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Mouq

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Furthermore, the philosophy OF science is of incredible importance, since so much science is about creating and interpreting frameworks so that we can build systems of knowledge and prediction, rather than just useless collections of statistics. There are a number of approaches to this framework building, and I think one of the major failures of scientism is that it cannot comprehend alternative ideologies with which to construct knowledge so long as it continues to deny its own status as ideology.

Really off topic, and I'm probably being pedantic, but I don't see the conclusion that you've given from what's presented in the article, re: blaming Mao for the modern ideology that perpetuates chinese medicine. I mean, it's true that a dialectical approach would probably lead to the adoption of most ideologically useful form of medicine, but a distinct separation of 'chinese medicine' and 'western medicine' seems directly antithetical to what Mao was saying... the fact that Mao wanted to address rural/traditional medicine and integrate into a medical tradition doesn't imply that Mao is the reason for orientalism and mysticism with regard to that medicine, especially since those things obviously far predate Mao.

I know this is a classic and all, but I really feel like this would be a lot better if it actually broke down the mythology of science history rather than just being like, yup, this is the Ultimate Age of Reason™ but there's a lot of people who just can't get with the program for some reason.

Don't really see why it needs to be called out as such. It's pretty explicitly radical leftist. Is Hacker News exclusively capitalist now? TBF I tend to avoid this site, so maybe it is.

If you think materialist analysis isn't useful, well, maybe it's not useful to you. But geez, the author didn't even get into, e.g., Marxist analysis or anything so controversial :P

Dear JavaScript 10 years ago

Moderation and social dynamics are things that have to be built from smaller scales outward. Yes, there will always be people writing articles about "This project is awful and the developers are bad people," but it's also possible to have platforms and communities that don't indulge in and enable that kind of pettiness.

And it's true that driving those people away will likely cause them to form their own communities, but so be it. More often what happens, actually, is that the people less interested in unneeded hostility (like I said about building from smaller scales) will splinter and form their own communities. If these communities are effective, however, they'll often slowly be recognized by the nasties in the original community and be invaded by the same or similar people. The real problem is figuring out how to deal with them and maintain solidarity without compromising social ideals, rather than just splintering again.

Also, I'm not real knowledgeable about issues surrounding autism, but I do know that autistic kids are a primary target of parental abuse, often by parents who may appear well-meaning from the outside... so I wouldn't be surprised if those can be quite toxic communities, especially if we're talking about parents and not autistic people themselves at the forefront of discourse. But perhaps I'm just cynical.

Dear JavaScript 10 years ago

Ok, but he's specifically calling out communities that reward negative behavior rather than calling it out. I mean, are you being serious right now? There's a difference between "boo hoo everyone's so mean :'((" and "hey, there are community issues that we should try to address", and that's pretty explicitly the point of the article.

You realize that the idea of consciousness separate from the body is extremely popular in Western traditions as well? Much Christian theology, for example, is pretty fundamentally reliant on the idea of the soul.

The guidelines that I've followed always say not to fight these thoughts, but to let them pass over you: that they are inevitable, but you should not give your energy to deal with them and to let them pass on their own

But I think (and what do I think; I know a little here and there but certainly not conversational in another language) that we can immerse ourselves easily in a programming language, so if we're drawing equivalences, it should be easier to learn a programming language than a spoken one in the same levels of culture immersion -- and most of us are here, aren't we?

Well, sure. It's more that you posted a comment not that there's a typo but that this typo makes it so unbearable to read that you were simply forced to stop. But anyway...