"The Jedi are inappropriate mascots for social justice... a religious order of intergalactic police-monks, prone to (white) saviorism and toxically masculine approaches to conflict resolution (violent duels with phallic lightsabers, gaslighting by means of “Jedi mind tricks,” etc.)." and it goes on.
It's really really hard not to believe the authors are trolling. Is this parody?
Detecting sarcasm needs contextual cues such as vocal inflection or facial expressions. In the 1700s pamphleteers would distribute satires, if you read them today you might mistake them for sincerity.
If you strip out the woke language, it's pretty easy to see this as factual. The Jedi absolutely are a police force. They often use violence and psychic manipulation through the Force. They are arguably a religious force, pursuing a fairly ascetic lifestyle consistent with a monk.
Plus the Jedi portrayed in the prequels aren't supposed to be the heroes. They are a blinded group of zealots tricked into using their powers to wage war because of their own hubris.
Once a culture starts going downhill in certain aspects, there's no going back.
And once there is not a good chunk of shared values and agreed upon ideas beyond some abstract tennets, any BS bikeshedding and any fringe opinion becomes an "equally valid" and important discussion point as anything else...
Can we call them "segregation initiatives"? I've already seen "separate but equal" thrown around with no apparent sense of irony or awareness that was a catchphrase once.
I've pointed out that "safe spaces" are a rebranding of "separate but equal", armchair academics often defend it with a strawman argument of the word racist: where convenient, they drop the colloquial overly broad misuse of the term for a technical academic-only definition that includes a power dynamic necessary for exclusion to be racist. Since the beneficiaries of the safe space are not the "power majority" it therefore invalidates any criticism of their exclusionary and toxic behaviors, by that definition.
The reason its a strawman argument is that it misses that the federal government prohibits "race-based discrimination", for like 50 years, and never uses the term racist or racism so the definition is clearer than the standard people invented.
What ever happened to Scientific American? My dad was subscribed since before I was born, and paid for each 6 numbers to be bound in a high-quality encyclopedia-like hardcover binding. I remember devouring these venerable volumes as a kid, looking especially for the Martin Gardner, and later Douglas Hofstadter, mathematical games. But also for all the extremely cool news about space exploration, chemistry research, biology, plans for future nuclear fusion. Now it seems to be nothing of the sort (I don't talk about this stupid article, but about the overall content).
Alright, I don't care too much about that. This is not what makes the magazine bad. There was also some cold war anti-soviet bullshit at the time. I remember a communist friend of my dad that sometimes came home and reprimanded him for making me read such an obvious capitalist mouthpiece that doesn't even have formulas in its "physics" articles (the guy was an italian phyisicist working on a tokamak). But the articles were longer, more interesting, and much more in-depth. Right now most articles have barely two or three paragraphs, with many of them being content-free or short news snippets.
How disconnected these people are to not see this is precisely the kind of BS mindset that lead normal people to go toward extreme-right / trump type votes.
Is it time for Scientific American to change it's name?
Either they let this trollish (or outlandish) opinion piece through because they lack scrutiny and judgement, or they let it through to self-mock their opinion column, perhaps to try and defuse the E.O.Wilson debacle.
In either case, it is not becoming of the magazine of old.
Is there a single scientific publication aimed at a general audience which does not tend towards triviality or nonsense? If so, what is the foremost example?
Agreed. I have attempted to contact them multiple times and asked them to stop this. They never reply. They've turned 180 degrees from what they used to be. I've not researched this but I assume they must have been acquired by somebody.
I recommend Science News. It tends to follow conference proceedings and journal articles, and seems to weed out most of the crap news.
That means that the top news is often not all that important -- it's not as if earth-shaking discoveries happen every week. But it means that what they report is true and given the appropriate emphasis. They're trying to inform you rather than thrill you.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 77.1 ms ] threadIt's really really hard not to believe the authors are trolling. Is this parody?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
Where is Samuel Clemens when you need him?
This is a perfect fit.
Their main point is pretty good.
And once there is not a good chunk of shared values and agreed upon ideas beyond some abstract tennets, any BS bikeshedding and any fringe opinion becomes an "equally valid" and important discussion point as anything else...
The reason its a strawman argument is that it misses that the federal government prohibits "race-based discrimination", for like 50 years, and never uses the term racist or racism so the definition is clearer than the standard people invented.
They are becoming more and more progressive.
Many social justice initiatives are important and worth talking about (I'm a BIPOC), so I get it.
But an essay on taking umbridge with the Jedi sees like a waste of time to social signal, "I'm woke! Woker than thou!"
Either they let this trollish (or outlandish) opinion piece through because they lack scrutiny and judgement, or they let it through to self-mock their opinion column, perhaps to try and defuse the E.O.Wilson debacle.
In either case, it is not becoming of the magazine of old.
What I'm seeing now is not serious or good or science.
Or entertaining.
That means that the top news is often not all that important -- it's not as if earth-shaking discoveries happen every week. But it means that what they report is true and given the appropriate emphasis. They're trying to inform you rather than thrill you.
That makes me think that they would have prefered another pop culture reference instead of the jedi:
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/themes-of-power-rangers-diversi...
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-themes-of-power-rangers-emp...
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-themes-of-power-rangers-fem...