Does this matter? Really matter? Perhaps in some fields, it may. But in many of the social sciences, I think not. If one is arguing that it is important to contribute incrementally to the march of The Enlightenment or even science, is that important? Were the advances of Eli Whitney or Henry Ford that important? Eventually, wouldn't someone have made the same contributions? From Edison to the first Mac to the first “20 meg” Apple hard drive to the Cloud, wasn’t the outcome inevitable?
Covid unleashed from the arrogance of children acting irresponsibly in the name of “science”? The power of Google -- to assist scientific inquiry and/or their practice of censorship and ideological fascism? At the end of your life, can you really claim it mattered that you solved a database sorting glitch that enabled Google's power, or that your personal invention eliminated dial-up modems? So you walked on the moon and brought back dust. Shall we consider the dust as Crypto before its modern iteration? Explain to whom, if anyone, should we really erect statues?
Careers, pedigrees, hard work? One might assume it matters. But who controls the power to hire or fire --- and do they have the intellectual ability to distinguish between those with real talent from those who merely possess the imprimatur of an Ivy degree? Aren’t most decisions made by those who don’t want risks -- those who find solace in the rationale that the quality of a graduate from Harvard or Yale is beyond qualitative doubt?
How many of those who make decisions actually have read, “Thinking, Fast and Slow”? Jordan Peterson, I suspect, certainly would question the wisdom of those who are charged with the power to decide.
Does this matter? Really matter? Perhaps in some fields, it may. But in many of the social sciences, I think not. If one is arguing that it is important to contribute incrementally to the march of The Enlightenment or even science, is that important? Were the advances of Eli Whitney or Henry Ford that important? Eventually, wouldn't someone have made the same contributions? From Edison to the first Mac to the first “20 meg” Apple hard drive to the Cloud, wasn’t the outcome inevitable?
Covid unleashed from the arrogance of children acting irresponsibly in the name of “science”? The power of Google -- to assist scientific inquiry and/or their practice of censorship and ideological fascism? At the end of your life, can you really claim it mattered that you solved a database sorting glitch that enabled Google's power, or that your personal invention eliminated dial-up modems? So you walked on the moon and brought back dust. Shall we consider the dust as Crypto before its modern iteration? Explain to whom, if anyone, should we really erect statues?
Careers, pedigrees, hard work? One might assume it matters. But who controls the power to hire or fire --- and do they have the intellectual ability to distinguish between those with real talent from those who merely possess the imprimatur of an Ivy degree? Aren’t most decisions made by those who don’t want risks -- those who find solace in the rationale that the quality of a graduate from Harvard or Yale is beyond qualitative doubt?
How many of those who make decisions actually have read, “Thinking, Fast and Slow”? Jordan Peterson, I suspect, certainly would question the wisdom of those who are charged with the power to decide.