Hacker News Reader

Comment by lifeisstillgood | Hacker News Reader

There are two kinds of people with pet causes I appreciate

The altruists, who dedicate years of research and learning to finding and giving freely medical or other breakthroughs to make a better world. I am glad they exist, please give them my tax dollars, but I stopped trying to fix the world around 35 years old.

The other kind is patio11 kind - sorta altruistic - but getting paid altruistic. Since my Damascean conversion at the age of 35, I appreciate this kind too - you cannot have my tax dollars but you can persuade me to buy

The world needs both kinds. Well, it needs the first kind, it will never be short of the self-interest altruism. And since his pet cause is about making me money, I like his self interest.

View on HN

> Damascean

I don't think this is a word. What are you trying to say?

That would refer to the Apostle Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. Paul was a murderer of followers of Jesus, but then became a follower himself. So, I assume the commentator believed in altruism through commitments to poverty by the altruistic, big government spending, or something, but now believes in a more competitive free-market form of it.

The standard demonym for Damascus is "Damascene."

Thank you.

I think its a reference to Paul's (the apostle) conversion on the road to Damascus. Details on wikipedia.

And also in a popular book.

Titled, oddly enough, "The Book".

He was saying there's no longer any need for a good liberal arts education :)

Human beings are so 20th-century. For the 21st-century, you are a job fulfiller.

I studied theology and scripture under a pastor and a rabbi for two years and they never described Paul's conversion as "Damascean". The contextualization is poor as well.

Obscurity and speaking out of your head for your own benefit rather than to be understood is postmodern frippery not the mark of a solid education.

This post epitomizes the threads running through arguments for and against a liberal arts education in the year 2012. On the one hand...

http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/

which will far better argue and illustrate myriad points on the invention of language, its beauty and wonder and value to differentiate us as a species and to bring us joy and fulfillment and illustrate the challenges and quirks that make its study such a joy and illustrate language's evolution as a thing of wonder.

Then again, you see something like the Rossetti archive

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/

and you are awe struck at the meticulous rigor and academic sensitivity it takes to understand permanence and context and format and physicality as intrinsic to the right of artistic expression.

Would these works have as much meaning if we OCR'd them, slapped them in times new roman, and beamed them to your twitching sweaty little palm sized cubes? Probably not.

It took a lot of time, a lot of arguing, a lot of hard questions and personal growth before I felt qualified to make statements like, "I don't think its a good idea to build a game engine that uses a Barthes-esque narrative decomposition to dynamically construct compelling storylines for video games." I don't think a religious education qualifies you as arbiter of language. I think his word is fun and quirky. Interesting. Highly relevant and timely.

You're not responding to anything I said, but rather you're strawmanning me to make a point you've been waiting for an excuse to make.

You might also consider using the return key to break up your text a little better. You'd be less likely to be perceived as a colleague of the unabomber. (Edit: they fixed it)

You don't need to be an arbiter of language to find out what is and isn't a word. Damascean isn't a word. The word is Damascene. The phrase is Damascene conversion. Using the unword Damascean only harms the form and function of the prose.

Oh boy, so now it's a spelling comment. Even better.

See, if you'd taken English classes instead of Theology, you'd have recognized the neologism of "Damascean".

The first poster was saying something casually, and I was making a joke. You're taking this sub-thread way too seriously.

Man, seriously, chill out. Neologisms are fine. Just like "patio11ian rate increase" is fine.

As far as I can see you're just engaging in personal attacks and character assassination here while not saying much in the way of argument besides, "I'm more educated than you."

I mean, you could just say something non-inflammatory like, "I'm confused, what do you mean by 'Damascean'?" and then when given an answer reply, "Oh I see, thanks. In theology circles 'Damascean' isn't really used to describe that situation."

Anyway here's a counter-argument: the Bible has long been a work of popular culture outside of religion, this isn't a theology circle or a church, and if people want to lightly abuse the stories and language in it then so what?

(I would have responded to your post where you say "strawmanning", but HN wouldn't let me. EDIT: You've now amended that post to say that the word is actually "Damascene". If you knew this, why all the drama? Something tells me that this was learned recently via Google.)

> self-interest

This term applies to both kinds of people. The first kind of people you listed are also self-interested.

The only difference is what kinds of things motivate them. The first kind are motivated by the pursuit of knowledge and/or sharing it with others. The second kind have a similar motivation, but include money into the mix.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com