/edu/ - Education

Always be skeptical. Even the most rigorous and principled people can make errors.
>Is there any reasonable justification for this? That is, is there a reason to believe knowledge producers would draw the line at actual fabrication?
There's plenty of history that they are fine with outright fabrication at times.
>In general, to what extent can we actually trust the information produced by academia and journalism? If none at all, how can we even navigate the world?
Review sources, methods, data if the claim warrants investigation. Try to corroborate the information with other sources, particularly those with different or contrary interests (if you can't find someone disinterested).
>Is it ever reasonable to simply "trust the science" without even looking at the arguments?
No, literally never. "The science" happens in a real social context with a political dimension and it has always been slanted by this. Even if the data collected is good and the study is valid in a technical sense it will often be interpreted (by the scientists themselves or by reporting) through ideological lenses that lead you into mistakes. Always be skeptical. Anybody telling you dude trust me is probably being dishonest and is self-aware of it. An honest person would tell you to check for yourself and validate what they're saying.

I don't think that's fair.

Scientists are sceptical about results, and it is well known and accepted that results are sometimes wrong. More often because of errors than malice, but deliberate falsification does happen. That's why scientific findings always have to be reproducible. If multiple, independent research groups repeat the experiment/study and find the same results, they are most likely correct. Repeating previous results is expensive and not very attractive and unfortunately it is not done as often as it should be. In most cases as an outsider you can't do it from your bedroom alone. That's why you usually see people attack methodology and other issues first, it is less effort and you only need to get the paper from sci-hub. If you are interested in a topic, try finding meta-analyses and literature surveys instead of individual papers, they are more likely to contain trustworthy results, as they aggregate multiple results.

In journalism it is a bit different, but you can (and journalists are supposed to) cross-check facts from multiple independent sources, when they are available. Then again, this is more work that just pointing out faulty reasoning, so outsiders don't bother. But serious, published works are supposed to have done this for you, and they are more likely to be more factual than some online blog masquerading as a news site.

I don't think your criticism is right, these are known issues and there are safeguards that are supposed to limit their harm. Of course they are not perfect, but the situation is not nearly as bad as you make it to be.

>>9124
>Review sources, methods, data if the claim warrants investigation. Try to corroborate the information with other sources, particularly those with different or contrary interests (if you can't find someone disinterested).
But what if, for example, there's an imbalance between the different interests? Few people have the resources to conduct large-scale nationwide polls, or access to advanced telescopes or particle accelerators, stuff like that. The ability to verify data might be concentrated in the hands of a few and at that point it's easier for their interests to align, especially when it comes to journalism.
It seems to me that the bigger institutions will tend to form a sort of "knowledge elite" that not only may align with the political elite but will also have its own independent interests (such as securing funding or maintaining its credibility) that will steer it a certain way.

>>9125
I'm not that trying to suggest that we're in a crisis where most of the science is wrong, I'm just wondering how, epistemologically, we can justify our trust in the data that's presented to us.
I know replication and cross-checking exist, but as you yourself sort of pointed towards, they have their problems as safeguards on an institutional level. As I said above, the ability to verify might be concentrated in the hands of those with shared interests (or not even necessarily interests, but shared biases). This is especially the case with journalism where sources are often anonymous.

But I do agree now that there at least exist processes by which we can gain sufficient trust in the data, even if I don't think they'll always work.

just be critical, like >>9124 said

>>9123
Learn to think skeptically; the clearest introduction to this mode of thought is still Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Skepticism.

>>9056
What do you mean? That is diluted by new-age crap or historical criticism?

>>9056
I suggest you read material from a believer and practitioner of that religion that belongs to a mainstream current within it, eastern religions tolerate a certain amount of plurality so it would be wise to read multiple perspectives.

>>9107
Thanks for the explanation

>>9110
The case of the alawites is the most interesting imo because as you say, for multiple reasons they purposefully "islamicized" some of their more folk beliefs to be more accepted societally. It's interesting thinking about what would've happened had they not done that, maybe they would be like the Druze who are very distinctly not islamic (with a few similar beliefs iirc). But for the case of the alawites they found themselves in a position where they are constantly forced to prove how they are muslims and whatnot, again despite having some very distinct non-islamic beliefs such as reincarnation. But as of now it seems their position is secured though, and at least in Syria I believe they're considered muslims by most of the population (I guess except sectarian sunnis of course).

>>8814
Yet Brazil is still a capitalist shithole. I doubt there is any hope for them so as long as the US interferes in their domestic affairs.

>>8853
Friendo, I wish I could blame all of our faults on the USA, but the feat of having a food insecurity crisis worse than fucking Venezuela was achieved – mostly – by us and us alone:

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Brazil-Food-Insecurity-Hits-125-Million-Amid-COVID-19-Crisis-20210416-0021.html

https://www.fao.org/family-farming/detail/fr/c/1392789/

Please, someone get Xi In line and tell him to come liberate us immediately.

Does anyone have the CIA manual given to the Contras?

>>9040
>>>/akm/140 ?

>>8810
Agreed. This got me really hooked for some reason.

>>9116
See you again tommorow :)
but seriously Burke is very much a liberal follow?

>>9117
What about the de Maistre?

>>9118
A reactionary
Not as a slur but as a description anarcho primitivism for example is extremely reactionary

>>9119
So there is a difference between reaction and let's say conservatism of the burkean type?>>9117
>See you again tommorow :)
I don't think this website or any imageboard in general has any staying power at this point. What keeps you here? The richness of leftist discussion provided by this community? Come on man…

>>9120
>So there is a difference between reaction and let's say conservatism of the burkean type?
Yes the burkean attitude of before you tear this thing down figure out why it's there in the first place doesn't necessarily mean the final conclusion isn't that the thing shouldn't be torn down

Zizek has written a book called "Violence"

Punching Spencer was good "optics"
Spencer was the first to provoke by openly being a nazi and punching him publicly humiliates him and popularizes ant-fascism

Related thread >>>/hobby/2906

This is the Italian infantry squad as resulting from the 1938 reforms of the Regio Esercito, the infamous "Pariani reforms" (from General Alberto Pariani, Chief of Staff, who authored it); a much criticized reorganization of the whole army, that basically increased the number of divisions by reducing the number of infantry regiments in each from three to one, thus critically weakening them.

On the small units level, it meant that the infantry platoon went from three 12-men riflemen squads and 3 LMGs to two 18-men squads and 4 LMGs. This was meant to streamline as much as possible the maneuver, so the riflemen squad fought together, with no planned subdivisions for more articulated operations in the field. On the infantry company level, there were no other weapons but rifles and LMGs; the light mortars and MGs were at battalion level, whereas heavy mortars and AT guns were at regimental level.

In other words, the infantry was basically rich only in men, and with low fire capability, despite the theoretical ability to detach heavier weapons from the battalion or the regiment when needed. Whereas the rifle (Carcano Mod. 91) could still be considered tolerable enough despite its small 6.5 mm calibre (there is a lot of bad rep going on about it, but I feel it's exaggerated, and that, all considered, the 6.5 mm calibre for a bolt-action rifle wasn't a meaningful tactical disadvantage), the LMG was a poor weapon, but unfortunately it was the only one relatively widespread.

On the other side, the heavy (8 mm) MGs were rarer, but not that rare as Kuso said; while they had a low-ish rate of fire because of the feed tray system, they were decidedly more reliable, fired a reasonably powerful bullet and were more appreciated. Too bad that there is still a legend going around that they too needed the cartridge to be oiled, which is completely false.

I'll just put here that in 1940 the biggest issue of the Regio Esercito wasn't the weapons themselves, was the sheer firepower available to its units. Just compare the Italian infantry battalion (36 LMGs, 8 MGs and 18 light mortars) with a contemporary British one (22 AT rifles, 50 LMGs, 12 light and 2 heavy mortars, plus 10 Bren Carriers), and we can see why the latter could reasonably outmatch the former.

>>8648
Often called the worst machine gun, the Breda 30 was a poor weapon indeed. The recoil operation was violent, if the magazine was damaged it became inoperable, the Breda suffered from a lot of ammunition cook-offs due to poor heat management, low rate of fire, and was very prone to stoppages. The oiling system which was used to lubricate each bullet was prone to damage, the fully-automatic feature of the weapon was almost unusable due to the aforementioned problems, and it was on par with a semi-automatic rifle in terms of realistic Rate-of-Fire. Other than its unreliability and complexity, if the 6.5 mm calibre was still tolerable for a rifle, it was unacceptable for an automatic weapon. In fact, the decision (taken too late, and reversed by 1940) to adopt the 7.35 mm calibre was taken arguably more due to the need of such bullet to have good performance for full auto weapons rather than its unsuitability or obsolescence for individual weapons (as the RE wanted to use a single calibre for all infantry weapons, reasonably so). The penetration and performance of the bullet is intermediate in terms of power compared to rifle and pistol cartridges of the time.
https://archive.ph/cg7pv
Forgotten Weapons video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFJI04ifSoM&ab_channel=ForgottenWeapons

Michael Parenti - The Real Causes of World War II lecture

Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Lievywdoo

Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDmovEja_f0

Great thread. Any fedditors should post it here: https://old.reddit.com/r/TrueAnon/comments/roirx5/looking_to_learn_about_the_soviet_union_kicking/

>>6345
Absolute worst offender in this regard is Tony Smith and his book "The Logic of Marx's Capital"

>>6358
pdf?

Hegel is a philosophical encyclopedia. There is philosophical jargon that I didn't understand from Marx until after having read Hegel, and that's just a bit of Hegel.

actually i don't think it's stated enough
Marx took way more from Hegel than just dialectic, and people thinking they can just read The German Ideology and be finished with Marx's philosophical groundings is a huge cause of theoretical misunderstanding

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1837-pre/letters/37_11_10.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09-alt.htm

To understand Marx's reasoning, to understand how he developed his ideas you need Hegel. No, you don't need Hegel to understand what the definitions of "surplus value" or "variable capital" are. Depends on what your goals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TagSpaces
planning on organizing my pictures with this little babe, i've already tried it out and the free (as in price) version is pretty ok despite the limitations placed on it.

>>6832
if you like text based stuff and can manage to learn vimwiki or emacs orgmode, that's very effective.
There are GPT-2 machine learning plugins that at the moment are very basic and limited to software coding but eventually that will be expanded and generalized, and you'll be able to search your knowledge base with cognitive associations.

I read stuff and my brain remembers it for me and automatically connects it to related information. When something relevant comes up, I remember where I read something about it.

>>9065
Dude that's crazy

>>9065
Is it possible to learn this?

How is the simulation going to accommodate for this expansion of human perception? Worried that this is going to literally blow up the universe bros.

Can someone explain ?

>>9045
>The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope being jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). It is planned to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA's flagship astrophysics mission.
>It will provide improved infrared resolution and sensitivity over Hubble, and will enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology, including observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe, such as the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.
it probably won't do much
the orbit is further out than the hubble telescope so less noise in the way, and its more sophisticated cooling systems let it detect infrared heat throughout the universe more effectively and sensitively

shut the fuck up(Don't shit up /edu/)

https://jacobitemag.com/2017/05/25/a-quick-and-dirty-introduction-to-accelerationism/
an intro to nick land by nick land