Plato's Beard - Latest Comments

Re: WWII: the backstory on the Soviet pact with Hitler

Doyle Saylor — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 21:33:35 -0000

A bit of background to better understand the situation on all sides in the pre-war period. The British chose history in some sense. Bringing down Hitler on them by ignoring this possible agreement.

Re: New frontiers in worker porn

platosbeard — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:40:33 -0000

Hmm... I am till learning this Disqus thing... hence my empty comment above. What I wanted to write:

Doyle, I agree with you entirely. You summarised it perfectly with this line:

That trumps social ties only in the sense holding a gun on someone does.

Re: New frontiers in worker porn

platosbeard — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:31:13 -0000

Re: New frontiers in worker porn

Doyle Saylor — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:09:40 -0000

Hello Ravi,
Interesting argument. Since this is the most aggressive oppressive environment for workers - piece work - in which earning just at minimum wage is carefully gauged wouldn't that suggest that people are being coerced to go toward a way to get enough money to live by constantly finding ways to up the amount of work they must do to simply survive? That trumps social ties only in the sense holding a gun on someone does. And lasts as long as the effort to subvert the methods fails. I'm sure you agree. Anyway these sorts of reports merely illustrate that the worst aspects of labor in capitalism are still being used. These practices go way back and are nothing new despite the claim 'economists' are at the wheel of these experiments.

Re: Rights vs Right

platosbeard — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:53:14 -0000

Approve.

Re: Rights vs Right

Doyle Saylor — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:43:44 -0000

Austin's comment reminds me of how some philosophers are able to address injustice.

Re: The Broken Windows theory of Civilisation!

platosbeard — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:13:14 -0000

Doyle Saylor wrote:

Ahhh... Pinker, he writes well enough, has some amusing things to say about this and that in terms of language. One of the parts I balk at though is his polemics against Gould. He is shaped by the thought genetics control behavior, and feels a specific linkage to Chomsky about this. To the point culture which he is writing about above is a problem for him. The 'blank slate' is a political red flag of left wing dangers to him.

Pinker builds on Chomsky's ideas about language instinct (which seem to be falling out of fashion, given recent developments at EvoLang), but I believe (and I think Fodor agrees) Chomsky wants no part of the evolutionary psychology explanation that is Pinker's staple. In other words, Chomsky (the originator of the "poverty of input" argument and the idea of a language organ) and Fodor (the originator, sort of, of the idea of massive modularity) are not hot on the third rail offered by Pinker (cognition via evolution) to complete the story on human cognition.

"Blank slate" criticisms of behavioural psychology are, IMHO, mostly caricatures. Pinker is a great polemicist and partisan rhetorician. That I give him credit for ;-).

--ravi

Re: The Broken Windows theory of Civilisation!

Doyle Saylor — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:54:56 -0000

Ahhh... Pinker, he writes well enough, has some amusing things to say about this and that in terms of language. One of the parts I balk at though is his polemics against Gould. He is shaped by the thought genetics control behavior, and feels a specific linkage to Chomsky about this. To the point culture which he is writing about above is a problem for him. The 'blank slate' is a political red flag of left wing dangers to him.