How to read well and closely as well as how nonsense academia can be. A recent work I read had multiple minor claims that were not factual while maintaining their main point. It made me realize how it’s hard to have everything right in a work but also how academia and research in general is like a tower of dominos, unless one person questions it the field will continue to build on bs claims.
I am glad Cory Doctorow has come a long way, but man, this was a major gripe from me about him when he was first getting popular in the blogosphere. He made some outright false statements about the history of Napster in the early 2000’s, and it made me furious. I remember being like “motherfucker, you lived through this how did you get it so wrong?” He’s been a lot more consistent for about a decade or more now.
Thanks for getting me to look up who that is! I knew his work but not his name.
That’s very frustrating. I wonder if that’s better or worse than in academia? People get called out and theories challenged, maybe a new edition is printed, or books challenging it. In blogs will someone often edit old posts for accuracy like the news does recently?
Oh, that’s part of what frustrated me so much about it at the time! I had a friend who had just gotten his Masters whose thesis had been on the co-evolution of control and resistance in digital networks, talking about things like Napster and Bittorrent specifically, and he couldn’t find a fucking job as a teacher to save his life. Meanwhile, Doctorow, with all his mistakes, was being asked to teach a class at UCLA.
That’s a really cool thesis! That must have depressed the hell out of them. I hope they found a good job for them.
Sometimes this sort of occurrence makes me really question the assumed validity of research. People can get away with a lot just because of a credential. I say this as someone in academia not a nut job conspiracy theorist.
How to read well and closely as well as how nonsense academia can be. A recent work I read had multiple minor claims that were not factual while maintaining their main point. It made me realize how it’s hard to have everything right in a work but also how academia and research in general is like a tower of dominos, unless one person questions it the field will continue to build on bs claims.
I am glad Cory Doctorow has come a long way, but man, this was a major gripe from me about him when he was first getting popular in the blogosphere. He made some outright false statements about the history of Napster in the early 2000’s, and it made me furious. I remember being like “motherfucker, you lived through this how did you get it so wrong?” He’s been a lot more consistent for about a decade or more now.
Thanks for getting me to look up who that is! I knew his work but not his name.
That’s very frustrating. I wonder if that’s better or worse than in academia? People get called out and theories challenged, maybe a new edition is printed, or books challenging it. In blogs will someone often edit old posts for accuracy like the news does recently?
Oh, that’s part of what frustrated me so much about it at the time! I had a friend who had just gotten his Masters whose thesis had been on the co-evolution of control and resistance in digital networks, talking about things like Napster and Bittorrent specifically, and he couldn’t find a fucking job as a teacher to save his life. Meanwhile, Doctorow, with all his mistakes, was being asked to teach a class at UCLA.
That’s a really cool thesis! That must have depressed the hell out of them. I hope they found a good job for them.
Sometimes this sort of occurrence makes me really question the assumed validity of research. People can get away with a lot just because of a credential. I say this as someone in academia not a nut job conspiracy theorist.