the only person with a PhD on twitter to post meandering, pedantic hot takes about a wide range of issues. I find them more groan-worthy than anything else. Fair enough. I think I just get irked--possibly too much--by pronouncements that such and such person is irrelevant, has nothing to offer, etc, based on a handful of posts on Twitter. In the context of Twitter, it's probably true, but then again, it's probably true for almost everyone on Twitter. (Heck, I bet that none of us sound nearly as smart as we think we do when posting on social media. ) Personally, I like Tyson's books and lectures, though if others don't, that's fair enough. (OTOH, I can't say the same about Thomas Friedman, LOL.) |
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Post by Optimus on Jun 30, 2021 19:51:19 GMT -5
Fair enough. I think I just get irked--possibly too much--by pronouncements that such and such person is irrelevant, has nothing to offer, etc, based on a handful of posts on Twitter. In the context of Twitter, it's probably true, but then again, it's probably true for almost everyone on Twitter. That's understandable. However, it doesn't apply to me or my posts above because I never said anything close to that. I generally like NDT, too. But his Twitter pontifications can be ever-so-slightly insufferable at times. He's not nearly as bad as many others on that shit platform, though. |
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Post by michaelw on Jun 30, 2021 20:09:55 GMT -5
That's understandable. However, it doesn't apply to me or my posts above because I never said anything close to that. Right. That was from the OP. |
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Post by robeiae on Jul 1, 2021 7:08:04 GMT -5
Wait, what...
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Post by robeiae on Jul 1, 2021 7:48:25 GMT -5
But in defense of my thread title, I was referencing "public descent into madness" which would have been waaaaay too much hyperbole.
And I don't think I'm actually all that far off, regardless. Professional twitter accounts--the check mark crowd, the twitteratti if you will--seem to think that they must tweet/post (in IG or FB) things in their milieu on a daily basis to remain relevant. In the case of Kim Kardashian, that means pictures of her naked ass. In the case of political hacks, it means "brutal" takedowns of their opponents. In the case of public intellectuals, it means deep, thought-provoking commentary.
And I stand by my claim that Tyson, like Friedman (and Krugman, for that matter, but then he never did), has pretty much nothing left to offer in this regard. Rather than liking and retweeting such sophomoric drivel, we should tell people like Tyson to "log off, bro." Or surrender the check mark and be an everyday schnook like the rest of us, eating egg noodles and ketchup...
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Post by michaelw on Jul 1, 2021 8:06:03 GMT -5
Yeah, I think for the most part, I can agree w/ that. But I also see a difference between the cases of Tyson and someone like Friedman. In Friedman's case, he sucks even within his own supposed field of expertise (politics). But w/ Tyson, even though he might not be a great philosopher or cultural critic, he's still pretty good at physics. And I still think I can probably learn a thing or two from him about physics, whereas I don't expect to learn much at all about politics from Friedman. JMO, of course. |
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