TIL: Today I Learned

[stinkubus]

In what context? Cause, in general, certainly not all questions of knowledge are tied to power (obvious example being math questions).

Power may not determine which logical inferences are valid or not, but it does go a long way to determine which questions are acceptable to ask. Mathematics is not immune from this phenomenon. Georg Cantor was exiled from academia when his conception of set theory clashed with orthodoxy. Isaac Newton refused to publish many of his discoveries for no other reason than to avoid controversy. The first coherent vision of a non-Euclidian geometry was formulated in a prison cell because no one in the academy would go near it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Power may not determine which logical inferences are valid or not, but it does go a long way to determine which questions are acceptable to ask. Mathematics is not immune from this phenomenon. Georg Cantor was exiled from academia when his conception of set theory clashed with orthodoxy. Isaac Newton refused to publish many of his discoveries for no other reason than to avoid controversy. The first coherent vision of a non-Euclidian geometry was formulated in a prison cell because no one in the academy would go near it.

Sure, yet all those are about communicating or presenting something. Knowledge isn't itself tied to that. Let alone that most mental senses/formulations/insight barely make it in full form as a conscious concept in the first place. (for similar reasons that emotions aren't described in full, or that dreams aren't recorded without great abstraction and diminishment of the overall event/phenomenon experienced).
So it seems that arguing that power is what defines whether or not some knowledge is had, or examined, or accepted or other, is quite an over-focus on a small bit of actual thinking and knowledge.

 

[Lexicus]

I didn't realize my position on engaging with smear artists is so controversial. Please elaborate, why is it important to give them a platform and listen to what they have to say even though they aren't arguing in good faith?

My whole point is that the author this article isn't arguing in bad faith. And by reading it you can learn something about postmodernism since

Fine, fine, I'll admit I don't know jack about postmodernism.

 

[Cutlass]

I was told that economics is the easiest thing to understand in the world. Then again, that same person couldn't understand the basic idea of inflation.

The people who say that don't understand anything about economics. What they know is politics, and they want to fit an economic model to their political priors.

 

[Mouthwash]

No, as often as not it happens the other way around. People read about the 'broken window fallacy' and get enraptured with the idea of efficient markets.

 

[Hrothbern]

The odd thing about free market, or effecient/effective fields of decisions, is that many, mostly very large companies, manage their people and divisions up to departments very much in a top-down planned fashion, with just enough illusion of freedom downward in the company, to get their buy-in. Yet at all levels, managers want more freedom from above, up to the companies as a whole, the business culture, that wants a free market and see regulations only as a competitive factor (to be influyenced from that perspective)

I think a lot has to do with scale size and in how far a distanced management/government is added value to the core of what is needed in terms of adaptibility (which needs to be much higher in a faster changing (innovative) environment).

As soon as the need for adaptibility is low, in mature businesses, where the effeciency need has caused very big companies, the advantages of a free market start to diminish and the power abuse of those very big companies start to increase.

Talking about "the free market" without taking that differentation into account is imo over-principled ideology.

 

[Commodore]

TIL: The police in Charlottesville actually did a good job in keeping the riot there from being a lot worse than it could have been.

Quick summary: The police were basically taken by surprise since the initial demonstration started three hours prior to its expected start time, so their initial plan of keeping the two groups separated completely fell apart. The small Charlottesville police force, despite being reinforced by state police, simply did not have the numbers to directly confront the demonstrators. Doing so may have caused both groups of demonstrators to go from attacking each other to attacking the police, which would have forced the police to retreat from the situation. And if that happened, things probably would have gotten completely out of control in Charlottesville. So they focused on defusing the worst of the violence and arresting the leaders while slowly pushing the demonstrators out of the park and into the surrounding streets where they naturally separated from each other and the violence mostly came to an end on its own.

 

[Takhisis]

I didn't realize my position on engaging with smear artists is so controversial. Please elaborate, why is it important to give them a platform and listen to what they have to say even though they aren't arguing in good faith?

So you say they aren't arguing in good faith but at the same time you say you're not going to pay attention to what they say?

 

[Zkribbler]

I was told that economics is the easiest thing to understand in the world.

"You could line up all the economists in the world end to end, and those fellows would all point in different directions." ... President Harry S. Truman

 

[Morty]

TIL: That KFC have run out of chicken!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43110910

 

[Chukchi Husky]

The KFC in Bath is closed and replaced by a 24 hour gym.

 

[shadowplay]

The KFC in Bath is closed and replaced by a 24 hour gym.

A few years ago when our local Harvey's (greasy burger chain) closed, it was actually replaced with a cardiology clinic.

 

[Kyriakos]

A few years ago when our local Harvey's (greasy burger chain) closed, it was actually replaced with a cardiology clinic.

To keep the same client list?

 

[Takhisis]

Well, yes, it'd obviously help prevent them from getting lost.

 

[Zkribbler]

TIL: That KFC have run out of chicken!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43110910

Whoa whoa whoa--only in the UK. KFC switched to a new distributor, who is not meeting expectations.

 

[Kyriakos]

Does it matter if KFC runs out of chicken? I doubt that is chicken they are serving anyway ^^

 

[Takhisis]

Does it taste like chicken?

 

[Kyriakos]

Does it taste like chicken?

Well, it tastes like grilled fat mixed with sauce made out of slightly different fat.

 

[stinkubus]

They definitely serve chicken, although (at least in USA #1) Popeyes, or any other number of local or regional chains, do it way better.

 

[Zkribbler]

Well, it tastes like grilled fat mixed with sauce made out of slightly different fat.

The Colonel was really ticked after he sold out to KFC and they changed his recipe.

In other KFC news, with all the KFC stores closed, UK workers have been given the week off...without pay.