/int/ - International

>me watching a class on Weber and the formation of nation states on the sociology graduation even though I wasn't a sociology student >Brown girl interrupts the teacher all the time saying this is Europe centric >Suddenly a fat guy enters the class with a loud speaker, telling people to join a supposedly "students strike" >Teacher looks helpless and overworked >Me and another girl are the only people paying attention 2015 was wild

>>18351 I absolutely hated all the identity politics on campus when I was at university. Nobody actually cared about learning and studying, politics was more important than anything else. Whether it was blocking some lecture hall because of climate change or because the students didn't want some conservative politician speaking at their uni, it was tiresome and just disillusioned me. I quickly dropped out and never looked back. Public universities, especially in the humanities, are a mess in Germany.

>>18353 Where and what did you study? On my MINT campus, there was virtually no politics. Not even stickers for the most part. The only sticker I saw was "laugh at a fraternity member". I remember this so clearly because I thought "wow, there are remotely political stickers after all".

>>18351 Humanities has low entry requirements, but the highest ceiling. People who fail to get out of their own subjectivity to learn the basic of objective knowledge go into humanities. People who learn the basics of objective knowledge go into hard sciences. Gigachads who dominate both eventually go into humanities. Objectivity is undeniable because "everything is subjective" is self-refuting yada yada. Subjectivity is also undeniable because everybody experiences it. Humanities theories are about the many ways in which these two things interact. Those who realize this realize that this is the highest form of intellectual pursuit: how to theorize a world where many subjectivities interact objectively.

>>18354 *STEM derp.

>>18354 Well yeah studying in Berlin was probably a supporting factor of the problem lol

>>18353 >humanities Weeeeelllllllllllllll............ I studied physics and it was okay. People weren't exactly conservative, I guess, but they for sure weren't rabid wokists neither.

>>18359 I also studied physics. I'd say overrepresented were pirates and FDP, underrepresented was CDU. SPD and greens were roughly as popular as elsewhere. AfD only became a thing in my last year of university and I only remember the always angry roommate of a friend of mine sympathising with them. The kind of reactionary stereotypical chud (he even looked like the meme). At parties I met the occasional hardcore communist/Georgist/niche philosophy stan, but I don't think any of them studied STEM.

>>18359 They were typical STEM-shitlords like you leftshit.

>>18359 >>18362 I think it just got worse over the last few years. Here in Berlin we have the TU (Technische Universität), which is STEM, and the students are turbo leftist

>>18355 Humanities deal with objective matters, but conflict of interests in them is too big to actually study them objectively.

>>18355 I disagree with this. STEM is set up this way. As in, we fail half of everyone every class, only the strongest survive. I also disagree with the "objectivity/subjectivity" distinction. Math is very abstract, for example. By the time you make it to college maths you can no longer hold out your hand and count how many fingers you have. Science is essentially math set in the real world. Engineering is math and science to solve real world problems, as opposed to abstract real world questions.

>>18351 Whites should randomly walk into African places of higher education, if they have these anyway, and interrupt them to tell them that their stuff is African-centric and that they have to consider the Inuit, Native Americans, Chinese, Thai, Koreans, Japanese, and of course Europe, too.

> and each subjectivity is unique Fun fact they don't actually believe this. Go remind a psychology professor about how intersubjectivity invalidates 95% of all studies in the field and report results.

>>18397 If you think math is abstract, try western political philosophy, where the central issue is 'freedom'. There are at least 8 generally recognized definitions of freedom. None of them can be verified by a formula or an outside objective standard. So the ability to form coherent logical arguments becomes paramount. This in turn requires the ability to properly weigh all the evidence for and against (the ability to properly weigh the evidence is what distinguishes a subject matter expert from a conspiracy theorist).

>>18435 >Debating "freedom" Math is more abstract, you have to learn algebra (calculating unknown values), trigonometry (calculating triangles), calculus (calculating change), and it keeps going... There are two branches of calculus, differential (rate at which quantities change), and integral calculus (summation of quantities, most notably the area of curves) and more advanced forms of algebra line linear algebra (vectors, vector spaces, linear transformations, and linear equations). And it just goes on and on endlessly with more and more formulas to memorize and understand. I would much rather learn the 8 types of freedom and how to debate the concept when there is no correct answer lol...

>>18577 Even with what you describe, it's still more clear. For example, $\frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}x}{e}^{-x^{-2}}$ at x=0 is challenging/interesting but in the end leaves no room for interpretation. After discussing a bit, we'll agree. On the other hand, if we discuss freedom, then we could spend our entire lives and might never agree.

>>18577 >algebra (calculating unknown values), trigonometry (calculating triangles), calculus (calculating change) school level >differential (rate at which quantities change) also school level here >integral calculus (summation of quantities, most notably the area of curves) and more advanced forms of algebra line linear algebra (vectors, vector spaces, linear transformations, and linear equations) 1-2 years of uni but in itself not that groundbreaking: the way to sum up rectangular bars on a chart and doing operations with some sorted sets of numbers whoa, you managed to understand how to calculate some numbers, please now explain me how humans act

I started seeing it this way: Objectivity equates linearity Subjectivity equates non-linearity. Humanities theories are different formulas of how to deal with many non-linearities that can't be reduced to linearity or basic non-linearities even further. Basically there are irreducible qualities in a quantitative formula.

>>18577 Math is abstract, but it's also very strict. So strict that you can formalize it and make computer do math. Give it axioms, rules of deduction ("A, A->B. Then B") and he'll traverse the possible reasoning chains. >>18583 Besides "matters of interpretation" which are truly a big thing, there is a huge collision of interests. People found ancient ruins in Palestine. When were they built and by whom? It's not a matter of interpretation, it's an objective question. And still it's impossible to treat it objectively. "I'm employed in American university, I want money for my family, so I'll try to find arguments why it's Israelis". "I'm employed by Chinese academy, I'll do everything possible to prove that it was Arabic town". In physics all people are interested in finding the truth. In history people don't really care who built the town, there's little practical benefit in it, but they care a lot about their ideological leverage. This is what STEMcels often don't understand. They treat humanities as pure science, while it's more like speeches in court. And it's good if there are prosecutor and defense lawyer, then they'll restrain each others' bullshit a bit. But if only one side is present? Then you have to listen to what they say while paying attention to obvious omissions and contradictions.

>>18625 > Objectivity equates linearity > Subjectivity equates non-linearity Completely wrong. Where humanities deal with objective things, they are often nonlinear, that much is true, but subjective things are where empiricism (in the sense of independent verifiability of measurable quantities) breaks down, linearity is not even an issue here.

>>18635 So, the difference between stem and humanities is that in stem, you have to prove your arguments completely infallible against every other possibility, and in humanities, you have to prove your arguments in court to a jury full of dumbasses who all have their own opinions.

>>18635 >In history people don't really care who built the town, there's little practical benefit in it, but they care a lot about their ideological leverage. That's highly illegal in the west. I'm not saying it never happens, but it's actually against the constitution in Switzerland. >>18640 I think you're oversimplifying things too much. Judging by your understanding of linear algebra, I'd estimate that you're in the first year of university. You'll learn that those "dumbasses" are far from dumbasses.

>>18643 That is how a jury based court system works... The lawyers walk around and ask the jury questions and any one with an education or a brain gets removed from the jury.

>>18643 > That's highly illegal in the west Not sure, I've seen western academicians writing things like "this research can be weaponized by far-right" in scientific discussions. Still, ideologically motivated people usually don't claim to be ideologically motivated, they claim to seek truth or even to fight against misinformation. And if there exist laws against them, they're barely enforceable, moreover they have the opposite effect. Academician with socially-unacceptable views will be persecuted for a smallest inaccuracy, while pro-establishment academician will be seen very loyally by judges. If we compare Swiss academia to Armenian or Azerbaijani academias, it's surely better and more truthful. But if we compare Swiss humanities to Swiss hard sciences, they'll look like a bunch of falsifiers and propagandists.

>>18664 Part of the problem is that history is a broad topic that exists to create an identity. What kind of history do most people study? The history of "their people". But the concept of a people is a creation. Likewise, the history of a people is also a creation, selected against a millennia of events, most of which were meaningless, to provide meaning. What meaning? Well, to create a tribe, give it an identity, give it virtues and values, give it enemies and sufferings, and explain how it came to be today. While a history enthusiast will read historical facts for the sake of consuming historical facts, most people touch on history to justify to themselves what to think or specifically what to think of today. So a historical fact that can be used in this purpose will be shunted by historians who are skeptical of what broad implications can be justified with little/no supporting evidence.

>>18350 Humanity science is useless blabla bullshit. It is useless, everything can be right or wrong. STEM however, thats real science.

>>18836 Do you even realize you're trying to formulate a humanities hypothesis there? And haven't defined "useful" or what you mean by "right and wrong" or how they relate? Pretty ironic. I suspect you just suck at it, like most people, and believe whatever theory feels right. And physicalism+ materialism feels the most clean to you, since you're a lazy thinker.

Hard sciences have objective results and measurments, humanities don't and it's really just about stroking egos and forming convenient world views.

>>18836 That's how humans work, most of nature, actually. You can't calculate everything in life. The same medicine won't work 100% the same with two people. Different weight, height, microbiome... STEM is great for anything that does not directly involve people.

>>18862 Aren't chemistry and Biology Stem fields?

I don't remember the name of the dude or the quote exactly, but a physicist put it this way very well: >we didn't evolve to understand quantum fields or gravity, we evolved to survive as a social and collaborative species. Yet today we understand those first things very well, but fail horribly on the other. Objectivity is just the building block for the really hard tasks of trying to fit subjectivities into this equation. >>18862 Relativizing everything isn't the answer. Objectivity is rhetorically necessary because "everything is relative/subjective" is self-refuting yada yada. But subjectivities are also undeniable in their own way.

>>18862 STEM gives you Statistics, which are ubiquitos in all human sciences. >won't work 100% the same Yeah STEM can deal with that.

>>18863 Chemistry doesn't necessarily involve people and on a molecular level things can be calculated accurately. As for biology: The S in STEM isn't even clearly defined. Maybe, maybe not. In biology and medicine there's never 100% accuracy, otherwise every crop would grow perfectly and every medical procedure would be a success. Though we can at least use percentages and go with these. Paracetamol works for 95 out of 100 people? Good enough. The same method can also be applied in humanities though. A specific psychotherapy procedure works for the big majority? The architectural sense of aesthetics is tingled in a similar way by most people? Good enough.

>>18867 Google AI says Biology is a Stem field. But also medicine and engineering aren't actually that different in the way you describe it. Yes maybe a medicine works for 95 out of 100 people but then maybe you launch 100 rockets to space and only 95 make it to orbit or maybe you build 100 sky scrapers but 5 collapse. There are variables in pretty much everything.

>>18868 It's a stem field as it is clearly a science, but it is a bit different from other stem fields. Physics and Chemistry tend to involve heavy math and focus on the mathematics of how energy and particles operate. Biology... Not as much. In my personal observations biology isn't as good of a major for career development, and tends to have a higher % of female students compared to other majors. So, it is definitely a science, and has a lot of tie ins with medicine, but doesn't focus on the math of how the world works like physics and Chemistry. Instead, it is focused one a subsection of the world, living beings.

>>18867 I think part of the problem is that science is set up to test when events are 100% certain. However organisms are set up to have a degree of randomness to them. On a macro level, brains are complex and two brains do not always think the same and act in the same way. On a micro level, DNA is designed to involve a heavy degree of randomness, essentially long code strings who's values can be easily swapped, dropped, written incorrectly, and in the case of sexual organisms, merged repeated. This makes it difficult to test anything as nothing is set in stone from a foundational level. Imagine if, in chemistry, there were molecules and the atoms were random or could change, but molecules were expected to always behave in the same way. Not going to happen!

>>18872 Yeah, that was my point. And with subjective fields of study (humanities) this degree of randomness is even greater, since no two people have the exact same experiences and history. Still, there usually is some common ground, something people as a group share (cultural, biological) that we can use percentages even here to make an assumption and "prove" it.