• 2 Posts
  • 21 Comments
Joined 5 months ago
Cake day: May 18th, 2025
  • KTJ_microbes@mander.xyztoScience Memes@mander.xyz•Bought to you by the central limit theorem societyEnglish
    54·
    5 days ago

    I don’t know where to write it so I put it here (awesome meme, my comment is offtop): I recently had a bit of free time between my PhD, activism, slacking, and just being there for my close ones. I thought, well, let’s do something good for the Fediverse. I love c/science_memes at mander.xyz, so I reasoned: let’s go to reddit and s t e a l some memes for this community. I searched for science memes on reddit and oh boy, they were crappy. Not a single one deserving to be here (if you cross-post to reddit, first stop, but also sorry I was there on a different day). Gosh it made me appreciate this place. Please, keep on being awesome and, since idk who you are and don’t want to be unrealistic, I can only wish you a median-good day.

  • KTJ_microbes@mander.xyztoScience Memes@mander.xyz•*sniff* *mumbles*English
    2·
    3 months ago

    There is an interesting interpretation of Zizek saying that he is practicing an unusual, if not new, form of rhetoric/reasoning which is aiming exactly at this kind of dissonance. I’ve seen it in the Philosophize This podcast, but they might have gotten it from elsewhere. It goes like this:

    1. Start with a point that the public/target group generally agrees to. Or at least it is clearly understandable. It can even be a fact. Like: there is a huge industry around automatizing sex activities, sex toys could basically have sex with each other.
    2. Arrive at a point when an obvious opinion is expect. For example: There is an expectation to hear that sex toys having sex with each other is just absurd and dehumanizing and shows their futile purpose.
    3. Put a twist on it, when you come to a logical yet unobvious conclusion. For example: Sex toys can relieve performance pressure, and people can enjoy their love life more (while Zizek’s example is absurd, sex toys actually help many couples with that in much more plain ways).

    Now it usually shows some kind of absurd. For example, sexual puritanism usually lauds calm love life practices - like a chat over a tea with no sexual pressure - but they might be easier to achieve with the help of obscene technology or practices, which release the performance pressure.

    His style at least provokes (some) people to think and question dogmas. But it will make any movement aiming at radical coherence or agreement within a group have a beef with him. And you can find incoherence or incompleteness in any way of thinking (summoning the ghost of Gödel for the ultimate proof). And the attitude towards its own shortcomings tells you something about the movement.