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Comment by sdflkd | Hacker News Reader

The difference between Tyson and my HN account is that I do not have the platform to influence anyone of anything. Tyson actively goes out of his way to influence people (with good intentions!) and bring science into their lives. He has the responsibility to not make it seem like all academics walk around with an aura of "i am very smart". Academics have a hard enough time with their public perception.

The behaviour he displays -- and is admired for -- seems overly destructive for no benefit. You may disagree.

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I definitely disagree. I don't know how much Neil you've watched, but I have the distinctly opposite impression. He's usually very casual and approachable. My biggest gripe with his version of the Cosmos series was that the cartoon segments struck me as a bit cheesy and over-dramatized. But I took it as an attempt to reach out to a broader audience.

In either case, pegging his amount of 'academic smugness' (or whatever you want to call it) at the level of 'destructive' seems way overblown.

Even if he has his bad moments (who doesn't?), I really struggle with the suggestion that he, in his capacity as public figure, is having a net negative effect on science education, academic interest and intellectualism.

I'm not sure I understand - aren't you using HN as your platform to influence us all, right now, with your own good intentions? Didn't you have to go out of your way to find a link to that tweet to influence people and make them think Tyson is a bad influence?

As for the part about his responsibility, that part sounded like a no true scotsman argument (not sure about the spelling/capitalization of that, sorry). But also, couldn't someone argue that you, as a member of this community, have a similar responsibility to not put down Tyson? Aren't you contributing to the problem of hurting the perception of academics? Honestly, this is what got me to reply to your original comment. Seeing someone say Tyson was cheesy seemed light-hearted, but your comment felt like an attack on Tyson IMO

I don't see how his comments are more destructive than yours. But you are right, the question of whether his comments are destructive or not is subjective.

I was adding my opinion into the mix but I did not expect it to influence anyone.

Would you argue that someone on Hacker News has the same responsibility as, say, Donald Trump? I wouldn't.

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