aexq36

Like with all things, laziness/conscientiousness exists on a spectrum, and it's hard to tell where normal variation crosses over into pathology. I do have to wonder if self-proclaimed laziness among nerdy types comes from a tendency to set very high standards for ourselves and to compare ourselves with extraordinarily productive people. I think the average human being might be lazier than we give them credit for. The author complains about not being able to stop browsing reddit and get out of bed? Well, it seems that's how a great many people choose to spend their time these days if given a choice, so can we really say that's a sign of pathology? You feel like you're not working hard enough on your personal coding/science/art/whatever project? Well, most people don't have any personal projects, they produce very little beyond what is required to make a living, and for the extra amount that they do produce they don't hold themselves to very high standards and they don't care if they ultimately abandon the project, so you're already way ahead of the curve there.

I say all this as someone who has had severe problems with laziness and I empathize with the author of the article a lot, so I'm not trying to make light of the problem. I'm just suggesting an alternative perspective that may be useful.

Perhaps like Erdos, he could be called more of a problem solver than a theory builder. In contrast to a figure like Cantor, Galois, or Grothendieck whose work has more fundamental ramifications. I think this raises interesting questions about the continued viability of the "great man" theory of methematical/scientific progress going forward. As Tao and Gowers exemplify, the trend is towards increasing collaboration on problems as they became ever more complex and individual mathematicians become ever more specialized. Could the age of the great theory builders one day come to an end? Is it already over?

Not that I'm trying to downplay Tao's achievements. How overrated can a Fields medalist really be? They don't hand it out for nothing.

Do they really set the vision, though? Did they start the #MeToo movement and bring down Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men? Are they leading the push for transgender acceptance? Are they the reason why reparations and universal healthcare are now mainstream policy proposals in the Democrat party?

It certainly makes sense for the wealthy, elite lawyers of a society to set the course of policy. But I'm not sure what the empirical evidence from 2019 America says. I think a lot of these Yale graduates end up becoming cogs in the existing system without actually changing it, and I think other forces might be equally as or more impactful in terms of shaping political currents.

That's a good point. I'd be happy to admit that the term is somewhat vague and inaccurate, so as long people first acknowledge that it's not a conspiracy theory.

Are you not aware that there are thousands and thousands of active Marxists in the US who proudly call themselves Marxists and who engage in political action for explicitly Marxist ends? Feel free to pop on over to /r/socialism or /r/communism to get acquainted with them (the type of anarchism espoused at /r/anarchism is also a very close ideological relative of Marxism, although strictly speaking, they are not Marxists). It's not poisoning the well to call someone a term that they voluntarily adopt for themselves.

To make it clear, I'm not a Marxist, but I don't think that it's inherently evil or outlandish to be a Marxist either. It's simply a philosophical position that I disagree with. So, there's no emotion when I (and many others) use the term, it merely denotes an ideological position like "liberal" or "conservative" does.

Cultural Marxism is not a conspiracy theory. It's simply a name for a strategy of advancing leftist political causes by using cultural institutions such as academia and the media; undeniably, there are leftists who do this, and they have openly stated that they do this. It would be a category error to refer to a strategy of political action as a "conspiracy theory", since no organized conspiracy is being proposed.

Saying that using the term "Cultural Marxism" is "antisemitism at worst" is nothing more than an attempt to preemptively scare off people from investigating the idea.