There's some physics forums I lurk and occasionally post in, and every time the discussion goes beyond physics, holy shit are their opinions dumb as fuck. Just getting someone to understand a simple point that anyone could understand with like 2 sentences just feels like wading through mud with them because every time anything seems to challenge one of their preconceived opinions at all (or if they just don't understand it because they're out of touch) they get annoyed, and then they fixate on irrelevant parts of your point until you have to explain that part of your point again and again and again, and then everyone forgets what it was even about. Especially the boomers in there.

Then there's the ones "helping" people, who will basically act like they are doing a MASSIVE courtesy to you by explaining things, so they'll put people through the shredder for misunderstanding something or for phrasing the question in a way that isn't absolutely perfectly 100% crystal clear as if their compiler is giving an error or something.

And it's not just people in forums, like almost all the professors I know are also just complete morons about anything even slightly unrelated to their specialty.

Why are science nerds like that, I fucking hate it. Like holy shit grow up >:(

  • spez_hole [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Compartmentalized thinking is a right-wing form of thought according to Adorno, and I think it makes STEM subjects easier, speaking as a stem guy with conservative parents. Deleuze once said that leftism is a matter of perspective and here it means that Einstein's genius explains his leftist tendencies: it is very hard to think the big-picture with so many complex details. For example, physics is different from math in its contingent and arbitrary details: math is about a priori form; physics must understand this a priori form and then has the extra burden of fitting their empirical discoveries into their a priori understanding. Maybe this is stupid and I apologize, but the job of the physicist becomes much easier if they only agree with everything they can absolutely prove, and this is part of compartmentalized thinking. I think analytic philosophy would have this ceiling as well.