/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.9885433]

Y'all wasting time on science which is just a surrogate activity. You should stop programming/ricing/discussing tech and start exerting yourself in a serious way, being in control o life-death issues. Build your own house, grow your food, hunt animals for meat. Otherwise you are just a tools of the system with deprived autonomy.

[Anonymous No.9885434]

87. Science and technology provide the most important examples of surrogate activities. Some scientists claim that they are motivated by “curiosity” or by a desire to “benefit humanity.” But it is easy to see that neither of these can be the principal motive of most scientists. As for “curiosity,” that notion is simply absurd. Most scientists work on highly specialized problems that are not the object of any normal curiosity. For example, is an astronomer, a mathematician or an entomologist curious about the properties of isopropyltrimethylmethane? Of course not. Only a chemist is curious about such a thing, and he is curious about it only because chemistry is his surrogate activity. Is the chemist curious about the appropriate classification of a new species of beetle? No. That question is of interest only to the entomologist, and he is interested in it only because entomology is his surrogate activity. If the chemist and the entomologist had to exert themselves seriously to obtain the physical necessities, and if that effort exercised their abilities in an interesting way but in some nonscientific pursuit, then they wouldn’t give a damn about isopropyltrimethylmethane or the classification of beetles. Suppose that lack of funds for postgraduate education had led the chemist to become an insurance broker instead of a chemist. In that case he would have been very interested in insurance matters but would have cared nothing about isopropyltrimethylmethane. In any case it is not normal to put into the satisfaction of mere curiosity the amount of time and effort that scientists put into their work. The “curiosity” explanation for the scientists’ motive just doesn’t stand up.

[Anonymous No.9885436]

89. The same is true of scientists generally. With possible rare exceptions, their motive is neither curiosity nor a desire to benefit humanity but the need to go through the power process: to have a goal (a scientific problem to solve), to make an effort (research) and to attain the goal (solution of the problem.) Science is a surrogate activity because scientists work mainly for the fulfillment they get out of the work itself.

90. Of course, it’s not that simple. Other motives do play a role for many scientists. Money and status for example. Some scientists may be persons of the type who have an insatiable drive for status (see paragraph 79) and this may provide much of the motivation for their work. No doubt the majority of scientists, like the majority of the general population, are more or less susceptible to advertising and marketing techniques and need money to satisfy their craving for goods and services. Thus science is not a PURE surrogate activity. But it is in large part a surrogate activity.

91. Also, science and technology constitute a power mass movement, and many scientists gratify their need for power through identification with this mass movement (see paragraph 83).

92. Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research.

[Anonymous No.9885439]

>>9885433
That's why everyone hates anarcho-primitivists.

[Anonymous No.9885443]

>>9885439
Why? Because they interfere with your concept of freedom and technology?

[Anonymous No.9885452]

>>9885439
Anarcho-Primitivst understands that subjective feelings like hate don't matter at all.

[Anonymous No.9885455]

>>9885439
>mommy mommy someone redpilled me on my pathetic life and now I am confused ,mommy mommy should I hate this guy and try to ignore that he is saying?

[Anonymous No.9885459]

>>9885434
>But it is easy to see that neither of these can be the principal motive of most scientists.
"The proof is left to the reader".

>As for “curiosity,” that notion is simply absurd.
"Why people can be interested in one thing and not in other things? That's baffling. They must be lying about it....".

>the chemist and the entomologist had to exert themselves seriously to obtain the physical necessities
"Job specialization is useless, and therefore it should be abolish".

>Suppose that lack of funds for postgraduate education had led the chemist to become an insurance broker instead of a chemist. In that case he would have been very interested in insurance matters but would have cared nothing about isopropyltrimethylmethane.
"I am a master psychic that can read the mind of my strawman chemist, therefore my bias has to be true".

>Science is a surrogate activity because scientists work mainly for the fulfillment they get out of the work itself.
My bias is true because my bias is true.

>(see paragraph 79)
Nice copypaste leaving paragraph 79 out.

>>9885455
>>mommy mommy someone redpilled me on my pathetic life and now I am confused ,mommy mommy should I hate this guy and try to ignore that he is saying?
I am a scientists who did his phd without funding, only for science, I am the person you say shoudn't exists.

[Anonymous No.9885464]

I'm ambiguous about Kaczyński. On one hand he makes me hate the system that defined by whole life and will continue to be more and more intrusive in the future. I also agree with him that there won't be any "rapture of the nerds" because the system would have easily eradicate starvation and impoverishment today but it won't.

On the other hand I don't want to go back to society that thinks curses kill people because we don't have a germ theory.

[Anonymous No.9885466]

>>9885459
79. Some people may have some exceptional drive, in pursuing which they satisfy their need for the power process. For example, those who have an unusually strong drive for social status may spend their whole lives climbing the status ladder without ever getting bored with that game.

[Anonymous No.9885468]

94. By “freedom” we mean the opportunity to go through the power process, with real goals not the artificial goals of surrogate activities, and without interference, manipulation or supervision from anyone, especially from any large organization. Freedom means being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one’s existence; food, clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats there may be in one’s environment. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one’s own life. One does not have freedom if anyone else (especially a large organization) has power over one, no matter how benevolently, tolerantly and permissively that power may be exercised. It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness (see paragraph 72).

[Anonymous No.9885470]

>>9885466
Thank you.

>those who have an unusually strong drive for social status may spend their whole lives climbing the status ladder without ever getting bored with that game.
"Hurr, durr, Lord Kelvin became a scientists just to be a Lord and to be buried near Newton".

[Anonymous No.9885473]

>>9885468
>Freedom means being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one’s existence
"Hurr, durr, you are not free unless you abolish job specialization"

> (see paragraph 72)
Again..... "I'm just going to vomit this to prove how smart I am".

[Anonymous No.9885475]

SURROGATE ACTIVITIES

38. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead of sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished. When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy their physical needs they often set up artificial goals for themselves. In many cases they then pursue these goals with the same energy and emotional involvement that they otherwise would have put into the search for physical necessities. Thus the aristocrats of the Roman Empire had their literary pretensions; many European aristocrats a few centuries ago invested tremendous time and energy in hunting, though they certainly didn’t need the meat; other aristocracies have competed for status through elaborate displays of wealth; and a few aristocrats, like Hirohito, have turned to science.

[Anonymous No.9885476]

39. We use the term “surrogate activity” to designate an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the sake of the “fulfillment” that they get from pursuing the goal. Here is a rule of thumb for the identification of surrogate activities. Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental faculties in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal X? If the answer is no, then the person’s pursuit of goal X is a surrogate activity. Hirohito’s studies in marine biology clearly constituted a surrogate activity, since it is pretty certain that if Hirohito had had to spend his time working at interesting non-scientific tasks in order to obtain the necessities of life, he would not have felt deprived because he didn’t know all about the anatomy and life-cycles of marine animals. On the other hand the pursuit of sex and love (for example) is not a surrogate activity, because most people, even if their existence were otherwise satisfactory, would feel deprived if they passed their lives without ever having a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. (But pursuit of an excessive amount of sex, more than one really needs, can be a surrogate activity.)

[Anonymous No.9885477]

40. In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one’s physical needs. It is enough to go through a training program to acquire some petty technical skill, then come to work on time and exert the very modest effort needed to hold a job. The only requirements are a moderate amount of intelligence and, most of all, simple OBEDIENCE. If one has those, society takes care of one from cradle to grave. (Yes, there is an underclass that cannot take the physical necessities for granted, but we are speaking here of mainstream society.) Thus it is not surprising that modern society is full of surrogate activities. These include scientific work, athletic achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and literary creation, climbing the corporate ladder, acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additional physical satisfaction, and social activism when it addresses issues that are not important for the activist personally, as in the case of white activists who work for the rights of nonwhite minorities. These are not always PURE surrogate activities, since for many people they may be motivated in part by needs other than the need to have some goal to pursue. Scientific work may be motivated in part by a drive for prestige, artistic creation by a need to express feelings, militant social activism by hostility. But for most people who pursue them, these activities are in large part surrogate activities. For example, the majority of scientists will probably agree that the “fulfillment” they get from their work is more important than the money and prestige they earn.

[Anonymous No.9885482]

41. For many if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals (that is, goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no sooner solves one problem than he moves on to the next. The long-distance runner drives himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the “mundane” business of satisfying their biological needs, but that is because in our society the effort needed to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality. More importantly, in our society people do not satisfy their biological needs AUTONOMOUSLY but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities.

[Anonymous No.9885484]

64. It seems that for many people, maybe the majority, these artificial forms of the power process are insufficient. A theme that appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts many people in modern society. (This purposelessness is often called by other names such as “anomic” or “middle-class vacuity.”) We suggest that the so-called “identity crisis” is actually a search for a sense of purpose, often for commitment to a suitable surrogate activity. It may be that existentialism is in large part a response to the purposelessness of modern life. [12] Very widespread in modern society is the search for “fulfillment.” But we think that for the majority of people an activity whose main goal is fulfillment (that is, a surrogate activity) does not bring completely satisfactory fulfillment. In other words, it does not fully satisfy the need for the power process. (See paragraph 41.) That need can be fully satisfied only through activities that have some external goal, such as physical necessities, sex, love, status, revenge, etc.

[Anonymous No.9885487]

65. Moreover, where goals are pursued through earning money, climbing the status ladder or functioning as part of the system in some other way, most people are not in a position to pursue their goals AUTONOMOUSLY. Most workers are someone else’s employee and, as we pointed out in paragraph 61, must spend their days doing what they are told to do in the way they are told to do it. Even people who are in business for themselves have only limited autonomy. It is a chronic complaint of small-business persons and entrepreneurs that their hands are tied by excessive government regulation. Some of these regulations are doubtless unnecessary, but for the most part government regulations are essential and inevitable parts of our extremely complex society. A large portion of small business today operates on the franchise system. It was reported in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago that many of the franchise-granting companies require applicants for franchises to take a personality test that is designed to EXCLUDE those who have creativity and initiative, because such persons are not sufficiently docile to go along obediently with the franchise system. This excludes from small business many of the people who most need autonomy.

[Anonymous No.9885489]

72. Modern society is in certain respects extremely permissive. In matters that are irrelevant to the functioning of the system we can generally do what we please. We can believe in any religion we like (as long as it does not encourage behavior that is dangerous to the system). We can go to bed with anyone we like (as long as we practice “safe sex”). We can do anything we like as long as it is UNIMPORTANT. But in all IMPORTANT matters the system tends increasingly to regulate our behavior.

[Anonymous No.9885494]

74. We suggest that modern man’s obsession with longevity, and with maintaining physical vigor and sexual attractiveness to an advanced age, is a symptom of unfulfillment resulting from deprivation with respect to the power process. The “mid-life crisis” also is such a symptom. So is the lack of interest in having children that is fairly common in modern society but almost unheard-of in primitive societies.

[Anonymous No.9885496]

75. In primitive societies life is a succession of stages. The needs and purposes of one stage having been fulfilled, there is no particular reluctance about passing on to the next stage. A young man goes through the power process by becoming a hunter, hunting not for sport or for fulfillment but to get meat that is necessary for food. (In young women the process is more complex, with greater emphasis on social power; we won’t discuss that here.) This phase having been successfully passed through, the young man has no reluctance about settling down to the responsibilities of raising a family. (In contrast, some modern people indefinitely postpone having children because they are too busy seeking some kind of “fulfillment.” We suggest that the fulfillment they need is adequate experience of the power process—with real goals instead of the artificial goals of surrogate activities.) Again, having successfully raised his children, going through the power process by providing them with the physical necessities, the primitive man feels that his work is done and he is prepared to accept old age (if he survives that long) and death. Many modern people, on the other hand, are disturbed by the prospect of physical deterioration and death, as is shown by the amount of effort they expend trying to maintain their physical condition, appearance and health. We argue that this is due to unfulfillment resulting from the fact that they have never put their physical powers to any practical use, have never gone through the power process using their bodies in a serious way. It is not the primitive man, who has used his body daily for practical purposes, who fears the deterioration of age, but the modern man, who has never had a practical use for his body beyond walking from his car to his house. It is the man whose need for the power process has been satisfied during his life who is best prepared to accept the end of that life.

[Anonymous No.9885501]

I suppose now I have convinced you all to leave your major and start building your cabin in the woods

[Anonymous No.9885503]

Just post a link to the manifesto and stop spamming the threat.

[Anonymous No.9885506]

>>9885503
Here you go: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm

[Anonymous No.9885529]

>>9885506
I hope you read the book also anon

[Anonymous No.9885609]

>>9885473
>Again..... "I'm just going to vomit this to prove how smart I am".
This guy really thinks Kaczynski wasn't smart

[Anonymous No.9886469]

>>9885501
>your cabin in the woods
Naah, I'm good bro.

[Anonymous No.9886493]

>>9885464
"society is wealthy enough and technology is good enough that we can eradicate starvation and impoverishment for the entire world TODAY"

When is this fucking meme going to die?

[Anonymous No.9886812]

>>9885439
>implying based Ted was an anarchoprimitivist
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-truth-about-primitive-life-a-critique-of-anarchoprimitivism

[Anonymous No.9886890]

literally the entire "destroy civilization and eat dirt" project is a surrogate activity

[Anonymous No.9886892]

>>9885501
Dude, I'm not gonna lie, I'm excited to read this because of you. Thank you anon.

[Anonymous No.9886901]

>>9885459
I don't know what you're a scientist of, but judging by your grammar this might be mandatory reading for you.

[Anonymous No.9886903]

>>9886901
Top kek

[Anonymous No.9886905]

>>9886493
We quite literally can in terms of there being enough food in the process, it’s only impossible because of the way our society and systems that it depends on are set up.

It is undeniable, irrefutable truth that there is enough land in the United States right now that is being dedicated to growing corn for feeding livestock that can be used to end all starvation worldwide. The reason why we don’t just go out and cure starvation on a whim is simple: Local reliance on the industries that use that land. We’d rather feed cheeseburgers and steaks and increase the already liveable quality of life for all of the people on the North American continent than feed the corn and dedicate parts of the land to other crops to feed the entire continent of Africa. And honestly, that isn’t entirely a bad thing, it’s just the truth.
We do indeed have enough food to feed the starving. Perhaps it’s best that we don’t though, for reasons at least unbeknownst to me.

[Anonymous No.9886927]

>>9885433
Says the incompetent NEET plucking and parading online-based ideologies in an ever-consumerist (capitalist, technological) fashion, whilst lacking any genuine form, culture, drive, or life of his own.

With that said, I like Teddie because he's not an ignorant idealist like most people who engage with primitivism and related thinking. Even his bombings were just for publicity, no emotional decrees or other nonsense.

I can enjoy mathematics, programming, physics, etc. whilst finding satisfaction in the more physical and spiritual pursuits. I still think that ultimately humanity, in its present form (which implies technological or evolutionary change from that form would render this whole thing moot), cannot really be happy and human whilst civilisation exists. The Information Age in particular is extremely damaging in its overly-transient and universalist nature. I get along fine as an individual, however. And I find no kinship with anarcho-primitivists who so love injecting liberal nonsense into primitivism, making it even more so reality-denying idealism than it mostly already is. I reckon workshops and communes should be set up to show people how deprivation of comfort, advanced technology, reliance on community and social sphere, and so on, can really be a wonderfully satisfying and healthy thing. We should incorporate what we can into our global culture, so it sticks in the collective consciousness and people are open and inclined to future possibilities. Kind of like how everyone implicitly knows the surface of and engages with psychoanalysis in casual conversation, despite it being pseudoscience and plainly false.

Also, your whole spiel is largely nonsense framed favourably to your view. Most of it is wrong or too basic (empty assertions that lack substance). This is why primitivism isn't taken seriously by almost everyone and is dismissed out-of-hand, please stop doing this.

[Anonymous No.9886931]

>>9886493
We could do it 3 times over. Capitalism is a shit system for efficiency of resources and management.

[Anonymous No.9886933]

>>9886931
>this
But, it’s also the only system that works for longer than like 2 years at best.

[Anonymous No.9886952]

>Idolizing a murderer

Is this what Vargfags are like too?

[Anonymous No.9886964]

>>9886952
>Idolizing drug-addicts, sexual predators, deviants and sodomites.
Is this what all humans are like too, or just Westerners?

[Anonymous No.9887096]

>>9885501
Nah, as several anons pointed out, it's full of shit. Care going back to whichever subreddit you came from?

[Anonymous No.9887112]

>>9885506
> 1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in advanced countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in advanced countries.
Literally nothing but the natural world damage is true

[Anonymous No.9887142]

>>9887112
Okay, so the whole article is based on the assumption that the pre-industrial era levels of physical and psychological suffering were lower.
Which is a false claim, as back then medicine was hardly effective (a hundred years ago doctors didn't even wash their hands before surgeries, guess how that worked out), starvation was a lot more common, there were no human rights as we see them today, governments were a lot worse at protecting their citizens from misdeeds such as theft or robberies, certain groups of people, ie blacks, were not treated as people, but as subhuman workforce, there was no concept of running clean water, heating your house required you to gather wood instead of just pressing a button, and far more amenities were also missing.
Sure, some of these, like slavery, are not technology-dependent, but a vast majority is. You need the system to have access to medicine, for instance.
Oh, and do please tell me how much more respected and dignified black people were back in the days when blacks weren't considered people.

[Anonymous No.9887808]

>>9887142

lol normie