This is a strange suggestion to me because, if anything, I tend to find the opposite. That is, introversion has a lot of positive connotations (introverts are thoughtful, sensitive; extroverts are vapid, etc.), and people are generally more eager to describe themselves as introverts than extroverts.
I'm not sure if this is a serious comment, but I'd think professors generally aren't in a position to know their students' standardized test scores (never mind whether they'd care).
I think you're right about the underlying concern about status. My sense is that people in this discussion are really asking whether software engineering is just easier than mechanical or chemical or aerospace--or whatever--engineering. That's also why I don't think calls for certification standards really address this concern (you can just as well be certified to do something easy).
One reason this strikes me as implausible is that I doubt other similarly urbanized societies (e.g. Japan) have overweight and obesity rates anywhere near ours.
For what it's worth, I don't identify preoccupation with identifying fallacies, or with rhetorical classifications like "bulverism" or "steelmanning" with philosophy. At least, if you take a degree in philosophy I think you'll find that it's very much not like this. In my experience, this approach is much more characteristic of online forum argumentation, and subcultures like new atheism and rationalism. (Case in point: I mean "rationalism" in the LessWrong sense, not the Cartesian sense!) I agree with you that the style is irritating and superficial.
The pandemic disrupted my fitness regimen because it disrupted my daily routine in general. Ironically, I found that I had more free time to run, but ran less and was somewhat listless in general. (It didn't help that all of my races got canceled, too.) I've only recently returned to my pre-Covid weekly mileage.
When I first read this headline, I thought it was referring to the social justice statements that NBA players now have the option to add to their jerseys in lieu of their names. Only after a double take did I realize that this is about the jerseys that fans customize and purchase for themselves!
Yeah, I understand that people get satisfaction from seeing a scientist dunk on a journalist, but it doesn't seem justified in this case. Feynman's digression about distinctions between proximate and ultimate causes is interesting of course, but it strikes me that the journalist's question isn't ambiguous in this respect, and it's pretty clear what he is asking.
>online education is something you want other parents' children to do
This is true of a lot of college alternatives, from online classes to state schools to vocational training. Everyone insists that we should view these as viable, even superior options. But it's hard not to think that when push comes to shove most parents still want their own kids to go to Harvard (and are willing to go to some lengths to make that happen).
To me segments and leaderboards are largely what have made Strava stand out. Take those away and I might not have much reason to prefer Strava to Garmin Connect or any number of similar apps.
I understand "meaning" here to signify reference, as in, "What is the object that Oscar and his twin refer to when they talk about 'water'?" The twins are psychologically identical, but it turns out that they refer to different objects by virtue of their environments. So meaning can't just be a matter of psychology.
I guess you might think that "meaning" is best understood as something other than reference. But that seems to be a starting point for Putnam.
Even setting aside the possibility that some generational resentments should perhaps be taken seriously, this op-ed is really thin. The author's evidence for "a degree of cruelty that is truly staggering" is two social media posts. To this point I haven't seen much reason to think that the elderly are really being shunned in the current climate.
I'm not sure that's really their problem. My impression that is that incels are really aggrieved about lack of status, not lack of sex. Getting sex by paying for it doesn't solve that.
Practically no one endorses "equality of outcome" in itself. It's a question of whether disparate outcomes evidence disparate opportunities (findings like those in question suggest that they may not).
GP's larger point is fair enough. But it would be telling, and germane to this discussion, if it turned out that many of their experiences were due to the fact that remarks they consider to be just "statements of fact" are more contentious than they realize.
I don't think it's a tautology. The question is whether those "small steps" ever add up to anything "great." When many people think of scientific progress or "the scientific method," they imagine innumerable scientists working across the world, each making incremental contributions to a shared body of knowledge, one peer reviewed article at a time. There's something that seems even virtuous about this picture, which I imagine is part of its appeal.
This is like asking, "Why can't I decide to enjoy broccoli if I believe it's healthy to eat?" The evolutionary story behind curiosity notwithstanding, it seems to me that this is just a case of the more general observation you can't alter your desires simply by reflecting on whether they are good or bad.
I wonder how many people who subscribe to the "contagion" theory of mass shooters also think that 8chan is innocuous. These two lines of thought seem at odds, but I suspect what they have in common is a wish to deny the role of a particular strain of right wing ideology in these shootings.
Without agreeing with the author's, your point about being limited to "discrete notes" strikes me as a non-sequitur. As if music had more "substance" the more notes it contained?
Stricter norms and racial homogeneity don't seem to have prevented high suicide rates in countries like Korea or Japan. At any rate, it's awfully easy to diagnose broad cultural problems as the result of one's personal bugbears.
I have a similar attitude toward audio books. When someone claims that listening to an audio book is largely the same as reading it, it strikes me that this could only be true of books which aren't especially demanding in terms of comprehension. The idea of listening to audio book of Hegel or using an audio book in lieu of textbooks to study for school seems crazy to me.
This reminds me of casinos, whose decline is also oft-reported nowadays. The financial difficulties of millennials notwithstanding, I expect that casinos just aren't as culturally appealing to today's youth as they were to their parents, and I wonder if something similar could be said of country clubs.