Hacker News Reader

Comment by Lumich | Hacker News Reader

« When people mention 'third world', they are assumed to mean Sauvy's frame »

Well, that's what you're assuming. I had never heard of Sauvy and was totally unaware of his definition that had lost all meaning by the time I grew up (and I guess the same holds true for most other participants). But okay, learnt something in the process.

What I took issue with in floh's comment in the beginning was not some improper definition of a term but the arrogance implicit in his tone (learnt or rather osmotically received arrogance, instilled by propaganda), an irritation possibly accumulated from a series of prior comments he'd made and which I'd read as part of my feed (because I appreciate his tech comments).

Now I respectfully suggest that we leave it at that.

View on HN

> that's what you're [...] his definition that had lost

No, again the point is not clear.

When people mention a concept, they are assumed to know it. If the concept is "third world", that corresponds to the page of Sauvy you read. People may not know that concept properly, and create a superstition, and oftentimes will: that does not mean that the concept is replaced by the product of its ignorance. The proper concept in intellectual use remains untouched by its misuse; its misuse cannot have pretensions of preeminence. The terms do not «lose meaning»: they are simply misused by the ignorant and shallow - which intrinsically forcibly have no authority over it; what happens is that a twisted meaning will be spread, and that is just a natural phenomenon of the life of concepts. The people in the street are not the authorities. The meaning of 'spleen' is determined by a subset of doctors and a subset of poets, not by the a mass of near-laymen.

When people hear of "Schroedinger's cat", some, maybe many, will probably think "Mr. Schroe was very lonely; one day he found a cat and got to be a happy fella...": that does not replace the proper concept introduced by Schroedinger. People will do any disservice to it, and that you can suspect - but still there is no legitimacy in assuming that when /specific/ people talk about Schroedinger's cat, they mean "lonely people finding comfort" instead of the difficulty in determining etc.

« the point is not clear » – Yes it is. And it was, and had been before. I understand exactly what you're saying. I simply don't agree to such mechanistic, rigid “rules” for conversation.

See, the statements are clear, the message is not.

You speak about "rigid"?

When specific people, instances, say "gay", do you assume it is sexual? When they say "frown" do you assume it is not? I wrote "superstition", was it the concept of the "man in the street"? When men not in the street say "AI", do you understand "delirious neural networks"?

Those interpretations would be rigid. On the opposite terms are richer. And that richness is necessarily there in some of them specific people because we do not speak demotic. Not everyone is a layman.

Celebrating a "man sagt" is utterly absurd, and Heidegger wrote about it. I suggest you (re)read the pages in Sein und Zeit about Gerede, Neugier und Zweideutigkeit (§35, §36, §37).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com