Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The culture of "right to criticize without reading" in the US astounds me.

There are a lot of large-scale cultural problems here, but I don't think that in particular is one of them.

I can't count how many times I've looked up Chomsky's views over the years, and every single time I've looked them up, it's become immediately clear that he is completely dishonest.

Normally, I do some background research before I read primary sources, and for the reason I stated above, I've never gotten past the background research.

If you think there's some particular primary resource from Chomsky I could read that would completely alter my worldview (and change my above analysis), please let me know, but you would have to convince me that this is likely enough that it's worth my time to look into it.

Until then, I have to take his statements on face value, albeit I am (admittedly) "taking" them without the full context of the surrounding literature.

Further it is amusing to hear a self-proclaimed objectivist asserting that external forces played a role in causing a free agent's suicide.

I mean, it's pretty obvious that people fall for bad ideas and then act on them. I guess you must have a pretty strawman-ish grasp on Objectivism.

I can't count how many times I've looked up Chomsky's views over the years, and every single time I've looked them up, it's become immediately clear that he is completely dishonest.

It would be interesting if you gave us a few examples of where you looked up his views, and found him to be completely dishonest.

He contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one's self to an owner or "wage slavery". (from Wikipedia)

There is just one example, taken relatively randomly.

"Wage slavery" is a completely invalid concept. If I want to work, and somebody wants to pay me a wage, that is moral and proper and free. It's called trade.

Someone who holds a gun to my head to force me not to engage freely in trade with others is immoral and evil.

Clearly, Chomsky has the latter view, unless I'm misunderstanding.

Actual slavery is an institution supported by immorally coercing someone, too, like the position Chomsky is advocating.

So Chomsky's views have much more in common with slavery than the views he criticizes as being like slavery, i.e., trading one's effort in return for payment.

Chomsky claims to be against "unjustified authority," but he is actually a major proponent of force in human relationships.

I can't take someone seriously who makes these kind of blatantly ridiculous statements.

Of course, I am taking this from Wikipedia, not in the full context of what he has actually written. So, maybe he didn't actually say that. Or maybe he actually said it, but proceeded it with, "The following sentence is false." I would need to hear something to this effect before I would consider taking someone seriously who says the thing that I quoted from Wikipedia.

Because what he's said is in the same broad epistemological and moral category as a verse from a holy book commanding people to kill others for religious regions. In other words, completely unrelated to reality, and completely evil.

I downvoted you because you took that sentence from Wikipedia completely out of context, not just out of context with regard to its surrounding paragraph on Wikipedia, but also because its out of context with regard to the citation at Wikipedia and what Chomsky has to say about worker ownership.

I summarized the essence of why I disagree with the article, and with what Chomsky said. I cannot address all the low-level details here and give a precise rebuttal to everything.

So I acknowledge that I have taken it out of context, but in a more neutral sense. That's just the nature of taking a very detailed point of view, and trying to discuss it on HN with people who have totally different underlying assumptions.

I do want to thank you for explaining why you downvoted me, and for standing up against the person who called me an "imbecile" in a different comment. I really value this community and even when we disagree on philosophy, it's really good when we can all be civil to each other.

From the Wikipedia article that you mention: The term wage slavery has been used to criticize economic exploitation and social stratification, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital (particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, e.g. in sweatshops), and the latter as a lack of workers' self-management, fulfilling job choices and leisure in an economy. [1]

I think the article itself is quite clear. The notion of wage slavery does not imply everyone who accepts wages is a slave. Taken without the qualification of bargaining power and such, Chomsky would be MIT's slave. I don't think he subscribes to that view.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

Reply on news.ycombinator.com