It's like who's making the stories and creating the art designs and characters for these things? If the world was full of engineers.... I don't even wanna think about it... I just kinda felt like getting that off my chest.
EDIT: I'm talking about STEMlord types here, just to be clear. Not STEM majors, but the specific type that loves to lord over the fact that they are superior to other majors. And I say this as someone who did STEM myself but only came to really appreciate the humanities much later.
EDIT 2: This clip from Jurassic Park is so critical here: https://youtu.be/mRNX6XJOeGU
I've done degrees in both a liberal art thing and a science thing so I got to experience both sides of that stuff. My hypothesis for a while has been STEM has been so encouraged as a way of expanding the labor pool to reduce the wages of skilled laborers. My stem classmates were very rarely interested in the course material (myself included honestly) and instead focused on getting a job. My humanities classmates more often wanted to be there, but were maybe a little naive. I don't know.
Also the humanities are often full of questions about why things in society are certain ways. STEM lords will outright not regard sociology and psychology as scientific disciplines, because those are entirely concerned with questioning social behavior. The problem with questioning social behavior in academia is you eventually end up reading Marx and then whoops you can't find a lot of fault in his writings.
im doing the same thing. minor in sociology and civil engineering major. i had an ethics in engineering class and it was like, Do not intentionally make a building that will collapse. Do not commit fraud. Not like, hmmm what are the implications of building missiles 🤔
which would actually be relevant for 99% of engineering students
I did a physical science and we simply didn't have an ethics course. The closest thing was occasionally during our science communication class we'd be told it was unethical to fudge numbers or not report safety hazards properly. 99% of my classmates were going to end up working in petrochem or pharmaceuticals so it wouldn't have done much to warn students about evil companies. Those same evil companies issued all the grants and scholarships.
My humanities classmates more often wanted to be there, but were maybe a little naive. I don’t know.
humanities college students are probably wealthier tbh
humanities college students are probably wealthier tbh
Maybe true on average, since STEM is being marketed to the working & middle class as a path to economic stability? But there are idealistic dummies from prole backgrounds who go against the grain and choose to pursue the humanities, even though it almost certainly means permanent destitution. (source: am an idealistic dummy)
Also, for being so "practically minded," the STEMlord types sure go ballistic when a female character in a video game suddenly has realistic armor instead of just a bronze bra while wielding a sword...
It's part of an aggressive attack on the humanities and civil society going back at least to Reagan, if not Carter. The absolute contempt for anything that produces culture or that complicates our view of society. Contempt for anything that doesn't visibly and obviously produce profits for capitol, with no consideration for the long term consequences of gutting all the less tangible forms of production; knowledge, culture, education.
It's real sicko shit, and STEM zombies are to completely unwitting victims of the phenomena, too stupid and uncultured to be aware of their own blindness.
It’s real sicko shit
This is besmirching the good name of :sicko-yes:
If the world was full of engineers… I don’t even wanna think about it…
All art would be on the tier of Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality
Idk why we'd take the model to be Yudkowski and not Asimov, or even Futurama's writers' room. Imo it's kind of lazy to assume that training someone as an engineer would kill their creativity or creative drive. It's basically the same thinking that makes people think communism is when man in beige overalls hits things with hammer.
It’s basically the same thinking that makes people think communism is when man in beige overalls hits things with hammer.
Shit, I've been doing it wrong the whole time
But yeah, I was being facetious. I've met way too many STEM types who idolize Yudkowsky, and I'll never pass on a chance to dunk on him.
He's talking about a parody of Harry Potter written by technically a STEM guy (really more of a dick who managed to scam himself into becoming the head of an AI research institute).
I thought this was a solved problem 6-7 years ago when we brokered a pact to all get together and bully the business majors
I think the sad truth is that these STEMlord types become the lackeys of the business Elon Musk types.
ya, there's def been a shift in the STEM fields moving into fintech and related areas
loads of various engineer types went to Wall Street to optimize trading algos and shit like that
It does go to show you that when it comes to entertainment, people really do take what they like out of it instead of anything the author really intended
Arguments about technical specs over spaceships that don't and will never exist are funny though
Look at how many billionaire techbros see dystopian science fiction, superficially like it, then want to make the dystopian setting come true.
Most obvious example is the Zucc and his "Metaverse" renaming. Going all the way back to Snow Crash and Neuromancer, those were meant to be bleak settings that dehumanized people forced to live in them, but wouldn't it be epic to have the OASIS, just like in the also-dystopian setting of Ready Player One, guys?! :so-true:
At my school the humanities were dirt cheap and the science classes all had multiple hundred dollar textbooks. Also the humanities professors would just pirate shit for the classes.
Also the humanities professors would just pirate shit for the classes.
You're saying like this isn't a frequent thing in STEM classes. One of my physics profs shared a Dropbox with about a dozen books for the course. Most of my profs advertised libgen as a way to get the textbook.
For some reason a lot of the science professors at my university were allowed to require their own textbooks *that they had written and basically force the students to buy them.
I teach science and math to middle school kids. I just make sure to focus on critical thinking skills, consequences of actions, and kindness. We discuss how science has been used, misused, and conscripted into imperialistic means (the history of the atomic bomb, and Oppenheimer's take on it all). We talk about using the science of finding groundwater, building wells, and making power sources in poor, remote areas. I do what I can to put humanity first.
On top of that its amazing how blind they can be about the absolutely obvious politics in these things.
Ever have a nonpolitical enlightened centrist tell you that G.I. Joe was the perfect 80s show because it had no political agenda? I sure did.
Yes, he even said "have you ever heard... the curtains were FUCKING BLUE?" as if a checkmate over anything I said. :very-intelligent:
History is just lore, and I cannot and will not displace everything I know about the events after the Battle of Yavin because you're concerned about... what did you call them? Na-tseez? Who writes this crap?
I mean, look, the First Order are a real threat to our Republic, my friend. We need you to stand with Princess Le- oh god, I'm throwing up.
That rotating villain in Congress must be a Slytherin! :maybe-later-kiddo:
I think it's funny how humanities people are constantly foaming at the mouth over "STEMlords" when they basically never talk or even think about them at all.
In my experience, the opposite is true. Every engineer is falling over themselves to talk about how employable they are compared to filthy dirty humanities, and science majors go on and on about how hard their courses are and how I couldn't possible understand it. People in humanities actually talk about what they are studying.
i mean.. maybe im being that guy but in my experience it's a lot easier to explain humanities classes than advanced math or physics to people who aren't involved in them. i can talk about my essay on health outcomes of indigenous americans with anyone, not so much fluid mechanics. also again, people doing humanities probably like the subject. stembros dont really care about their field
You don't have to explain all of music theory to say something like "oh, I'm just really impressed with the bridge on this song." Similarly, you can say "I'm doing some work with atomic composition and it's really a pain." Both cases allow someone to explain with more jargon later but just let someone know what they're up to in their work. I tell people about translation work I'm doing all the time. They don't understand half of it, but they get the gist of it even though it can be highly technical work. The exact same thing applies for science.
I have never heard any other STEM major make fun of anyone but business majors. And I think it's telling that there's no equivalent to the word "STEMlord".
Never heard people talking about those dumb Humanities people who major in underwater basket weaving?
I've definitely seen them talk down on humanities compared to STEM. A person I know even agreed with Jordan Peterson that humanities departments should be abolished (or whatever Peterson said I don't exactly remember).
The only person I've seen express that sentiment was my reactionary uncle who failed out of a STEM program back in the day. Compare all the insecure posters whining online about "STEMlords"...
I've roomed and went to class and hung out with "STEMlords" myself, that called themselves that for irony purposes. At first it was just arrogance and pride about how important and employable they were, then before I started drifting away from them, the ones I still knew were autodidactically bumbling into Jordan Peterson crankery and accusing humanities majors of striving to destroy civilization. That was my subjective experience.
I am once again asking you to just directly comment on whatever article ticked you off and stop getting mad online at a new type of guy you made up in your head.
Any division you perceive between the arts and the sciences is entirely culturally manufactured. People with engineering degrees don't have to drink a potion that makes them hate art to graduate. Everyone from music theorists to avant garde sculptors use advanced math in their work. The cutting edge of science and philosophy are in constant academic dialogue with each other.
This is definitely not a made up guy. In engineering undergrad, rabid anti-arts/literature/humanities bros are one of the most common archetypes.
It's simultaneously frustration about other people having "easier" coursework and brainworms about how those career paths are less lucrative implying that they are less deserving of respect. Hating on these people gives their fragile egos enough of a feeling of superiority to justify continuing to push through a course load that they wouldn't have entertained had it not been sold as a sure-fire path to economic success.
Any division you perceive between the arts and the sciences is entirely culturally manufactured. People with engineering degrees don’t have to drink a potion that makes them hate art to graduate. Everyone from music theorists to avant garde sculptors use advanced math in their work. The cutting edge of science and philosophy are in constant academic dialogue with each other.
I agree. I was talking about STEMlord types. I mean just look at Neil DeGrasse Tyson when he said that philosophy is useless: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-the-value-of-philosophy_b_5330216. There's a whole army of these STEMlords that worship Elon Musk and love Sam Harris that believe this shit.
They think using science to come up with the mathematically best art as opposed to silly "subjectivity" would be great. Not realizing that's what Ubisoft does when it churns out mindless busywork openworlds that keep the endorphin drip steady or hire psychologists to figure out how to get you to buy more microtransactions.
In cinematic design jargon, the sort of things that "mathematically best art" includes are called greebles. It's just extra detail to show off how detailed the model is, but can become confusing to look at.
See, for example, the bad guy's ship in 2009's Star Trek, or the Klingon ship designs in Discovery. Greebles greebles greebles. That's the power of math! :cringe:
They think using science to come up with the mathematically best art as opposed to silly “subjectivity” would be great.
All hail :melon-musk:
You put bazinga brains in charge of visual design and you just get Apple Minimalism forever
In my experience, the most far gone STEMlord types would, for a time, be perfectly fine with uneducated copy of a copy slop that only superficially resembled the work of humanities majors that were swept away.
Some of the most profitable self published authors (not naming names) do stuff like take Mass Effect, change the names of things, and churn out imitations with nothing of value added. Someone's buying that derivative trash, and it's almost certainly bazinga brains with large Funko Pop collections that are still chasing the dragon from the original.
In the Dim, Dusty Future of the year 31,000 there is only conflict!
Warpmancer 31,000!
it's real
The one I mentioned has a ton of knockoff books, many of them selling well with lots of reviews, and he's such a hack that he didn't even bother changing the set pieces or technology of the Mass Effect setting or any other that he ripped off. He just changed "reaper" to "wraith," that sort of thing.
