The absolute worst thing about how STEM is taught in my country is how entirely devoid curriculums are from critical theory. You take inputs, outputs, energies and production as-is, and you get a crop of drones who think such discussions are irrelevant. Then they graduate, start working and earning good money – and suddenly they support capitalist production structures because they’re “rational” and “objective”. Some then become the biggest chuds ever known to man.
I remember that I discussed gentrification with a civil engineer who happened to be my boss, a very renowned and talented person in our branch. He didn’t know what gentrification was…
civil engineer […] didn’t know what gentrification was…
Sweet jebus on ice-skates. The guy was potentially a literal if not figurative architect in service of one of the most profound mechanisms of gentrification and hadn’t heard of it?! That’s like designing cars and being unaware of traffic jams and induced demand.
There are different forms but it’s basically getting woke to class struggle between people who own shit and rent it out and people who get paid a bit to use the shit, but never actually get to own real shit or control what shit they decide to do.
I’m putting it pretty bluntly and pretty woke…ly, and a lil but Marxly. It’s also about analyzing systems we use to organise ourselves and what they do to us. Basically how to get people to actually wake up to how and why things are how they are and maybe how they could be different / better.
In the context of STEM students who focus on inputs, outputs, and engines at the expense of considering societal impacts (or simply telling themselves it’s the job of poor humanities students to get elected and pass laws to constrain the most egregious negative externalities of technology) it’s asking who an efficiency is for. Efficiency cannot exist in a moral vacuum. As Kim Stanley Robinson summarized in The Ministry for the Future (2020):
… there is good efficiency and bad efficiency, good inefficiency and bad inefficiency. … preventative health care saves enormous amounts in medical costs later, and is a good efficiency. Eating your extra children (this is Swift’s character’s “modest proposal”) would be a bad efficiency. Any harm to people for profit is likewise bad, no matter how efficient. Using an over-sized vehicle to get from point A to point B is a bad inefficiency, and there are many more like it; but oxbows in a river, defining a large flood plain, is a good inefficiency
Isn’t it funny how people who “have things” are less likely to be all that interested in leftism. And those who don’t have “things” look at them, want more leftism because they want want the “things” the people who have “things” and they don’t have.
I just want to be able to live life as carefree as they can without regards to money. It’s a bit of jealousy but it’s not the overriding reason for it.
I have plenty of things, and still support pretty left wing ideas (except for the violence that some people here seem think is required to be considered left).
That leftism is a product of ressentiment from people who don’t have “things” against people who have “things”, I guess. ContraPoints-level take tbh.
I hate billionaires, not because I want to be a miserable sociopath with too much money, but because they are largely the reason that any kind of improvement to our planet and species is being blocked. I support socialized healthcare, not because I envy those who have the money to pay for life-saving healthcare, but because I don’t want to fucking die, etc. etc.
There certainly are people like BadEmpanada, who oppose unions and welfare so that “first-worlders can suffer”, but they definitely don’t reflect what leftism is in general.
I agree, and I’d add it’s not even a specifically left wing impulse either. The Roman Republic of all institutions was deeply concerned with the idea that republics shouldn’t have private princes as well as kings. The fact the Roman Republic failed to contain its oligarchy to the point of fundamental destabilisation into arbitrary power is evidence people ought to pay attention to left wingers when they say the same thing about billionaires and the concentration of wealth.
Isn’t it funny how people who “have food” are less likely to be all that interested in leftism. And those who don’t have “food” look at them, want more leftism because they want want the “food” the people who have “food” and they don’t have.
Your edit makes a good insinuation “they’re just things” people think objects are frivolous things that tie you down because they’ve never experienced genuine lack.
Not like lack of toys, but the bear necessities of survival.
The basic necessities should just be provided, by that I mean food and shelter and basic medical care. If people want to live luxuriously that’s fantatic, going and toiling, innovating or improving their situation in someway should be encouraged; but no one should ever be shelterless and hungry.
The absolute worst thing about how STEM is taught in my country is how entirely devoid curriculums are from critical theory. You take inputs, outputs, energies and production as-is, and you get a crop of drones who think such discussions are irrelevant. Then they graduate, start working and earning good money – and suddenly they support capitalist production structures because they’re “rational” and “objective”. Some then become the biggest chuds ever known to man.
I remember that I discussed gentrification with a civil engineer who happened to be my boss, a very renowned and talented person in our branch. He didn’t know what gentrification was…
Sweet jebus on ice-skates. The guy was potentially a literal if not figurative architect in service of one of the most profound mechanisms of gentrification and hadn’t heard of it?! That’s like designing cars and being unaware of traffic jams and induced demand.
What do you mean with critical theory?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory
There are different forms but it’s basically getting woke to class struggle between people who own shit and rent it out and people who get paid a bit to use the shit, but never actually get to own real shit or control what shit they decide to do.
I’m putting it pretty bluntly and pretty woke…ly, and a lil but Marxly. It’s also about analyzing systems we use to organise ourselves and what they do to us. Basically how to get people to actually wake up to how and why things are how they are and maybe how they could be different / better.
In the context of STEM students who focus on inputs, outputs, and engines at the expense of considering societal impacts (or simply telling themselves it’s the job of poor humanities students to get elected and pass laws to constrain the most egregious negative externalities of technology) it’s asking who an efficiency is for. Efficiency cannot exist in a moral vacuum. As Kim Stanley Robinson summarized in The Ministry for the Future (2020):
Isn’t it funny how people who “have things” are less likely to be all that interested in leftism. And those who don’t have “things” look at them, want more leftism because they want want the “things” the people who have “things” and they don’t have.
And neither side understands the other.
Leftists aren’t jealous of rich people. Slanderous and incorrect
I just want to be able to live life as carefree as they can without regards to money. It’s a bit of jealousy but it’s not the overriding reason for it.
I have plenty of things, and still support pretty left wing ideas (except for the violence that some people here seem think is required to be considered left).
Ayn Rand has entered the chat.
What do you mean?
I have more things than I could ever want.
I want more agency.
What do you want to say, exactly?
That leftism is a product of ressentiment from people who don’t have “things” against people who have “things”, I guess. ContraPoints-level take tbh.
I hate billionaires, not because I want to be a miserable sociopath with too much money, but because they are largely the reason that any kind of improvement to our planet and species is being blocked. I support socialized healthcare, not because I envy those who have the money to pay for life-saving healthcare, but because I don’t want to fucking die, etc. etc.
There certainly are people like BadEmpanada, who oppose unions and welfare so that “first-worlders can suffer”, but they definitely don’t reflect what leftism is in general.
BE
I agree, and I’d add it’s not even a specifically left wing impulse either. The Roman Republic of all institutions was deeply concerned with the idea that republics shouldn’t have private princes as well as kings. The fact the Roman Republic failed to contain its oligarchy to the point of fundamental destabilisation into arbitrary power is evidence people ought to pay attention to left wingers when they say the same thing about billionaires and the concentration of wealth.
I understood that tbh. I just wanted the person to say it in their own words…
They don’t understand either side.
deleted by creator
That’s a different person you’re replying to
That’s embarrassing … 🤓
I missed it
It’s still garbled, but makes a better point.
Your edit makes a good insinuation “they’re just things” people think objects are frivolous things that tie you down because they’ve never experienced genuine lack.
Not like lack of toys, but the bear necessities of survival.
The basic necessities should just be provided, by that I mean food and shelter and basic medical care. If people want to live luxuriously that’s fantatic, going and toiling, innovating or improving their situation in someway should be encouraged; but no one should ever be shelterless and hungry.