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Is Neil Degrasse Tyson a bit of a cunt?

Started by Mr Faineant, September 09, 2019, 01:09:59 AM

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Zetetic

Quote from: marquis_de_sad on September 10, 2019, 08:12:56 PM
But the idea of a god-like figure doesn't need to be attributed to HADD alone.
Or at all, really. I really struggle to connect the sort of things that HADD is concerned with the sort of thing that Allah is.

I'm not opposed to the idea that we've got heuristics or simply weird spandrels (I can't really connect feelings or numinosity or revelation to anything useful per se) that enable religious beliefs more than the rest of us does anyway, to be clear. I just don't really think HADD deserves the promotion it recieved.

Quote
It's at this point that we have to decide whether horoscopes, psychics, telepathy, alternative medicine and the like count as religious.
I don't think whether you admit these or not changes the point.

QuoteBut I don't accept the Weberian idea that religion will naturally fall away and die out.
Oh, not naturally, no. Or inevitably.

I do think that some features of a society tend to kill religion (as social behaviour, if you like), and that these have little to do with Darwin or Einstein or Hawking or Neil Degrasse Tyson. (Which I bring up because the the thread - not because I think you do.)

QuoteI can't help but feel you're projecting a stability onto the past that it didn't have.
Perhaps a bit more than I should. I don't think that religious adherence was universal or reliable in the past, or that its content was unchanging - not at all - but that the change we've seen in fairly recent history has broadly been towards its collapse in way that's quite novel (even if it's not unprecedented).

ZoyzaSorris

Quote from: marquis_de_sad on September 10, 2019, 01:29:09 PM
Can you please find anything incorrect with these accounts rather than giving us your opinion on the writers?

To be honest, I don't care enough about this Bruno thing either way to spend precious time doing a bunch of my own research, but all three of those links I was given sounded like they were written by complete tossbags with a massive agenda, reeking of the most irritating kind of pseudo-intellectualism, so whilst I totally agree in the principle of play the ball not the man in this case my allergy to this kind of thing made it impossible.

Zetetic



Bence Fekete

Word on the youtube streets was that NDT might be Joe's high-functioning super intelligent Adderall junkie friend which he mentions sometimes. I think this analysis has merit. Compared to his old hyper-sensitive and convivial self this latest, post-cancelled, aggro Tyson seems but a poor relation. 

Urinal Cake

Quote from: Bence Fekete on September 10, 2019, 11:07:40 PM
Word on the youtube streets was that NDT might be Joe's high-functioning super intelligent Adderall junkie friend which he mentions sometimes. I think this analysis has merit. Compared to his old hyper-sensitive and convivial self this latest, post-cancelled, aggro Tyson seems but a poor relation.
Or just fame and money.

ZoyzaSorris

Quote from: Zetetic on September 10, 2019, 08:37:04 PM


lol. I'm not NDT I promise.

Seriously though, I started off being genuinely interested in where the Cosmos reboot was historically inaccurate. I didn't have a real dog in the fight, I thought it was a fun well-produced bit of populist science entertainment fluff but clearly far from the final word in every detail and not the most amazing thing ever made. However the supporting evidence I was given by the prosecution was written by intolerable insufferable cunts and my limited curiosity dissipated immediately as I'm just not that invested in the argument. That's all.

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: ZoyzaSorris on September 10, 2019, 11:35:41 PM
Seriously though, I started off being genuinely interested in where the Cosmos reboot was historically inaccurate. I didn't have a real dog in the fight, I thought it was a fun well-produced bit of populist science entertainment fluff but clearly far from the final word in every detail and not the most amazing thing ever made. However the supporting evidence I was given by the prosecution was written by intolerable insufferable cunts and my limited curiosity dissipated immediately as I'm just not that invested in the argument. That's all.

Why I Don't Care About This Issue and Am Not Bothered: An Essay by ZoyzaSorris, Part 5 of 12

ZoyzaSorris

Just to clarify - I wasn't bothered by the original point as to whether Cosmos contained historical inaccuracies (singular or are there others?), but I am bothered that someone would try and get me to read some really unpleasant intolerable right-wing weirdos with strange agendas in order to support their point (which I'm not going to do).

Fucking hell this thread is turning into an invasion of Sony Walkman Prophecies clones.Horrifying stuff.

Sin Agog

Not that bothered by the Cosmos remakening's historical inaccuracies so much as the fact that it was the driest of wanks compared to the original.  Going from that Vangelis score and Sagan's drooling, contagious love of space to a bunch of ropey CGI pans and Neil Degrasse Tyson felt like throwing on Ben Fogel's Things Your Cats Do That You Don't Know About after watching The Blue Planet.  The only thing I can see it inspiring a generation to do is stream something else instead.

Quote from: ZoyzaSorris on September 11, 2019, 08:37:04 AM
Just to clarify - I wasn't bothered by the original point as to whether Cosmos contained historical inaccuracies (singular or are there others?), but I am bothered that someone would try and get me to read some really unpleasant intolerable right-wing weirdos with strange agendas in order to support their point (which I'm not going to do).

No harm to ye, but only one of the four articles to which you were linked was written by a right-wing weirdo.

In any case, it's hardly the most pressing of issues.

QDRPHNC


QDRPHNC

Admittedly, that would work on two levels of Neil's son was also called Neil, but he is called Travis.

touchingcloth

Quote from: Sin Agog on September 11, 2019, 02:22:36 PM
Not that bothered by the Cosmos remakening's historical inaccuracies so much as the fact that it was the driest of wanks compared to the original.  Going from that Vangelis score and Sagan's drooling, contagious love of space to a bunch of ropey CGI pans and Neil Degrasse Tyson felt like throwing on Ben Fogel's Things Your Cats Do That You Don't Know About after watching The Blue Planet.  The only thing I can see it inspiring a generation to do is stream something else instead.

This. I spent a lot of the time wishing NGT would fly his Ship of the Imagination into the nearest main sequence star.

ZoyzaSorris

I don't think it was anything like the definitive popular science series to say the least, I just don't understand the overwhelming hate here. I'm a particular fan of super hard non-dumbed down dry science material but this was just an easy bit of soft fluffy science-y entertainment with high production values, I thought, and quite a few people with a mild interest in the subject that I know enjoyed it, too. Haven't seen the original, which I'm sure has a lot more creative merit though maybe not the same level of visual splendour.

Sony Walkman Prophecies

Quote from: TheBrownBottle on September 09, 2019, 05:12:50 AM
Hello all, this is my first ever post

Tyson is one of the tiresome 'public intellectuals' who are useless outside of their field but don't seem to mind pontificating on it.

So what you're saying is, he's the African American Brian Cox.

Jakey Chesterton

Quote from: sevendaughters on September 10, 2019, 07:05:37 PM
Quote
Atheism is bourgeois oppression. Atheism is the opium of the people—it claims to discover an ontology which precludes all hope. This is what someone like Žižek now openly says. We need now to celebrate instead the faithful legacy of peasants, learned, honorable and paternalist aristocrats, Christian warrior kings like Alfred the Great, yeomen farmers and scholars.

Appreciate you did call him a weirdo, but that sounds like a send up of a pompous dark enlightenment blogger. Needs to lay off the Chesterton and Belloc.

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: ZoyzaSorris on September 11, 2019, 08:49:07 PM
I don't think it was anything like the definitive popular science series to say the least, I just don't understand the overwhelming hate here. I'm a particular fan of super hard non-dumbed down dry science material but this was just an easy bit of soft fluffy science-y entertainment with high production values, I thought, and quite a few people with a mild interest in the subject that I know enjoyed it, too. Haven't seen the original, which I'm sure has a lot more creative merit though maybe not the same level of visual splendour.

The irony of someone defending Neil deGrasse Tyson against people holding popular culture to a high standard of accuracy.

QDRPHNC

Neil DeGrasse: The Next Generation (Travis)

Twit 2


chveik

any connection with comedian & rapist Mike Tyson?

Cuellar

Quote from: ZoyzaSorris on September 11, 2019, 08:49:07 PM
I don't think it was anything like the definitive popular science series to say the least, I just don't understand the overwhelming hate here. I'm a particular fan of super hard non-dumbed down dry science material but this was just an easy bit of soft fluffy science-y entertainment with high production values, I thought, and quite a few people with a mild interest in the subject that I know enjoyed it, too. Haven't seen the original, which I'm sure has a lot more creative merit though maybe not the same level of visual splendour.

Well it sounds like it was riddled with bullshit.

TimONeill

Quote from: ZoyzaSorris on September 10, 2019, 12:24:20 PM
Seems like a bit of a dickhead with an axe to grind to me.

A "bit of a dickhead"? Gosh. And apparently I also have "an axe to grind"? Well, I suppose I have something of a problem with pompous wankers who preach at others about checking their facts, avoiding confirmation bias, paying attention to experts etc when it comes to science and who then proceed to do none of those things when it comes to history. How does that make me "a bit of a dickhead", exactly?


QuoteAnyone who uses 'New Atheist' unironically is instantly marked down as a div for starters.

Then you'd best have words with this "div", since his book title seems pretty unironic. As for my use of that shorthand term, I explain how and why I use it in my FAQ. I've yet to come across any objection to it that makes much sense, but maybe you will surprise me.

QuoteSeriously though, I started off being genuinely interested in where the Cosmos reboot was historically inaccurate. I didn't have a real dog in the fight, I thought it was a fun well-produced bit of populist science entertainment fluff but clearly far from the final word in every detail and not the most amazing thing ever made. However the supporting evidence I was given by the prosecution was written by intolerable insufferable cunts and my limited curiosity dissipated immediately as I'm just not that invested in the argument. That's all.

"Intolerable insufferable cunts"? You have some lack of tolerance for those who correct historical misconceptions and think that makes us "cunts"? You seem rather delicate in your sensibilities if that's the case. Perhaps you've led a sheltered life and never met any actual "cunts". Anyway - thanks for the laugh.

Cuellar


Cardenio I




Ferris

Quote from: TimONeill on September 13, 2019, 11:55:15 AM

...I explain how and why I use it in my FAQ...

Just so we're clear, no one is going to bother with the FAQ of a random stranger.

touchingcloth

Quote from: TimONeill on September 13, 2019, 11:55:15 AM
A "bit of a dickhead"
"Intolerable insufferable cunt"

Those descriptions are unfair. Some would say you're a massive dick head, and a grave-tier cunt who should get in AIDS.

QDRPHNC

Quote from: Tim's FAQAs a rationalist, I believe strongly that people should do all they can to put emotion, wishful thinking and ideology aside when examining any subject and that they should acquaint themselves as thoroughly as possible with the relevant scholarship and take account of any consensus of experts in any field before taking a position.

That sounds like a lot of work. Also never achieved by anyone in the history of everything.

Whenever I meet someone who tells me they make purely rational decisions, I figure they're either lying to me or lying to themselves.

Quote from: Tim's FAQI felt someone needed to start correcting the popular misconceptions about history which are rife among many vocal atheist activists.

This sounds good though.

Also, Tim, look. This place has a tone to it. If you can't get comfortable with it, it's not going to change for you.