Here’s that PR
Joining the PR crew @aldebaran @Koestrizer. Who did I miss? I know there have been more PRs here as of late. @dagill2? @Bagsy?
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I don’t want to generalize, but from the interactions I’ve had, I’ve noticed that STEM focused individuals tend to have an easier time defaulting to a “logical” thinking pattern.
I think it might have to do with the training. Math is just logic and the principles of reasoning are hammered in to all “hard” sciences.
That seems like a chicken/egg kind of deal.
I’ve noticed that playing basketball tends to make people tall and black.
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Good work man, nice to get a win under your belt.
So your friends are possibly going to be experts in a very specific STEM topic. Not philosophy.
I don’t necessarily think you should generalize Swedes in general. I suppose I too am making generalizations here. You know your friends much better than I do.
Anyway, I don’t think you should correlate a certain type of philosophy or knowledge of philosophy in general with educational achievement. Granted, it’s very possible to invest in areas of knowledge outside of one’s doctoral studies, as a hobby. Yet most PhD students are very much laymen in fields outside their own.
Society “trusts” science partially because of niche expertise. Similar to how we trust plumbers to do our plumbing and lawyers to advise on legal matters. Yes, some plumbers or lawyers are better than others, like some scientists are better than others. But I probably wouldn’t trust a plumber to be my electrician, even if both of those occupations are trades, like we could say biologists and philosophers are both knowledge workers.
Most PhD students in my department cannot comment on the humanities or social sciences more than I would expect of some random person encountered in the street. This isn’t meant to be a value judgement; I attribute this to their lack of interest and or not having previously attended an institution that required heavy exposure to those topics. Honestly, pursuing a PhD in STEM can even further shield people from non-scientific topics that don’t concern them. Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad, maybe that’s neutral.
I’m not saying someone must have a higher degree to discuss a topic. That’s elitist and dangerous, and I’m not an expert on many things I like to discuss anyway. I do not denigrate your friends’ philosophical knowledge. But I am saying that their insights are probably not all that different from those of a “general” person who is interested in philosophy. Getting a PhD is difficult, but it’s not something I feel should confer greater authority in a general sense, or superiority.
Also nice PR. Sorry you’ve been in a rough spot lately, but that win must have felt at least a little good. It even looks like you had a bit more in you. But it was probably a good move to stop when you did because of the hamstring issue and also since the TM test should set you up for success in the next cycle.
And yes, deadlift PRs also for me recently. Knock on wood.
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Good point. I’m just hesitant to make generalizations about ppls inherent differences.
That statement is a reflection of my hope that my difficulty with stem is because I was lazy and not that I’m not naturally “stem inclined”
With that said, I must say that my little brother picked up math and sciences a lot quicker than me even though we took the same classes and had a very similar upbringing
On the other hand, my mum was always more gifted at “humanities”, but due to circumstances, ended up with 2 engineering degrees. She definitely tours logical thinking and is adamant that stem education is necessary to learn logical thinking
Fuck yeah! Congrats.
Don’t worry too much about your back rounding. Not only did it not occur, nor does it matter nearly as much as most think but it will only lead to false biofeedback if you obsess about it too much.
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All of the points you are making are valid.
I’ll have to rewind a bit, because I don’t experience that I’m on the same wavelength as you are in this conversation. I’ll rewind to here,
I wasn’t.
My point was: @anna_5588 noticed a stoic streak in me, @kdjohn raised that he’s observed it as a norm with Swedes. I implied that I can’t really argue against that but given the composition of the people that I surround myself with it’d be unfair to draw any conclusion from their similarity to me as it is a fairly homogeneous group and lacks the variety to make a decent sample to represent a population in any way.
To revisit a few points in other words, most of my friends wouldn’t identify as Swedish, nor do they inhabit significantly different socioeconomic groups. Hell, most of them work in the same or adjacent departments and don’t even make a decent sample with regards to saying something about the piece of the pie that is “people in higher ed” as their fields are similar enough for them to all occupy the same area of campus.
My erectors are sore 
DOMS wise. Not pain wise. Fortunately.
I’m on the fence here. According to Forever 5 reps should be the goal for an 85% TM. 4 ≠ 5. Have flip-flopped between incrementing my TM and computing a new one from the performance. I know what the philosophy says to do — which is reset the TM.
This was my point, drawing on an albeit small sample size, but one that spans literally every cardinal direction of the country.
Also, because it took a weird philosophy turn, I meant “stoic” as in “stiff upper lipped”, not the philosophy branch “Stoicism”.
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Also, hell yeah on the PR!
Maybe I’m turning this into something more than it really is, or I am misinterpreting. I simply found these concerning: “I can’t generalise about swedes in general because most of the ones I know have pursued higher education beyond a bachelor’s” and “Most of my “peers” (do I even get to call them that?) have — or are persuing — a PhD. So I feel any inferences I can make are heavily biased.”
I think you could have done 5 or 6. That’s speculation, but I don’t think the difference is significant in the long run.
I can understand that this is concerning,
as that might come across as placing them on a pedestal but it was tongue-in-cheek.
This however,
I stand by. “Swedes” necessarily includes even those that didn’t finish high school, be it a consequence of circumstance or lack of desiring to do so. I know these people exist, but I don’t know any personally. I therefore feel inequipped to generalise, as I am aware that there are experiences I do not have a frame of reference for nor do I have any tangible interpretation from my own life what that’d mean. Hence, I refuse to make such generalisations as I lack the requisite nuanced view of what constitutes the population of “Swedes” to do so.
Maybe, maybe just need to learn how to grind! Didn’t feel like a fifth would’ve come up but maybe I’m just not as good at pushing compounds as I’d like to think.
I’ll refrain from commenting further, as this could easily turn into perpetual ping-pong. I probably look for ways to talk about higher education and have turned one thing into another.
I’m judging from my personal experience. With that bar speed I would definitely be able to do more, but that is because I am better at cranking out reps than going for a true low rep max. Maybe you are the opposite.
pls feel free to “spam” my log!
I’m very interested in perspectives on higher ed
It’s hard to randomly start talking about that topic out of the blue, but I’m happy to weigh in on something specific if someone asks me, a humble student
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I welcome you do to so, as if you have any further comments on what I’m saying specifically then that is a signal to me that I still haven’t made a very good job at communicating what it is that I am communicating.
And if you want to discuss it more generally I’d be interested in that as well.
I’d be adverse to consider that you “turned one thing into another”, as I tend to favour the assumption that my communication was subpar. This is not our first exchange, and you do not have a habit of getting things wrong in that sense.
Regardless, the way I originally phrased things can clearly be a stepping stone to talk about higher education.
I worry that we are in too much agreement for there to be a lengthier discourse that arises from it but I’ll be happy to explore the possibility. I do not disagree with any points that you were making and if we were to have this discussion in person you’d find me nodding along. It’s my experience that those conversations die out online but not necessarily when had “away from keyboard”. (Unrelated meta-sidebar: I presume a counter-example to this statement would be extremist circles online…?)
The things you said made me think back to earlier during the pandemic when researchers and scientists here signed what can best be described as a petition that the strategy employed nationally was wrong. It appeared as if several of these individuals weren’t involved in relevant fields and thus their objection was as qualified as mine would have been, viz. not at all.
In this context, if I was an op-ed writer, I would’ve written a piece on Chesterton’s Fence and focused less on the individuals involved.
To be fair, the choices made during the pandemic have been opaque, but I still believe the heuristic still applies as its intent is to reminds us that we don’t always know better than those who made decisions before us. Without being intimate with a situation we aren’t privy to all of its intricacies.
Unless we know why someone made a decision, we can’t safely change it or conclude that they were wrong.
And, to make it clear how I associate this to the points you were making: a lot of people, higher education or not, forget that just because someone is educated in a field does not inherently mean they are better equipped to make a judgement call on that which they do not know.