intellectual fads

[David]

I know nothing really of feminism, but I do know that no matter what, unless you are bi-sexual, everyone is sexist. This is all I really know about all of that.

As far as intellectual fads go, I can't stand the whole if you have no degree, and you don't spend the time doing it in a class for the full period, you can not possible have any idea what anyone in that field is doing, or possibly compare to them. This is the Physics field I am speaking of. I can't stand elitism, even though I am guilty of it at times myself, but that's because some people are just plain stupid. Ahh, anyways back to your discussion, I just had to thow in my two cents there.

i hate conservatives that stereotype every liberal demographic out there.

I'm a conservative, and I hate the liberals doing the same. There are idiot's on every side of the 4-D cube.

 

[PGTips]

I can't help but feel perhaps you are referring to myself and a few others "comments" about you there David.

I can't stand the whole if you have no degree, and you don't spend the time doing it in a class for the full period, you can not possible have any idea what anyone in that field is doing, or possibly compare to them. This is the Physics field I am speaking of.

Its one thing to compare to people and to follow their ideas, its another to be able in your spare time, lacking PhD level mathematics and out of real-time contact with others "researching" in the field to be able to come up with a totally new, correct, theory which usurps one of the pillars of modern physics.

Its not that we're calling you a liar, just in 12 months of you being asked to produce any kind of formal results, instead of "Its wrong, and I've got the real theory", we've seen nothing.

I'm taking several Relativity and Quantum modules this term and its painfully obvious to me that my lecturers and supervisors are light years beyond my ability. I'm pretty good at applied mathematics, but on the scale of the people I sit in lectures with (never mind am lectured by), I'm crap. As my Director of Studies said yesterday "To do a Masters here, you'll need to increase your standard of work by at least an order of magnitude. I don't think you could do a PhD here at all". I got a 2-1 last year (no small acheivement for my university) and my DoS basically said "You're crap", thats how good some people are.

I think its impossible for someone to do a 21st century "Einstein" and appear from nowhere with almost no formal training (compared to these people, thats what you and I have) with a theory which will not only revolutionise millions of peoples areas of work, but also probably require such new mathematical ideas you'd win a Fields Medal ontop of the Nobel Prize such a work would undoubtedly win.

Saying "I can do that if I worked a bit" is okay(ish). Saying "I'm better than every full time physicist on the planet, and thats in my spare time!" is quite another. That isn't snobbery, thats fact.

 

[Euler]

As far as intellectual fads go, I can't stand the whole if you have no degree, and you don't spend the time doing it in a class for the full period, you can not possible have any idea what anyone in that field is doing, or possibly compare to them. This is the Physics field I am speaking of. I can't stand elitism, even though I am guilty of it at times myself, but that's because some people are just plain stupid. Ahh, anyways back to your discussion, I just had to thow in my two cents there.

Aren't you the guy that said he had a totally new theory of gravity? Or something that would overturn G-R? But, you haven't bothered submitting your work anywhere because you haven't had the time?

I would have thought someone with strong opinions about intellectual elitism would have jumped at the chance to overthrow modern physics - getting one over on all the intellectual snobs!

 

[David]

^^That's the attitude that keeps me going everyday, that one day I'll actually be done with this insanity, and I can stop dealing with it.


AN That's great are you going to pay my bills, and feed my family, all the while keeping this household, and my Neice's, and Nephews on the right path, instead of down the one I went? Are you going to help me through physical therapy everyday, and then go to work for me slinging concrete with a torn up back? I'm glad you have the fucking tiem to sit here, and criticize me. I come on here while I'm uploading the vast amounts of homework I have to do, and still keep above a 3.7 GPA. I'm sorry I can't drop everything in life to appease you. I've been working on this theory for over five years now, and everytime I get somewhere I realize I made a mistake, and have to change something. I'm not sure you can see my dilema, but until you start taking on something so grand, and hard, please refrain from making judgements on me. I'm doing the best I can, with the limited resources I have.

I will not post it in completeness until it is complete, this may be the only real thing I ever accomplish that's worthwhile in my life, but at least I'm trying it, and taking it on. Can you say the same?

BTW Math is just shapes. Seriously, they aren't that hard.

Life is hard, if I wanted the easy way out, I would never had made any claims whatsoever, and just whithered away. I like the pain.

 

[thursday]

math is just shapes?

 

[PGTips]

I'm sorry I can't drop everything in life to appease you. I've been working on this theory for over five years now, and everytime I get somewhere I realize I made a mistake, and have to change something.

I'm not asking for a first print, and neither were previous people who've enquired. A general jist. A 10 line paragraph outlining your problems with current theories, and some new techniques/routes you've been using. Nothing hugely revealing, just the vaguest of pointers. Probably take less than 10 minutes to type.

BTW Math is just shapes. Seriously, they aren't that hard.

Congratulations on reducing possibly one of the greast areas of human thought to "Its all easy really". Sorry, but are you now a genius at all areas of mathematics too? I can muck around with covariant derivatives and the like too, thats not too hard at its most basic, but to say "maths is just shapes" belittles so many peoples work its staggering. I assume you are an expert in Combinatorics, Galois Theory, Graph Theory, Representation Theory, Logic, and anouther 50 pure mathematic displines I can name. After all, they are all just shapes right?

I remember seeing your posts on "You can't define Pi" and the like, and you had glaring errors in your mathematical logic there, so forgive me if I doubt your mathematical ability.

I'm glad you have the fucking tiem to sit here, and criticize me

I may come off as snobby or condesending, but I feel I'm being more realistic than anything else. I spend my days sitting in lectures given by people who invented ideas you claim to be rewritting. I overhear the things they talk about even sitting in lunch, I have supervisions with them, and see the amount of physics and maths they live and breath. I'm not saying those thigns to sound like I'm brilliant at this stuff, and these people are my peers, ha! I'm saying it to say that these people are not my peers, these people are far far beyond me in everything. I cannot conceive that anyone can, in their spare time, userp their (and all like them in other universites) combined thinking power. You would have to have an understanding and ability previously uncharted in human knowledge. The fact you mention all those things which eat up your time backs up my opinion. You have so many things in your life that you don't have time to write a 10 minute post, yet time to redevelop a theory which has eluded probably several dozen thousand of the cleverest people of the last 30 years? I do not think anyone can argue that that sounds slightly far fetched or slightly egotistical of yourself to think you have, can you?

As for the time I have, I do not do nothing all day. For instance, the last 4 days I've spent solidly working for supervisions. I was up till 3am Sunday night doing Quantum Mechanics. Last night I was doing Cosmology will midnight. Today I had 2 lectures, then 3 1-1 one hour long supervisions on 3 different topic. You are not the only person who works a lot, and I doubt you and I are the only 2. A post critising you would have taken just as long to type as a post praising you, so I don't think thats particularly relevant.

How exactly are you checking your "results" anyway? Just using latest output from CERN, Fermilab and cosmological observatories? Or are you trying to rederive results from existing Quantum Mechanics and Relativity but in a single theory? I'm not asking anything more than the vaguest of replies, which shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to do.

 

[Euler]

Blurb...

Yeah - I have the same problem. I've got several proofs of the Riemann Hypothesis sitting about here, but I haven't had a chance to submit it because of all this homework!



And Maths is just shapes? Really? Really Really? Please!? Do you actually think about what you're typing?

 

[dr seuss]

You would have to have an understanding and ability previously uncharted in human knowledge.

just to play advocate here;

you realise that this is, of course, not only entirely possible but also bound to happen sometime. the history of the sciences is literally littered with unacknowledged or undervalued people - people who often made massive contributions to our understanding of the world, but were fobbed off, ignored, or plagiarised by the academic establishment.

 

[Cex]

BTW Math is just shapes. Seriously, they aren't that hard.

What?

Seriously, what?

No, wait... what?

If you're serious, I have a bunch of question sheets that are due in in a few days. Feel free to give me a few solutions - obviously someone of your calibre will have no problem knocking them out in a few minutes.

Statistical Physics
General Relativity
Waves

 

[Cex]

just to play advocate here;

you realise that this is, of course, not only entirely possible but also bound to happen sometime. the history of the sciences is literally littered with unacknowledged or undervalued people - people who often made massive contributions to our understanding of the world, but were fobbed off, ignored, or plagiarised by the academic establishment.

I'll open myself up to embarassment here, should I be proved wrong, but I don't think I will be.

Please give me one example of someone in the last 60 years, from a non-academic background, who was ridiculed by the academic establishment but whose theories in the fields of physics or mathematicss turned out to have been right all along.

Also, note that even Einstein studied maths and physics very hard. Yes he was a genius, but he didn't just pull relativity out of his arse.

 

[Cex]

To make an on-topic post:

I hate people who are into a music 'scene' for the image rather than for the love of the music. This includes emo kids (black hair, studded belts, likes to take pictures of themselves looking depressed and write in their Livejournals) and indie kids (wear a scarf all day, every day, will scoff at any band a non-indie kid mentions and then name-drop twenty bands they've heard of but never heard).

Really gets my goat.

 

[thursday]

well, they probably equally hate people who wear abercrombie and hollister all the time, insist on buying brand-name clothing, and have to criticize others for looking different to feel better about themselves. it's all just fashion. who cares. just because you fall into the dominant social group thus your fashion choices are less distinguishable doesn't mean you don't get caught up in appearances either. you scoff at people who dress/act differently from you and generalize them based on shallow observations of a few individuals. you are basically criticizing them for what you are also guilty of--being elitists and self-absorbed.

why does it bother you that people write in online journals or dress a certain way? i don't think that's nearly as bad as getting upset over other people's personal decisions which don't affect you in any way.

 

[Cex]

I don't dislike the way they dress. I dislike the fact that they're associating themselves with a scene in order to appear cool, and will try to make others feel bad for not knowing the latest fad band, despite the fact that they couldn't give two shits about the music or the bands.

I have never 'scoffed at' anyone who dresses differently from me based purely on that fact. And I have never even heard of abercrombie and hollister.

 

[thursday]

how do you know they associate themselves with the scene to appear cool and not because those are the people they grew up around and share common interests with. people with similar interests tend to hang out with each other, and people who hang out with each other tend to dress similarly. and you don't know that they don't give a shit about the music or bands, you're just making an assumption there.

however you dress, you are dressing the same as a certain subculture or social group. and what's the point in mentioning the way "emo kids" and "indie kids" dress other than to mock them?

there are elitists in all social groups, by pointing out a particular segment of society and mocking them based on criticisms which have no merit other than "its wrong because it's different and weird to me" is also being an elitist.

if you can say why it's wrong to take pictures of yourself looking sad then maybe you can make a valid argument against their personal choices, but i think you'd be hardpressed to do so. it's like saying people are wrong to take pictures of themselves looking happy, or inebriated, etc.

 

[David]

I'm still confused on how clothing is being defined as an intellectual fad.

I'm not asking for a first print, and neither were previous people who've enquired. A general jist. A 10 line paragraph outlining your problems with current theories, and some new techniques/routes you've been using. Nothing hugely revealing, just the vaguest of pointers. Probably take less than 10 minutes to type.

I had offered such previously, the lack of reply from you kind of made the point moot.

Again, there's always tomorrow.

 

[Cex]

and you don't know that they don't give a shit about the music or bands, you're just making an assumption there.

Can you say "twisting the point"?

I dislike the people who have no respect for the music or bands. I am fully aware that there are emo kids or indie kids or any other sort of kid who love music and love watching bands perform and want to support them in any way possible. I have no problem with them, in fact I commend them.

I dislike the people who are in it solely for the image.

Christ, you are really looking for an argument where there is none.

 

[thursday]

sorry, it's just the way it was phrased. you shouldn't have said "...this includes group a(stereotyped descriptor for group a) and group b(stereotypes of group b)." if you didn't mean to categorize all of them as being musical elitists. bringing in characteristics which stereotype those groups but have nothing to do with being elitists just makes it seem more like you are arbitrarily criticizing those 2 categories of people rather than just a few people who may belong to those groups but also exist in other "scenes."

i know what you mean about music elistists who try too hard to be trendy tho.

but back on topic, i think a lot of conservatives like to bag on progressives or liberal activists as just trying to follow rebelious trends because they can't come up with legitimate criticisms against those iconoclastic movements. but progressivism is not a fad, it will always exist as long as there are problems within our society which can be changed by changing the attitude of the general public. unfortunately there will always be reactionaries who have nothing better to do than to call liberals whiners and polarize the views of their opponents as to justify their reactionary attitudes towards them.

just today i had an argument with my roommate and his friends about peta. they claimed that PETA is an extremist group with political intentions. well yes, they DO want to change legislation to put some regulations on the meat industry and raise awareness about animal cruelty. but is that so wrong? my roommate then proceeded to quote one of the peta leaders as saying that if killing one lab animal could cure all diseases it would still not mean a thing to him, and to my roommate and his friends this demonstrated backwards thinking and discounted all of peta's campaigns. to me the quote was just his expression of an anti-utilitarian sentiment. kinda like it's better to let 1000 murders go free than to wrongfully imprison a single innocent man. but to some these sentiments showed radical political motives which categorized the animal rights group as rabble-rousing extemists who preach subversive propaganda for no reason, despite the fact that these sentiments merely express idealism. a sense of idealism which to me is very noble. but i guess when people advocate in vitro product testing and medical research rather than less accurate vivisections and cruel in vivo testing they are just trying to be cool, and they are being irrational. groundless criticism and indignant hostilities are a burden that progressives have always had to bear.

there's no reason to feel threatened by feminists, gay-rights activists, environmentalists, etc. unless their sentiments somehow put you in the wrong. so homophobes, misogynists, and environmentally irresponsible individuals will continue to make ad hominem attacks on these progressive movements to defend themselves, and if that means categorizing all feminists as being man-hating lesbians, and calling gay rights activists as being extremists who want to destroy the traditional family unit, and calling environmentalists terrorists who are "politically motivated" then they will do so even though these accusations have no logical basis.

 

[PGTips]

I had offered such previously, the lack of reply from you kind of made the point moot.

You knew I wanted to see it, thats why you sent me that PM. The PM asked no questions and gave no indication you wanted a reply, you were simply stating "I'm busy, I'll get it to you next week" (7 weeks ago). The only reply I could have given would have been "Okay".

Here's my reply : "Okay".

BTW, you didn't reply to my question about your maths ability. Can you do all those things I listed? I'm not the only one who questioned your "Its all easy, they are just shapes" comment. As I said, I've seen previous discussions about maths you've entered into.....

 

[Cex]

sorry, it's just the way it was phrased. you shouldn't have said "...this includes group a(stereotyped descriptor for group a) and group b(stereotypes of group b)." if you didn't mean to categorize all of them as being musical elitists. bringing in characteristics which stereotype those groups but have nothing to do with being elitists just makes it seem more like you are arbitrarily criticizing those 2 categories of people rather than just a few people who may belong to those groups but also exist in other "scenes."

i know what you mean about music elistists who try too hard to be trendy tho.

Okay, bad phrasing on my part

I don't know if you have much experience with the various different scenes, but I've found that the people who always dress in the right way are often the people who are in it for the image. The most 'emo' people I know, ie. the people who are in serious bands and want to go on to tour and make it a big part of their lives, don't bother trying to look emo. Their actions speak louder than the way they dress ever could. What do you think?

I have a lecture now, but I'll address the later part of your post in a while!

 

[Edvard Munch]

It was like he approached philosophy in a labcoat, trying to figure it out by looking at it under a miscroscope.

How else do you think one can approach a theory and prooving it correct or incorrect without taking the scientific method into play?