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Tuesday, June 10, 2014

"Personally I Judge Each Argument On Its Merits"

The point is always well taken. But it is worth noting, strictly speaking, that nobody judges each argument on its merits in some splendid isolation -- since to recognize an argument as such already depends on contextualization and comparison. This matters especially to the extent that "each argument on its merits" injunctions seek to police contextualization and comparisons that are deemed injurious to the argument prompting the declaration. As they so very often do.This post is upgraded and adapted from a comment of mine in the Moot.

10 comments:

Athena Andreadis said...

This argument, literally sophomoric when uttered pedantically, is akin to "I just select to publish the BEST authors!" in discussions about representation. Everything, even in biology, makes sense primarily in context.

Lying for Robot Jesus Ltd. said...

This just in! Learn all about (imaginary) military applications of (imaginary) Solar Freaking Roadways™:

http://solarroadways.com/military.shtml

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI8c2f8r0UU

jimf said...

> Everything, even in biology, makes sense primarily in context.

What a pain in the AI.

http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2009/08/futurological-brickbats_1589.html
-----------------
During twenty years of trying to spell out the components
of the noema [mental representation] of everyday objects,
Husserl found that he had to include more and more of what
he called the "outer horizon," a subject's total knowledge of the
world. . .

-- Hubert L. Dreyfus,
_What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of
Artifical Reason_, MIT Press, 1992
Introduction to the Revised Edition, pp. 34-36
====

Lying for Robot Jesus Ltd. said...

Athena Andreadis: are you addressing me, perchance? If so, I don't understand how you see surreptitious value judgement in one's refusal to judge a book by its cover. Am I missing something?

"Everything, even in biology, makes sense primarily in context"
Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe, no? It seems like my shy attempt at making you see past thunderf00t's (supposed) shortcoming to enjoy an entertaining anti-futurological smackdown unintentionally made you (host & friends) go off on a tangent.

Why don't we focus on what's really important: robot solar roadways calling in airstrikes on desert people. Funded by 46,237 voting-eligible citizens. There's a futurologist in all of us, waiting to pierce out.

Dale Carrico said...

Chill, friend. We are agreed that the solar roadways project is not ready for primetime, we are agreed the pop-tech archipelago leapt symptomatically into handwaving, the particular piece of debunkery you linked had elements of douchebaggery you probably didn't realize that interested other folks here, and then various forks in the discussion occured. Nobody endorses militarist wetdreams here, and to say or imply otherwise is nonsensical if you are (which I doubt), and not every militarist wetdream is important exactly, let alone a sensible prompt for panicky denunciation. To say that every dupe seduced by the hype into funding this garage inventor's likely dead-end scheme is somehow endorsing desert airstrikes is silly paranoia. And I say this as someone who incessantly calls attention to the corporate-militarist assumptions, aspirations, and associations of futurologists and futurists.

I agree that in a neoliberal epoch like our own, utterly suffused as it is with the deceptive, hyperbolizing, reductionist, eugenist, postcolonial/ developmentalist, promotional and self-promotional norms and forms of marketing and competitiveness, every one of us is vulnerable, however vigilant and critical we try to be, to spouting futurological nonsense if we don't watch out. I honestly don't think that is what is happening when we fail to care about the Brusaws quite as much as you may or like that particular debunking video as you may -- even if we are just as inclined to think debunking is apt for the project in question as you are. I don't think anybody has gone off, on a tangent or otherwise, and I hope you are not about to "go off" either. We're all mostly agreed, what's to get upset about?

Athena Andreadis said...

The (also literally sophomoric) response to my comment falls in this category: http://is.gd/AMbvUh

Lying for Robot Jesus Ltd. said...

The irony is killing me.

Dale Carrico said...

I don't get what the irony is. But, like, you know, don't die and stuff.

jimf said...

> Why don't we focus on what's really important: robot solar roadways
> calling in airstrikes on desert people.

I thought the Really Important Thing was homosexual parents having
genetically-engineered offspring that will corrupt the
Purity of Essence of the human race.

(We all just crypto-Transhumanists 'round here.)

Dale Carrico said...

For heaven's sake, Jim, you can't put incantations to conjure John Howard up in the Moot like that! It can take forever to wash that man right out of my hair and send him on his way.