Dumb and Stupid Quotes Thread: Idiotic Source and Context are Key.

[cardgame]

In a thread about the CSA:

"Treating other people like human beings is the point."

"What has that got to do with the CSA?"

 

[Lohrenswald]

In a thread about the CSA:

"Treating other people like human beings is the point."

"What has that got to do with the CSA?"

 

[sophie]

In a thread about the CSA:

"Treating other people like human beings is the point."

"What has that got to do with the CSA?"

STATES' RIGHTS

 

[W|M]

WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION

 

[jackelgull]

Robert Lee did no wrong REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

 

[The_J]

[Some biased BS]
-David Gelernter, 'There's Enough Time to Change Everything', The Atlantic

To add a funny note to this: The last name of the guy looks like a participle version of the german word for "study" (lernen).

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Mr. Blair, I don't think Orwell's 2+2=5 was a statement about linguistics.
"Here's the problem: Language is arbitrary. The only reason two plus two is four instead of five is that we assigned four to represent the abstraction that happens when two is added to two. There is nothing fundamentally true or false about the words we use, so when the "two plus two is five" problem is given to Winston, what's happening is simply that the government is simply re-defining what "5" means, and the protagonist is rejecting the authority of the government over language."
-Robbie Blair, "Your Favorite Book Sucks: '1984'", litreactor.com

 

[Borachio]

@SS-18 ICBM

But the problem comes if we consider that the government weren't trying to redefine the number 5, doesn't it?

Wasn't that what Orwell was driving at? That the government could persuade someone to believe something that's palpably false?

And if it's just a matter of redefinition of the number 5, they haven't done that.

I'm not sure it is a statement about linguistics. Or semantics. But about power, and conditioning.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Removed a double negative where it shouldn't have been.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Lingua francas are bad because vague raisins.
"But the English hegemony isn't just bad for scientists; it's bad for science itself. Forcing scientists to approach their field from a single language comes with 'the great cost of losing their unique ways of communicating ideas,' says Sean Perera, a researcher into scientific communication. Forcing everything through the lens of a single language means a decrease in the variety of perspectives. For the most part, English has a common culture attached to it, which has its own specific way of thinking. Doing it this way eliminates 'indigenous knowledge,' which in turn reduces outside-the-box thinking. Speak like the English, reason like the English, and soon you'll think the answer to every problem is to recolonize India."
-Cedric Voets, "5 Dumb Science Problems That Are Causing Real Damage", Cracked

 

[Kyriakos]

^Indeed, that sounds dumb. Common language for scientific issues is hardly the main barrier, cause it is a field with already hugely common symbols, methods and manner it is being taught. Unless he means "sciences" like sociology etc, his claim is just a false note, coming from possibly a broken piano.

In physics, chemistry, also math (i know it isn't termed as science, sometimes, whatever) the issue is very unlikely to be language of communication. While knowing more languages can have up to a considerable effect on overall way of thinking, having to use one language to publish scientific stuff seems to have next to zero negatives.

 

[warpus]

I get it, but it seems like there's also a great deal of pros of publishing science all in one language

 

[Cutlass]

I get it, but it seems like there's also a great deal of pros of publishing science all in one language

Oh, there are. It means that scientists in that field from all over the world can learn what has been done, what experiments have worked, and where the state of the art is. It prevents massive reinvention of the wheel. And because researchers don't have to reinvent the wheel nearly as often, they are freed to try to invent something new.

 

[Dachs]

I get it, but it seems like there's also a great deal of pros of publishing science all in one language

"It seems like"? You know this is in "Dumb and Stupid Quotes", right?

 

[really]

Because people don't publish what didn't work in any language there is a lot of reinventing the wheel anyways.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Stephen Jay Gould wrote a great essay some years back about the underreporting of failed experiments.

 

[The_J]

Well... while this seems dumb, I don't think it is entirely.
Yes, I also need to, and want to read what everyone else does.
But the language you think in does have an impact on how you think (and how you are; people change personalities when they change language).
Having everything in one language probably does impact what kind of results we get.
That disadvantage probably outweighs the benefit of having everything globally available.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I keep hearing that but nobody ever gives any concrete examples.

 

[Traitorfish]

I keep hearing that but nobody ever gives any concrete examples.

Well, when I speak English nobody objects, but when I speak Spanish I'm "just listing Tex-Mex dishes" and "don't actually know Spanish". Make of that what you will.

 

[The_J]

I can only give myself as anecdotal evidence, and you don't need to trust in that.
But I'm different when I'm speaking German in contrast to English, but that also goes together with different experiences, so, hmmm.