News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:David Gerard vs. the blockchain, an emerging wiki war by peteretep on Sunday June 11, 2017 @10:52PM (#14534965)
Fake rationality warriors on Wikipedia is a real thing. I have briefly made the mistake of participating in various nutrition articles before, and run into them. They seem to make extensive use of sources that don't support their claims, especially paywalled ones, with impressive sounding titles, that end up being glossy magazines with opinion pieces. There's a certain irony seeing science and rationalism defended in non-scientific and non-rational ways, and we should make more of an effort to call it out.
Re:David Gerard vs. the blockchain, an emerging wiki war by Moshe_Silnorin on Sunday June 11, 2017 @10:56PM (#14534979)
You should read RationalWiki, various pomo terms and theories are written about as if there were anything behind them. The degeneration of the atheist community is making me seriously consider the unpleasant idea that religion serves the vital purpose of filling the "obviously irrational belief over which we bond" whole in our hearts, and we've abandoned it to our perdition.
Re:David Gerard vs. the blockchain, an emerging wiki war by ue_ on Monday June 12, 2017 @07:53AM (#14536504)
>various pomo terms and theories are written about as if there were anything behind them.

What do you mean? Because I don't think there's anything wrong with post-modern theory; it's a topic that's actively discussed in philosophy. I think it's unwise to dismiss something just because it's post-modern, it it given credence to post-modernism.

Perhaps there is something behind Derrida.

Re:David Gerard vs. the blockchain, an emerging wiki war by peteretep on Monday June 12, 2017 @11:27PM (#14542697)

    > that religion serves the vital
    > purpose of [snip]
I mean, the simpler explanation is it -- religion proper and worship of cargo-cult sciencey-sounding stuff -- makes people feel superior to others. Real science and rationality doesn't, but a vague appeal to authority, purity of thought, and being better than others sure does.
Re:David Gerard vs. the blockchain, an emerging wiki war by pwdisswordfish on Monday June 12, 2017 @05:00AM (#14535932)
> various pomo terms and theories

Care to be more specific?