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Comment by wolverine876 | Hacker News Reader

I think the same may apply when people are trained and experienced in algorithms (and other technology) and not in values (and other aspects of humanities). The extreme corruption I perceive in SV could be, IMHO, partly a consequence.

Most issues in SV, such as free speech, fraud, AI's impact on society, disinformation and misinformation, labor rights, the concentration of wealth and power, the role of government, mob rule online, narcissism and megalomania in leaders, the corruption of power, etc. etc. are mainly humanities issues. Many in technology have disparaged and avoided humanities education - itself an act of basic egocentric bias and a lack of skepticism - and it shows in the outcomes.

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This is absolutely true. The typical tech CEO is a guy who got one B in a college history course and decided the whole subject was just so far beneath his genius as to be completely unworthy of study. And so... we get what we've currently got.

Paul Graham, for his flaws, was at least a painter.

I know, right? Peter Thiel is so much more enlightened, with his philosophy and law degrees. Or Zuckerberg with his deep interest in psychology and fluency in Latin and devotion to the Stoics.

Why are these argumentative and empty statements the best we can do on HN?

Where is the evidence that people with Humanities knowledge are more ethical than those without? Where is the evidence that STEM people are some kind of psychopath stereotype?

Related: How many STEM people have knowledge in the Humanities? How many Humanities people have STEM knowledge?

There's one part that narcissistically decided that they're above the "cold facts and rules" of the Sciences. There's one side that devalue the other, and it's not the STEM one.

People in STEM, HN, and much of tech don't devalue humanities? My experience has been overwhelmingly otherwise.

Alex Karp has a PhD in philosophy. So there's at least one company that we can trust to navigate these issues.

Isn't that just taking absolute authority from an external source again? Am I missing the joke here, or is the joke yet to unveil itself?

I was just kidding. I had a serious point though: If we blame the failings of tech on lack of humanities education, as the comment I was replying to did, we should trust those tech companies whose leaders do have that education more.

Can you see the clear error in that argument?

> SV, such as free speech, fraud, AI's impact on society, disinformation and misinformation, labor rights, the concentration of wealth and power, the role of government, mob rule online, narcissism and megalomania in leaders, the corruption of power, etc. etc. are mainly humanities issues.

It's weird how absolutely none of these are actually classed as humanities subjects.

1. Free Speech: Political Science

2. AI's impact on society: Computer Science, Political Science, CS-oriented philosophy (which all ABET accredited degrees have to take)

3. Concentration of wealth and power: Economics, political science

4. Mob rule online: Sociology

5. Narcissism and megalomania: Psychology

6. Corruption of power: political science

7. Fraud: ???

8. Disinformation and Misinformation: Political science (these things are determined by the ruling class, not science).

It especially common to group sociology, anthropology, political science, and psychology into the humanities (I wish they were) but to most people they are considered sciences. Just not hard sciences. This is all to say there are actual fields with methods extending beyond "well how do YOU feel about it" specifically catered to address each of these issues. The uncultured swine in STEM you refer to are just doing their jobs. No high highfalutin education in philsophizing will stop someone from making a bad algorithm to feed their family.

That's specious and argumentative (and was addressed in the quoted assertion). Here's where the lack of humanities fails us: Almost all the responses are specious arguments, not advancing us and the discussion.

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