I’m only slightly familiar with R Hanson’s writings—though i am familiar with some of the other people’s writings at GMU he’s sort of affiliated with—and i once checked out GMU for grad study and decided against it. One paper by Hanson i did find interesting was in physics—his approach to derivation of ‘Born’s rule’ in quantum theory—this ‘rule’ i think is is one of the largest mysteries in physics—but it works. Hanson’s approach among many others seems to be a candidate for explaining it (but there is no consensus in physics—i also tend to think many of the different approaches will turn out to be basically the same—quantum theory already had 2 or 3 different versions or more (Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Dirac, maybe Feynman (much later)… ) before they were basically shown to be equivalent.
Some of these debates are sort of like going to one of the BLM protests which we have locally (i go mostly as a tourist or observer though i’m aquainted with a few of the protestors—i basically don’t like activism or protesting since i grew up around that --tired of repeating hallelujah or BLM or no justice no peace. If you say it once, dont say it again.) At these protests sometimes you have anti-BLM people—some are explicit and just as militant as some of the BLM people, some are ‘infiltrators’ or ‘provacateurs’—sort of try to get trouble started. You also have a few people who appear to be opportunists—looking for ‘free stuff’.
I dont really align with either the BLM (sometimes derisively called SJWs) people or their opponents. I think the issues they bring up are as complex as figuring out which interpretation of ‘Born’s rule’ is the correct one, or the best one and neither the SJWs, ‘proud boys’ or ‘alt-right’ seem to have thought this through (and guns and slogans i dont think will do.) As a side note Born lost his job under Hitler(he was jewish), went to UK and i think hitler actually invited him back (wthout his wife—didnt want him to reproduce, but did want him to working on making a bomb)--born declined (maybe in Uk they already had enough bombs falling from the sky).
I rarely read slate but the article on Hanson has an amusing title. I view slate as sort of the modern equivalent of the New Yorker, NY Review of Books, Atlantic, Vox, and maybe ‘on the left’ Jacobin and on the right ‘National Review’ or ‘American Conservative’. I think this is what is called part of ‘civil society’ and forums for ‘public intellectuals’. In the past, Einstein, B Russell, E B Dubois, maybe Emma Goldman and many more were public intellectuals , but some had a bit more background than the current ones.
I’m only slightly familiar with R Hanson’s writings—though i am familiar with some of the other people’s writings at GMU he’s sort of affiliated with—and i once checked out GMU for grad study and decided against it. One paper by Hanson i did find interesting was in physics—his approach to derivation of ‘Born’s rule’ in quantum theory—this ‘rule’ i think is is one of the largest mysteries in physics—but it works. Hanson’s approach among many others seems to be a candidate for explaining it (but there is no consensus in physics—i also tend to think many of the different approaches will turn out to be basically the same—quantum theory already had 2 or 3 different versions or more (Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Dirac, maybe Feynman (much later)… ) before they were basically shown to be equivalent.
Some of these debates are sort of like going to one of the BLM protests which we have locally (i go mostly as a tourist or observer though i’m aquainted with a few of the protestors—i basically don’t like activism or protesting since i grew up around that --tired of repeating hallelujah or BLM or no justice no peace. If you say it once, dont say it again.) At these protests sometimes you have anti-BLM people—some are explicit and just as militant as some of the BLM people, some are ‘infiltrators’ or ‘provacateurs’—sort of try to get trouble started. You also have a few people who appear to be opportunists—looking for ‘free stuff’.
I dont really align with either the BLM (sometimes derisively called SJWs) people or their opponents. I think the issues they bring up are as complex as figuring out which interpretation of ‘Born’s rule’ is the correct one, or the best one and neither the SJWs, ‘proud boys’ or ‘alt-right’ seem to have thought this through (and guns and slogans i dont think will do.) As a side note Born lost his job under Hitler(he was jewish), went to UK and i think hitler actually invited him back (wthout his wife—didnt want him to reproduce, but did want him to working on making a bomb)--born declined (maybe in Uk they already had enough bombs falling from the sky).
I rarely read slate but the article on Hanson has an amusing title. I view slate as sort of the modern equivalent of the New Yorker, NY Review of Books, Atlantic, Vox, and maybe ‘on the left’ Jacobin and on the right ‘National Review’ or ‘American Conservative’. I think this is what is called part of ‘civil society’ and forums for ‘public intellectuals’. In the past, Einstein, B Russell, E B Dubois, maybe Emma Goldman and many more were public intellectuals , but some had a bit more background than the current ones.