/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11764354
One can be a genius and be wrong (perhaps 'fraud' is not generous enough) simultaneously. Even going back to the 80s, his work on visual cognition- though now shown to be in no way a complete map of the territory- helped bring the psychological world out of a bit of a dark age. When it comes to politics, however, he (as well as Chomsky and Taleb- go figure) tends to drop rigor.

>>11764359
Thanks anon. Why do so many of these psychologists/statisticians go into politics? Are they pushed to do so or do they choose to do so?

>>11764363
Sociopathy and psychopathy

>>11764363
His points go against many peoples narratives and I'd say those people are justified. E.g. on the left, his "overly positive" outlook is seen to have a stifling effect that argues for a preservation of the status quo (e.g. as far as power structures are concerned). Those issues stem from a different people evaluating facts differently.

E.g., as an introductory example, we may select for fast running bunnies and in 50 years have a breed of superfast bunnies - but we may ask what the point of this is.
Now on a more serious (Heideggerian) note: The first persons to own a car were able to take on work many kilometers/miles from their home and you might naively say "wow, humanty was inventive and has progressed!!" But car production leads to an alteration of culture and eventually people working kilometers from where they resides becomes common place and expected, and then we end up in a world where (because norms have been impacted by the car invention) people many jobs aren't even available in working range anymore.
That's one example where having a naive approach to "improvement" misguides you. Or e.g. we might push life expectancy from 80 to 130 and see that as an "improvement" but there's an array of philosophical questions underlying such a judgement.
Similarly, making phones and in effect changing humanities brains by having 3 year olds look at screens for hours of the day. Or (classical anti-capitalist angle), having improved efficiency not leading to less work, but just more production (disassociated from population levels, i.e. demand, that could be regulated down but aren't)

From that angle, you can easily argue that Pinker's rhetoric is harmful. He gives talks about how fucking fast our bunnies are. Amazing! Look at those bunnies. Let's put more energy in making bunnies even faster.

I don't know if one can judge people like him as frauds as from afar we can't judge if he genuinely believes everything he says.

>>11764399
>wall-of-text schizo
errytime

>>11764549
>calling something schizo when it isn't
Errytime.

>>11764354
What beef did he have with Taleb?

>>11764399
AI is my area of expertise, and I can tell you that his positivism has been harmful there too. His asinine position on AI safety can be boiled down to, “There is no need for AI researchers to worry about out-of-control AI, because we can trust AI researchers to prevent that.” But in order to do that, the AI researchers need to be worried that it’s a possibility in the first place!

>>11764354
He got an academic btfo entitled "enlightenment never" critiquing "enlightenment now" for the bunk it included.

ass

>>11764563
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/21/8635369/pinker-taleb

>>11764354
Fraud

Taleb gives no fucks haha

>>11764564
Funny, this is from just yesterday
https://youtu.be/9i1WlcCudpU

Also, positivism already has a meaning fyi, another one than how you use it there

>>11764354
He's not a social constructivist so he's automatically better than 100% of gender studies, 80% of psychologists and sociologists

>>11764354
He's an optimist, chomsky/taleb are deep pessimist.

>>11764549
Retard

He's definitely a genius in marketing.
He made evolutionary psychology famous by calling everyone who criticized it it anti-science and humanists. (Sort of what Jordan Peterson is doing at the moment.)
Meanwhile his own main contribution to science is showing how the humanities are garbage.

>>11764756
Social constructivism is fine and has its merits in scientific theory as long as its not loaded with political and ethical agendas (which the humanities are by default).

I belief this should be recognized as a logical fallacy.
>Just because something is a social construct, doesn't make it bad.
Kinda a reverse naturalistic fallacy.

>>11764354
>retard arguing with other retards about stuff they know nothing about
I bet he's a /sci/ regular

https://instagram.com/stories/cslc.ce/2324233752205042296?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&igshid=32dbmw0q2mra

Pls vote Hmun !

>>11764696
Yes, excellent channel. He even did a video on Pinker’s AI views: https://youtu.be/yQE9KAbFhNY

>>11764354
>psychology
Literally cannot possibly be a genius

>>11764354
A lucky guy, with cool friends who like to share.

>tfw no one to look at me like the way pinker looks at epstein

>im putting together a team.

>>11764354
he is a genius

>>11764354
fraud

>>11765693
literally the evil trinity
why the hell is this on /sci/ though

>>11766065
Pinker is a scientist and Epstein was a philanthropist who supported science.

pinker is based. why? because libtards hate him hardcore and poltards hat him hardcore and even lesswrong schizos hate him a lot. why do they all hate him? because his argument is “look, things are good and getting better.” that just triggers all the postmodernists and accelerationists and conspiracytards because their whole view on life, despite their different inclinations, boils down to melodramatic victimism “boo hoo the world is so bad boo hoo”. man up and stop complaining, it’s not that bad crybabies

>>11766094
>why do they all hate him?
Because he is a pedophile abetting douchebag? Even Harvard officially cut off his class teaching privileges. I don’t know why they are still even letting him supervise graduate students tho.

This is a science board. Can you defend Pinker as a scientist? Like is he some genius who discovered something important? AFAIK he didn’t do jack shit/ he just did a whole philosophy utilitarian argument book that by the way happens to justify Epstein/pedoelites since in the grand calculus these “little evils” can’t compare to the greater good. If Pinker’s argument is taken seriously, Epstein should be able to rape 100 little girls if he saves 10,000 kids from starving in Africa.

If nothing else, Pinker is a total autist idiot who wrote this book as a self-addressed cope for participating in Epstein’s rape circle and abetting Epstein’s legal defense as his expert witness.

>>11764354
high IQ fraud
managed to promote his pseudoscience field by successfully marketing his books to dumbasses

>>11766194
>high IQ Harvard
Fairly common at Harvard actually. I don’t know why tho. It seems they don’t care as long as you get funded (by Epstein or al Saud family or whatever it doesn’t matter).

>>11766229
>high IQ fraud
Corrected*

>>11766184
cope

>>11766469
Pinker will be fired and fully exposed within the decade. That is being generous. He can’t teach undergrads anymore and no grad student wants to be seen near him.

>>11764359
hi Z

>>11764549
brainlet

>>11765697
Alan Dershowitz is such a slimy cunt

>>11764549
bait
>>11764399
Chris Hedges (not a scientist at all) does an excellent takedown of Pinker with similar arguments in "America, the Farewell Tour"

>>11764399
... and he was right again.

>>11764363

I speak anecdotally, but I'd say that a lot of psychology students - esp. the leftist ones - are interested in social control/engineering, be it in their local community of friends or as part of some wider ideological agenda.

>>11764696

Aye, he was thinking of 'positiveness'

>>11766094
Actually true. The only problem is if that optimism leads to complacency rather than ecouragement.

>>11764399
Based Land-Ted poster.