"but anything which defies empiricism almost by definition can't have any impact on the material world."
Hah. Like religion? Like philosophy? The non-empirical world does and always has had a bigger impact on the material world than anything else.
Science itself--the methodology as a concept--is a non-empirical metaphysics that draws conclusions about truth concepts.
I think I only come to HN so I can feel smug when 20 year old millionaire entrepreneurs (this is my imagination talking) say dumb shit. Yes, the tech sector is destroying the world and making millions while I slog away in some underpaid ivory tower... but at least I know the first thing about science! (This is what I tell myself to avoid crying)
To hold your opinion you have to first pretend that you don't already know the socioeconomic statistics. The article assumes that you already understand that wealth is being concentrated in a tiny elite and that the tech sector is a major factor driving this concentration.
Is Silicon Valley decadent and detached from humanity? Of course it is. And it's fun. He makes this point and it's a good point. Let's all fist-bump and drink artisanal whiskey while the country crumbles and sinks beneath the ocean.
He speaks to a truth deeper than statistics, stimulating old feelings and perspectives and linking them to new contexts.
Most of us already know the statistics: the tech center is the last wealth generating thing in the country. The wealth is realized by, in part, cannibalizing other industries. This leads to the concentration of wealth in a decadent elite while the suicide rate for the average person climbs.
pg argues in one of his non-evidence based essays that this concentration of wealth is a good thing because those suicidal unemployed people who can't afford food will have TVs and smartphones. The statistics prove him wrong for the USA--tech advance does not increase the average standard of living as long as tech advance leads to wealth inequality.
After all hard evidence dick stroking you cite pg?! He writes in exactly the same style as the Salon author!
Empirical and statistical evidence is a delightful way to make a point, but what you "hard discipline" fetishists don't realize is that there are non-empirical "goods" that run our lives.
Narratives, thoughts, feelings, intuitions, broad non-empirical world views. There's a huge world of stuff out there to which statistics just don't apply, and they are all forms of knowledge. In the most basic way it's called rationalism, and it doesn't require any statistics or empirical evidence to make a point. In a more developed way it can be called post-modern knowledge concepts.
Basically, people who constantly talk about being "hard" are just dry humping modernity, something that smart people over 100 years ago realized was a collection of myths. The hard sciences sit on a foundation of warm gooey mud.
Hah. Like religion? Like philosophy? The non-empirical world does and always has had a bigger impact on the material world than anything else.
Science itself--the methodology as a concept--is a non-empirical metaphysics that draws conclusions about truth concepts.
I think I only come to HN so I can feel smug when 20 year old millionaire entrepreneurs (this is my imagination talking) say dumb shit. Yes, the tech sector is destroying the world and making millions while I slog away in some underpaid ivory tower... but at least I know the first thing about science! (This is what I tell myself to avoid crying)