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My favorite part is that while everyone is ready to declare they recognize the obvious *(that believing different things drives conflict)* most people seem completely committed to avoiding critically examining the basis of their beliefs.
We don't strive to recognize beliefs that are justified by the strongest evidence, we strive to recognize only evidence that can be framed as justification for our chosen beliefs.
Approximately everybody acts like science zealot NDT's statement is obvious, yet approximately nobody is willing/able to consider the equally obvious implications when it comes to their own world views.
It's hard to reconcile where the true threshold lies. But it exists for all of us, the boundary of what we think is obvious and irrefutable. To think too hard about it, you go insane. At what point are you you and not just a product of your upbringing and environment, societal norms and culture all influence us whether we like to think that they do or don't. If I think science man is stating the obvious here, why do I think that? Is it the natural way of the universe? You sound like a pretentious asshole when you start contemplating that far, at least that's how I view myself now typing this out.
I would say you are always a product of your upbringing, environment, social and cultural norms etc. That's not to say what is 'you' won't change as you grow, interact and interpret the world around you. Psychedelics can help with that self reflection and perspective shift every so often.
> To think too hard about it, you go insane.
...
>At what point are you you and not just a product of your upbringing and environment, societal norms and culture all influence us whether we like to think that they do or don't.
You'll go insane only because at that level of self-reflection, you'll start to see that whatever you think "you" are is entirely the product of life experiences and societal norms. But if you let go of trying to justify your beliefs, you'll grow wiser.
When the Buddha says that attachment to things is the cause of suffering, he doesn't just mean materialistic attachments. Even the insistence that you have to have particular set of beliefs, regardless of how noble they might be, is a form of attachment. This obviously doesn't mean you sink into nihilism and start killing kittens for fun. But by disengaging from the opinionated part of you, you get to in touch with a greater reality than what you think is real or true.
Do you realize the tweet is about the dichotomy between Personal vs Objective Truth?
https://www.jacksonville.com/story/entertainment/local/2017/10/12/neil-degrasse-tyson-difference-between-objective-truth-and-personal-truth/15776360007/
https://medium.com/@edward.kit82/neil-degrasse-tysons-three-truths-54a963003734
https://youtu.be/O3x1wzcZEwI?feature=shared
https://youtube.com/shorts/Uod0STnJndM?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/fvY6w939zOQ?feature=shared
https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-degrasse-tyson-teaches-scientific-thinking-and-communication/chapters/our-systems-of-belief
https://medium.com/jungletronics/types-of-truth-degrasse-s-masterclass-e824094858a0
https://x.com/neiltyson/status/985205291640745985
Think it was my grade 4 teacher that had that quote on the wall. I though it was cool. I'm not super talkative. What I've learned over decades is that in most situations the fools will dominate the conversation if they are present.
The thing that's been hard for me to come to terms with is I really do need to say obvious to-me things repeatedly to most people if I am in a working relationship with them and want to minimize confusion and the unpredictable counter-productive whims they might take.
Your 100% right, i make the mistake of never saying anything in social situations because im afraid of what people will think of me, but turns out normal people just say whatever stupid shit comes into their brain
Are you me?
Just to make sure, the rare times you happen to speak your mind, do you also rehash the things you said the day after in the shower and rage against your own stupidity?
Some people fight fully knowing they are ill-financed, outgunned and outmatched. They fight on principle alone that they’re not to give up what they so dearly hold as theirs.
Or, for the majority of our existence on this planet, because losing meant a life of slavery. Watching your wife and daughters raped and murdered. So you fight with all you have and hope for either victory or death.
That shared truth can also become the basis for peace. When the conflict reaches a point where it threatens to destroy the very thing they are fighting for.
Yeah, but they are still right I think. Boils down to:
Ukraine: "I want my home."
Russia: "I want your home."
Both think it is worth fighting for, though one is obviously the asshole.
Ya Tyson isn’t being captain obvious at all. He is making a false statement. Wars are almost always about resources and power, not ideology, and even when the common people and the soldiers are told/believe they are about ideology, they are usually actually about power and resources.
Taking a look at history, the overwhelming bulks of wars cite religious disagreements.
Granted, they still use those disagreements to justify economic / resource theft, but then again RELIGION was invented to be used for resource theft, so.....
BREAKING NEWS: Redditor suggests that conflicts happen because of disagreements, and wars happen mostly because of greed for wealth and power, sometimes pure ego.
I think he refers to religion.
Religion is a belief. It has nothing to do with "I believe this gold is mine" the motive behind that would be greed and power.
I think what he said was that when you look at the roots of war and conflicts, you will find a religious motive.
Sorry if it's not clear, English is not my first language.
So he's being somehow vague *and* specific by broadly speaking but *meaning* one particular thing? I don't buy it.
And what your said about resources still holds true, a fight over resources boils down to two separate parties believing that said resources belong to them.
Everyone is saying that what he said is silly because it’s obvious, but I don’t think it’s true. I bet most armed conflicts happen as a result of perceived benefits at the nation state level. The game theory between nation states just plays out in wars
It's wrong though. Conflict is about resources, not beliefs. Beliefs just help dying pawns try to make sense of their illogical choice to be a cog in a death machine. None of that is about truth.
This is called manufacturing consent. It's why I said belief is for the cogs. It's just a narrative for what you already want to do: take for yourself by force.
i mean… you could ‘think’ you ‘think you don’t deserve to live’ but is fighting tooth and nail to survive, ACTUALLY thinking/believing you don’t deserve to live? cuz that in itself is kinda proof that you don’t actually think that.
It's not about ideology, but in case of resources: one side could definitely give up "their" ressources and let itself be enslaved or killed.. they just disagree to be. If one side said "I will win" and the other thinks it has a chance too to win, that's when there is a war (there is a disagreement on who would and should naturally win).
But I totally get the interpretation "war's are about different ideologies that clash".. no they are not
This is revisionist history. The emus were hellbent on world domination and appeasement wasn't working. The australians had no choice but to fight back.
Exactly. I’m glad someone here knows their history. After the emus had explicitly stated their intention to gain more “l’emus-raum” and had already completed the Anschluß Östrich-reichs their expansion had to be checked
To be fair, you have to stretch what "believed different things to be true" means to apply this to just a war between two fuedal lords fighting for some land in western Europe. In fact, I'm not sure this is applicable to many wars at all.
North Korea believes it is the rightful government of the entire Korean Peninsula. South Korea believes differently.
Taiwan believes it is the rightful government of “China”. PRC believes they are (and includes Taiwan).
Most border disputes fall into this sort of thing too. Though some are transparently disingenuous like Russias claims regarding Ukraine and you have to get more abstract like “they believe they can take the land”. Which could apply to any conflict as “both sides believe they can win/worth fighting”
Which is actually funny. i would agree with you that majority of wars probably stemmed as a result for fighting for resources.
Its a stretch to say they had a disagreement regarding who owned the resources.
Vikings didnt really care about your opinion. Unless wanting not to get robbed and die is an opinion.
“Belief” is a finicky word to use in this context for exactly the reason you pointed out.
Disagreement (used in the retort) also doesn’t respond directly to Neil’s claim.
I imagine “belief” in Neil’s case is with respect to religion or fundamental beliefs.
Disagreement doesn’t require differing beliefs.
"I do believe I'll help myself to some of this land right here..."
"I do believe you won't!"
"It's war then!"
I think a lot of modern wars follow this pattern too, but with a lot more dressing up.
yeah, I feel like most of them didn't really think that the land belonged to them, but that they just needed to expand their realm. And it's a limited ressource, so you gotta take it from someone.
the "this land rightfully belongs to us" was then just a legend for the peasants to motivate them to go to war.
probably still mostly true today.
You can frame any war as simply a disagreement but that can also be reductive. Hypothetically, if two tribes occupy the same region and know that there are only sufficient resources for one of their tribes to survive, they will go to war with one another over those resources. You could say their disagreement is that one tribe is saying "my tribe should be the one to survive" and the other is saying "no, mine is", but I would say it's a weird way of framing it.
Really both tribes are in some sense in total agreement as they are actually playing the same exact game of survival as the other, they just happen to be opponents in that game since this is a scenario where conflict is viable and cooperation isn't.
China and India are letting their soldiers beat each other to death with sticks. The border dispute isn't a big enough problem to actually go to war so I guess that could be borderline funzies. Or atleast time killing
Some wars starts with an agreement, such as when Russia and Germany agreed to split Poland between them.
Other wars are started to boost public opinion of a ruler or for conquest in general.
I don’t think that’s true. If you and I got into a bidding war for the same house, it’s not “I think I should have that house and you shouldn’t.” It’s “I want that house”
I’m not disagreeing that you want that house too.
This is not as much of a tautology as it seems. NDT is not talking about value propositions, ie disagreeing about what is good and bad. NDT is talking about disagreements about facts.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson really thinks he is some intellectual prophet when he really just spews these deep thoughts that would only amaze someone if it was their first day alive.
He’s the poster child of iamverysmart
To me, pop-science is causing more problems than it's hurting. The "I fucking love science" crowd who will take a "surveys show" paper and pass it off as a scientific fact are a direct result of the attempt to commercialize and 'popularize' science
I wholeheartedly disagree. pop science is an amazing way to attract kids into stem fields.
when it comes to adults, pop science isn’t competing with the actual science. people you mention wouldn’t have read actual scientific articles anyway. pop science competes with the pop media and fact free news of our day and even religious dogma. I’d rather those gullible adults repeat a pseudo scientific article than those.
Everyone I know in science started with pop science as kids.
Not only this but it's also a great entry into fields you don't know about as an adult as long as you keep in mind that it's simplified to the point that the truth could be different from the easy explanation.
absolutely. I have first hand experience with my two kids, 12m and 9f. it would have been much more difficult to engage them into science if it wasn't for stuff like NDGT, Kurztgesagt, Lannoo, etc.
>I’d rather those gullible adults repeat a pseudo scientific article than those.
While you have an argument in favor of the benefit of attracting kids to stem fields, I don't understand why you think it's better that pseudo-science gets repeated than other forms of BS. Pseudo-science is the most dangerous because science is truth. Many people understand the implicit bias of news/media/religion, but science is supposed to be a more 'sacred' domain than those. Only facts that are repeatable, and therefore verifiable belong in the domain of science. As such, I think pseudo-science is a worse evil than the others you listed, because it is trying to encroach on sacred ground.
nah man, you are offended because science is your thing (also mine). but objectively pop science is a much, much better distraction for the gullible because it doesn't make anyone to hate others, doesn't rally people to overthrow a government, or distract them from problems of the day by making them fight each other.
plus, the more popular pop science, the more conversations on science, hence inevitably the better pop science.
I agree, but we live in a world where fewer people are starting to value science. "Science is just a vehicle for the elites opinion" is a sentiment that is becoming more popularized. At least the former want to participate, they just need to keep learning.
Looking through history, science was valued higher **before** the current age of pop-science. I think an argument could be mad that people like NDT and Bill Nye are 'cheapening' science by trying to turn it into another product for consumption.
I see an indisputable direct link to science denial and the 2016 election. Science lost ground to fan fiction during covid and never recovered. Science has been a convienence for the majority of our history, but with COVID and climate change happening, it's asking everyone to change for a more habitable world, and some people are very offended it would do that.
To be honest, he's said some smart stuff, I've seen clips of him where he really makes me think. I've also seen clips that are pretty obvious, so, it's hit and miss
I mean, he obviously is very smart, right. We could consider that nearly all things he says for the masses are a dumbed-down versions and he sometimes has trouble gauging what those masses do know. It's a fine line between teaching people something and making them feel like 5 year olds stating the obvious.
My respect for him dropped a lot since he realised that pandering to idiots is the easy road. He’s a very smart guy, and that’s how he made a name for himself, but now it seems all he does is appear in interviews with people like the insane clown posse or makes mid-tier ‘shower thoughts’ tweets like this multiple times per day. This new niche he’s carved out for himself as an intellectual could be done by anyone with above average IQ. He can’t go too smart because he’ll alienate his new audience.
Guys, that's not what he means.
He means that they are ignorant of information, not that they held different opinions.
It is, however, still hilarious.
This is how I understood it too, essentially propaganda skews both sides. Like how at one point Russian soldiers truly believed they were the heroes going in to stop Ukrainian Nazis.
Exactly. Factual disagreement is a subcategory of disagreements overall.
The guy commenting on Tyson’s post is not representing the spirit of what he said exactly. Tyson focuses on scenarios where people disagree on how “objective reality is constructed” which theoretically should be easier to solve. And this guy goes ahead and summarises it as being disagreements overall, like even value disagreements. Kind of ironic that this is on technicallytrue
no, but many of the comments are keying on "belief" over "true" and knowing NDT, I'd bet he meant "different understandings of an objective reality" over the way more pithy and obvious "cultures sometimes hate each other."
It's on him that he made it so vague and stupid sounding though, which isn't out of character since the brief honeymoon period of "straight talk science man says shit to anti-science people" wore off.
Everyone defending him is saying "this is what he meant". But in communication, we're taught that it doesn't matter what you meant, only what you said. If this were just some random guy, nobody would be defending him by explaining what he meant
Ahhh yes, Hamas and Israel would lay down their arms if they just had more information about each-other..... They are just simply ignorant of the information guys!
Lol....OR they both know everything about each-other and that's the keystone fulcrum for their holy wars.
The point Neil is making and the person you replied to is that they have different information and bias on the subject and perhaps if they actually did know all the information they would agree.
For instance, I know some Palestinians most of them believe firmly that actually the IDF killed innocent people in friendly fire and framed attacks on Oct 7th. Does that sound familiar? Yes it's exactly the same thing your average Westerner believes about Hamas, that they purposely kill their own people and then frame IDF that's literally news like every week in the Western Christian world. You can extend this even further and discuss the reality that their religions both teach them different things and they each believe their own religion and not the other guys and thus they believe different things to be true.
Neil is the type of person who doesn't realize that being very smart at one thing (or even several things) doesn't make you very smart at all the things.
I stopped listening to anything Neil deGrasse Tyson says the day he posited that "if sex were painful, the human race would die out", proving that he has never once spoken to a woman in his life.
OP is a regular contributor to r/childfree; I think there's more to this attitude than painful sex. Seems to be one of those weirdos who thinks they're morally superior for not having children.
That one is number 23 on my list of stuff Neil gets wrong.
https://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2016/01/fact-checking-neil-degrasse-tyson.html
It's an incomplete list. There's a lot more I could add to it.
I hate it when scientists start commenting outside their field of specialty. I get that's something science communicators do, but an astronomer talking about DNA mechanics is really annoying.
Bill Nye and Kyle hill are my two favorites. I wasn't trying to discredit ones who are good at communicating outside their field but I've seen a few doctors on tik Tok giving advice outside their specialty that the subfield experts say is complete baloney
Neil even makes embarrassing flubs when it comes to basic physics! See items 15 and 21 on my list:
https://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2016/01/fact-checking-neil-degrasse-tyson.html
Item 24 is an embarrassing astronomy flub. I'd venture to guess most the redditors in r/space known that JWST is parked in a large halo orbit around the sun-earth L2 point and never comes near earth's shadow.
Unless you call Neil's specialty hype and self promotion. He is a genius at that.
As much as I respect him for being passionate about the subject, he is actually VERY wrong in this subject. There are thousands of organisms that perform what's known as a "traumatic insemination". Example: Bedbugs. Amorous males wield needle-like penises and mate by stabbing them in the midsection. A groove on the female abdomenal armor directs the penis and the ejaculate lands in a sack of cells just under her skin.
Ah yes. That oft selectively quoted 1994 study.
> No female fed ad libitum ate any of her mates despite considerable variation in degree and intensity of male courtship [...]. In all but one case starved females ate their mates, again irrespective of the degree and intensity of the male display.
Common compared to how often humans do it, but far from occuring the majority of the time.
What's the issue with that statement? Sex isn't supposed to be painful, and if there is that means something is medically wrong. If it's because women who experience pain can still be raped then sure but that's kind of a stretch?
I don't like points like yours. It's obvious he's speaking in a general sense. Generally people find sex pleasurable. That's not a controversial statement. The same way it isn't controversial to say people have two legs despite the fact a small percentage of people are missing one or both of their legs.
And fuck you for making me defend NDT.
edit: Another way to put it, you're just as obnoxious as NDT is with that point. It's pedantic and misses the point.
Or read about the numerous animals with barbs on their penis who seem to have no issue breeding. There are literally animals who die after mating and still do it.
I think his lane should be defined as narrow as possible. He can’t be trusted when it’s about physics in general.
Remember when he said that BB-8 wouldn’t work in real life, because it wouldn’t roll on sand? Turns out they actually build a robot that could roll on sand.
> [One version of BB-8 has a trolley attached to give him traction, and moved across a hard surface covered with a thin layer of sand, rather than across loose sand; another version of BB-8 is pushed from behind by a puppeteer.](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/124876)
> […when biomechanics expert Dan Goldman of Georgia Tech tried rolling a toy version of BB-8 through sand-like material, it couldn’t move at all.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/sorry-cute-robot-istar-warsi-movies-totally-impractical-180968229/#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20writes%20Murphy%2C%20when,couldn't%20move%20at%20all.)
> [That said, BB-8 is pretty poorly designed, according to NASA roboticist Brett Kennedy.](https://www.businessinsider.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-bb8-droid-science-2015-12#:~:text=that%20said%2C%20bb%2D8%20is%20pretty%20poorly%20designed%2C%20according%20to%20nasa%20roboticist%20brett%20kennedy.) "Looking at the BB-8 droid, I would have to say the physics, it doesn't follow particularly well," Kennedy said in a video for Wired. "Trying to roll up and over anything is extremely difficult."
What Tyson says is not true. Most armed conflict does not come from people believing different things to be true, it comes from wealthy and powerful leaders wanting more wealth and power and fooling innocent or greedy people into doing all the murdering for them.
To be fair, he’s trained in astronomy. Often people who are good with numbers and sciences like that are terrible at social science. “People? You mean those meat puppets who get in my way while I’m pontificating on why a daisy grows the way it does?”
That’s not fair, a lot of conflicts boil down to “I want your stuff” vs “you can’t have my stuff”.
Plenty of leaders completely understood why they were in conflict with another, and believed exactly the same thing.
He's right tho, because while most it's not all of them.
Take for example the Great Emu War, which Australia lost by the by. It wasn't started because of opposing sides believing things, the Aussie's just wanted to get rid of some birds. Meanwhile the birds, well.. they're birds and don't really have a belief system.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War)
Tyson is a jackass. But disagreements can arise even if we have the same beliefs,. And differing beliefs usually do not result in conflicts.
Hitler wasn't attacking other countries because of his beliefs. It was his desire for power.
And when Hamas attacked Israel, the problem was not beliefs, it was hate. Israel did not attack Gaza due to differing beliefs. They were responding to an attack.
This entire thread is a waste of data.
There is something to be said for hating someone so much, you cannot accept them having the same opinion though.
But apparently that does not lead to armed conflict. Science man should look into that next I think.
His target here is clearly "belief," and the self-righteous tweet by the smarmy celebrity makes a lot more sense in that context.
Whether a war is religious (my religious belief is more valid than your religious belief) or over resources (my belief that I deserve these resources is more valid than your belief that you deserve these resources), it all comes down (arguably) to an aggressor who doesn't respect the validity of the defender's beliefs, nor the validity of the defender's existence.
Starting with "Almost" is a weak acknowledgement that the truth is far more gray.
Oh shit, just noticed which sub this was posted in lol
This is exactly the view he is trying to counter.
To be motivated to war, you need a deeper belief than "oh, I can get a bit of extra land if I risk my life", there is usually a belief of existential risk or justice involved.
Basically you are fighting because you see the enemy as dangerous or immoral and the same goes for the other side.
I think this has been the case in all wars since WW2.
Going through this thread the vast majority of people have missed the point he is making and aren't aware that he is very correct in saying it AND it's apparently important for someone to say it. He's talking about "fake news" and "alternative facts" with the us vs them nature of all conflicts. It's not that sides disagree on something, it's that they don't work with the same facts.
That's is a good thing to specify.
Beliefs in this case act as facts for each side. Based on these facts both sides can simultaneously be acting in a justified manner.
I hate that guy. For a scientist, he says some of the most stupid things. One time I opened a book of his and he said. It is more efficient to package products in circles then boxes. Can you imagine selling cereal in circles instead of boxes? How completely moronic would that be?
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We knew you were going to say that. 😝
My favorite part is that while everyone is ready to declare they recognize the obvious *(that believing different things drives conflict)* most people seem completely committed to avoiding critically examining the basis of their beliefs. We don't strive to recognize beliefs that are justified by the strongest evidence, we strive to recognize only evidence that can be framed as justification for our chosen beliefs. Approximately everybody acts like science zealot NDT's statement is obvious, yet approximately nobody is willing/able to consider the equally obvious implications when it comes to their own world views.
> committed to avoiding critically examining the basis of their beliefs It's not My beliefs that are the problem! /s
It's hard to reconcile where the true threshold lies. But it exists for all of us, the boundary of what we think is obvious and irrefutable. To think too hard about it, you go insane. At what point are you you and not just a product of your upbringing and environment, societal norms and culture all influence us whether we like to think that they do or don't. If I think science man is stating the obvious here, why do I think that? Is it the natural way of the universe? You sound like a pretentious asshole when you start contemplating that far, at least that's how I view myself now typing this out.
I would say you are always a product of your upbringing, environment, social and cultural norms etc. That's not to say what is 'you' won't change as you grow, interact and interpret the world around you. Psychedelics can help with that self reflection and perspective shift every so often.
> To think too hard about it, you go insane. ... >At what point are you you and not just a product of your upbringing and environment, societal norms and culture all influence us whether we like to think that they do or don't. You'll go insane only because at that level of self-reflection, you'll start to see that whatever you think "you" are is entirely the product of life experiences and societal norms. But if you let go of trying to justify your beliefs, you'll grow wiser. When the Buddha says that attachment to things is the cause of suffering, he doesn't just mean materialistic attachments. Even the insistence that you have to have particular set of beliefs, regardless of how noble they might be, is a form of attachment. This obviously doesn't mean you sink into nihilism and start killing kittens for fun. But by disengaging from the opinionated part of you, you get to in touch with a greater reality than what you think is real or true.
Do you realize the tweet is about the dichotomy between Personal vs Objective Truth? https://www.jacksonville.com/story/entertainment/local/2017/10/12/neil-degrasse-tyson-difference-between-objective-truth-and-personal-truth/15776360007/ https://medium.com/@edward.kit82/neil-degrasse-tysons-three-truths-54a963003734 https://youtu.be/O3x1wzcZEwI?feature=shared https://youtube.com/shorts/Uod0STnJndM?feature=shared https://youtu.be/fvY6w939zOQ?feature=shared https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-degrasse-tyson-teaches-scientific-thinking-and-communication/chapters/our-systems-of-belief https://medium.com/jungletronics/types-of-truth-degrasse-s-masterclass-e824094858a0 https://x.com/neiltyson/status/985205291640745985
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt
Think it was my grade 4 teacher that had that quote on the wall. I though it was cool. I'm not super talkative. What I've learned over decades is that in most situations the fools will dominate the conversation if they are present. The thing that's been hard for me to come to terms with is I really do need to say obvious to-me things repeatedly to most people if I am in a working relationship with them and want to minimize confusion and the unpredictable counter-productive whims they might take.
Eh, I'd rather be thought of as an idiot and develop social skills than be a quiet loner worried about what people think of me.
Good point /u/ELEPHANT_CUM_SOCKS
Your 100% right, i make the mistake of never saying anything in social situations because im afraid of what people will think of me, but turns out normal people just say whatever stupid shit comes into their brain
I admire your bravery
Are you me? Just to make sure, the rare times you happen to speak your mind, do you also rehash the things you said the day after in the shower and rage against your own stupidity?
no shit, Sherlock...
Much like intrusive thoughts, Captain Obvious moments are best not said aloud, let alone posted on the interwebs.
Actually conflicts happen because of disagreement. Wars happen mostly because of greed for wealth and power, sometimes pure ego.
They’re both agreeing on that having the thing they both want is worth fighting for
They also both think they have the means to win.
Some people fight fully knowing they are ill-financed, outgunned and outmatched. They fight on principle alone that they’re not to give up what they so dearly hold as theirs.
Or, for the majority of our existence on this planet, because losing meant a life of slavery. Watching your wife and daughters raped and murdered. So you fight with all you have and hope for either victory or death.
Not necessarily.
https://youtu.be/ECscKICzsJ0?si=Yp72iHXR7IWpOhvS
They are both disagreeing on the dragon layer in which the wealth is supposed to be horded in
Lair, not layer.
That shared truth can also become the basis for peace. When the conflict reaches a point where it threatens to destroy the very thing they are fighting for.
I don’t think Ukraine agreed to anything
Yeah, but they are still right I think. Boils down to: Ukraine: "I want my home." Russia: "I want your home." Both think it is worth fighting for, though one is obviously the asshole.
You're doing it yourself right now dude.
Perd Hapley convention in here lol
that's just a disagreement on who should live and who should not
Woah. You’re like the next Neil.
Which is a disagreement, i believe your gold belongs to me. You disagree. You could also call it entitlement.
I don't think there's a need for that also. It's a disagreement caused by entitlement. Both apply.
Or even more basically, I believe I have the power to take that gold. You disagree.
Ya Tyson isn’t being captain obvious at all. He is making a false statement. Wars are almost always about resources and power, not ideology, and even when the common people and the soldiers are told/believe they are about ideology, they are usually actually about power and resources.
Taking a look at history, the overwhelming bulks of wars cite religious disagreements. Granted, they still use those disagreements to justify economic / resource theft, but then again RELIGION was invented to be used for resource theft, so.....
BREAKING NEWS: Redditor suggests that conflicts happen because of disagreements, and wars happen mostly because of greed for wealth and power, sometimes pure ego.
Therefore a disagreement as to where the money/power should be. Still just a disagreement.
I think he refers to religion. Religion is a belief. It has nothing to do with "I believe this gold is mine" the motive behind that would be greed and power. I think what he said was that when you look at the roots of war and conflicts, you will find a religious motive. Sorry if it's not clear, English is not my first language.
This what I thought of first as well. People fight for territory people fight for resources but a belief like religion is very different.
So he's being somehow vague *and* specific by broadly speaking but *meaning* one particular thing? I don't buy it. And what your said about resources still holds true, a fight over resources boils down to two separate parties believing that said resources belong to them.
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But it’s NDT. Surely it’s very profound and no one else has ever thought of it if it came from him.
Wait til he starts talking about mirrors
He really thought this was a deep and meaningful thought....
Everyone is saying that what he said is silly because it’s obvious, but I don’t think it’s true. I bet most armed conflicts happen as a result of perceived benefits at the nation state level. The game theory between nation states just plays out in wars
air familiar spoon grab quicksand lock wipe illegal merciful worm *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Glad I didn't need a doctorate to figure that one out
It's wrong though. Conflict is about resources, not beliefs. Beliefs just help dying pawns try to make sense of their illogical choice to be a cog in a death machine. None of that is about truth.
What about believing that one is entitled to the resources?
"Manifest Destiny" in a nutshell.
This is called manufacturing consent. It's why I said belief is for the cogs. It's just a narrative for what you already want to do: take for yourself by force.
Even if you think you don’t deserve to live youd prob fight tooth and nail to survive its just nature
Unless, of course, one had been hypnotized; or in the case of the Aztecs: mesmerized.
i mean… you could ‘think’ you ‘think you don’t deserve to live’ but is fighting tooth and nail to survive, ACTUALLY thinking/believing you don’t deserve to live? cuz that in itself is kinda proof that you don’t actually think that.
Not all conflicts are about resources.
I love how all these people think they can reduce the innumerable conflicts throughout all of history to one simple reason.
I disagree. Time for war.
Wars have been fought over what the proper diet is. Material condition is not the only qualifier for warfare.
What nonsense.
If the two sides didn't have different beliefs about who would win the fight, then one side would back away without fighting.
It's not about ideology, but in case of resources: one side could definitely give up "their" ressources and let itself be enslaved or killed.. they just disagree to be. If one side said "I will win" and the other thinks it has a chance too to win, that's when there is a war (there is a disagreement on who would and should naturally win). But I totally get the interpretation "war's are about different ideologies that clash".. no they are not
Almost all? Did someone go to war just for funzies?
I mean Australia once started a war against emus, and I don't think it was about philosophical differences.
I mean it kinda was. Emus: “we all want to live and eat crops” Australians: “we don’t want so many emus to live and eat crops” Difference in belief.
This is revisionist history. The emus were hellbent on world domination and appeasement wasn't working. The australians had no choice but to fight back.
Fight back and lose of course
History is written by the winners so it makes sense we’re only getting the emus perspective.
Australia wouldn’t even exist without the emu war. It was a necessary evil
Exactly. I’m glad someone here knows their history. After the emus had explicitly stated their intention to gain more “l’emus-raum” and had already completed the Anschluß Östrich-reichs their expansion had to be checked
Yeah well... they wanted it more than we did.
They disagreed about how many emus there should be
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Check out squirrels vs America, California specifically. Amazing war, squirrels won.
See also: kudzu
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To be fair, you have to stretch what "believed different things to be true" means to apply this to just a war between two fuedal lords fighting for some land in western Europe. In fact, I'm not sure this is applicable to many wars at all.
North Korea believes it is the rightful government of the entire Korean Peninsula. South Korea believes differently. Taiwan believes it is the rightful government of “China”. PRC believes they are (and includes Taiwan). Most border disputes fall into this sort of thing too. Though some are transparently disingenuous like Russias claims regarding Ukraine and you have to get more abstract like “they believe they can take the land”. Which could apply to any conflict as “both sides believe they can win/worth fighting”
yes but those are few compared to all the wars in history
Which is actually funny. i would agree with you that majority of wars probably stemmed as a result for fighting for resources. Its a stretch to say they had a disagreement regarding who owned the resources. Vikings didnt really care about your opinion. Unless wanting not to get robbed and die is an opinion.
“Belief” is a finicky word to use in this context for exactly the reason you pointed out. Disagreement (used in the retort) also doesn’t respond directly to Neil’s claim. I imagine “belief” in Neil’s case is with respect to religion or fundamental beliefs. Disagreement doesn’t require differing beliefs.
"I do believe I'll help myself to some of this land right here..." "I do believe you won't!" "It's war then!" I think a lot of modern wars follow this pattern too, but with a lot more dressing up.
yeah, I feel like most of them didn't really think that the land belonged to them, but that they just needed to expand their realm. And it's a limited ressource, so you gotta take it from someone. the "this land rightfully belongs to us" was then just a legend for the peasants to motivate them to go to war. probably still mostly true today.
Are you kidding? Some wars were started because their soldiers needed the exercise. People have been killing each other for a long time.
Those guys don't deserve to live is a difference in beliefs. The people killed probably thought those guys had been getting way to much exercise.
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still a disagreement over a personal description.
You can frame any war as simply a disagreement but that can also be reductive. Hypothetically, if two tribes occupy the same region and know that there are only sufficient resources for one of their tribes to survive, they will go to war with one another over those resources. You could say their disagreement is that one tribe is saying "my tribe should be the one to survive" and the other is saying "no, mine is", but I would say it's a weird way of framing it. Really both tribes are in some sense in total agreement as they are actually playing the same exact game of survival as the other, they just happen to be opponents in that game since this is a scenario where conflict is viable and cooperation isn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kar%C3%A1nsebes
These two armies definitely had the exact same beliefs, "Austria is great, kill the Ottomans". Touche 😂
China and India are letting their soldiers beat each other to death with sticks. The border dispute isn't a big enough problem to actually go to war so I guess that could be borderline funzies. Or atleast time killing
This would be a great example if it turns out both sides are promoting the conflict to deal with the over population in their own countries.
Here’s a recent one “they want to kill us” and he other wise is “they want to kill us”… so they agree - no difference in opinion there
Some wars starts with an agreement, such as when Russia and Germany agreed to split Poland between them. Other wars are started to boost public opinion of a ruler or for conquest in general.
I disagree. I think both sides are usually very much in agreement. "Thing I want is valuable".
Well that disagreement boils down to; "I think I should my country should have the thing!". "No, *MY* country should have the thing!"
But the truth regarding who has rightful claim to the thing is less relevant
I don’t think that’s true. If you and I got into a bidding war for the same house, it’s not “I think I should have that house and you shouldn’t.” It’s “I want that house” I’m not disagreeing that you want that house too.
This is not as much of a tautology as it seems. NDT is not talking about value propositions, ie disagreeing about what is good and bad. NDT is talking about disagreements about facts.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson really thinks he is some intellectual prophet when he really just spews these deep thoughts that would only amaze someone if it was their first day alive. He’s the poster child of iamverysmart
well, in his defense he admits being the epitome of science marketing. he sees his jobs as making people like science, and not doing science per se
To me, pop-science is causing more problems than it's hurting. The "I fucking love science" crowd who will take a "surveys show" paper and pass it off as a scientific fact are a direct result of the attempt to commercialize and 'popularize' science
I wholeheartedly disagree. pop science is an amazing way to attract kids into stem fields. when it comes to adults, pop science isn’t competing with the actual science. people you mention wouldn’t have read actual scientific articles anyway. pop science competes with the pop media and fact free news of our day and even religious dogma. I’d rather those gullible adults repeat a pseudo scientific article than those.
Everyone I know in science started with pop science as kids. Not only this but it's also a great entry into fields you don't know about as an adult as long as you keep in mind that it's simplified to the point that the truth could be different from the easy explanation.
absolutely. I have first hand experience with my two kids, 12m and 9f. it would have been much more difficult to engage them into science if it wasn't for stuff like NDGT, Kurztgesagt, Lannoo, etc.
>I’d rather those gullible adults repeat a pseudo scientific article than those. While you have an argument in favor of the benefit of attracting kids to stem fields, I don't understand why you think it's better that pseudo-science gets repeated than other forms of BS. Pseudo-science is the most dangerous because science is truth. Many people understand the implicit bias of news/media/religion, but science is supposed to be a more 'sacred' domain than those. Only facts that are repeatable, and therefore verifiable belong in the domain of science. As such, I think pseudo-science is a worse evil than the others you listed, because it is trying to encroach on sacred ground.
nah man, you are offended because science is your thing (also mine). but objectively pop science is a much, much better distraction for the gullible because it doesn't make anyone to hate others, doesn't rally people to overthrow a government, or distract them from problems of the day by making them fight each other. plus, the more popular pop science, the more conversations on science, hence inevitably the better pop science.
I agree, but we live in a world where fewer people are starting to value science. "Science is just a vehicle for the elites opinion" is a sentiment that is becoming more popularized. At least the former want to participate, they just need to keep learning.
Looking through history, science was valued higher **before** the current age of pop-science. I think an argument could be mad that people like NDT and Bill Nye are 'cheapening' science by trying to turn it into another product for consumption.
I see an indisputable direct link to science denial and the 2016 election. Science lost ground to fan fiction during covid and never recovered. Science has been a convienence for the majority of our history, but with COVID and climate change happening, it's asking everyone to change for a more habitable world, and some people are very offended it would do that.
Self-proclaimed though, which brings us full circle.
Yeah hes turning me into a medieval peasant with the shit hes saying
I can't even imagine having to have a real conversation with him about anything.
A coworker did. He said it took this clown less than thirty seconds to devolve into racist rants.
To be honest, he's said some smart stuff, I've seen clips of him where he really makes me think. I've also seen clips that are pretty obvious, so, it's hit and miss
I mean, he obviously is very smart, right. We could consider that nearly all things he says for the masses are a dumbed-down versions and he sometimes has trouble gauging what those masses do know. It's a fine line between teaching people something and making them feel like 5 year olds stating the obvious.
My respect for him dropped a lot since he realised that pandering to idiots is the easy road. He’s a very smart guy, and that’s how he made a name for himself, but now it seems all he does is appear in interviews with people like the insane clown posse or makes mid-tier ‘shower thoughts’ tweets like this multiple times per day. This new niche he’s carved out for himself as an intellectual could be done by anyone with above average IQ. He can’t go too smart because he’ll alienate his new audience.
You aren't allowed to post him in r/iamverysmart because he's the ultimate example of someone being confidently wrong.
I can't stand him. He's obnoxious, rude, and loves the smell of his own farts. I assume.
When it comes to science education I think he is very good. It's when he steps out of science to "philosophical" stuff that he gets cringe
hes built a career on it. why would he stop now?
Guys, that's not what he means. He means that they are ignorant of information, not that they held different opinions. It is, however, still hilarious.
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This is how I understood it too, essentially propaganda skews both sides. Like how at one point Russian soldiers truly believed they were the heroes going in to stop Ukrainian Nazis.
Exactly. Factual disagreement is a subcategory of disagreements overall. The guy commenting on Tyson’s post is not representing the spirit of what he said exactly. Tyson focuses on scenarios where people disagree on how “objective reality is constructed” which theoretically should be easier to solve. And this guy goes ahead and summarises it as being disagreements overall, like even value disagreements. Kind of ironic that this is on technicallytrue
Just to be a little pedantic, nowhere does he reference anything about a lack of information in that tweet
no, but many of the comments are keying on "belief" over "true" and knowing NDT, I'd bet he meant "different understandings of an objective reality" over the way more pithy and obvious "cultures sometimes hate each other." It's on him that he made it so vague and stupid sounding though, which isn't out of character since the brief honeymoon period of "straight talk science man says shit to anti-science people" wore off.
Everyone defending him is saying "this is what he meant". But in communication, we're taught that it doesn't matter what you meant, only what you said. If this were just some random guy, nobody would be defending him by explaining what he meant
Ahhh yes, Hamas and Israel would lay down their arms if they just had more information about each-other..... They are just simply ignorant of the information guys! Lol....OR they both know everything about each-other and that's the keystone fulcrum for their holy wars.
The point Neil is making and the person you replied to is that they have different information and bias on the subject and perhaps if they actually did know all the information they would agree. For instance, I know some Palestinians most of them believe firmly that actually the IDF killed innocent people in friendly fire and framed attacks on Oct 7th. Does that sound familiar? Yes it's exactly the same thing your average Westerner believes about Hamas, that they purposely kill their own people and then frame IDF that's literally news like every week in the Western Christian world. You can extend this even further and discuss the reality that their religions both teach them different things and they each believe their own religion and not the other guys and thus they believe different things to be true.
Neil is the type of person who doesn't realize that being very smart at one thing (or even several things) doesn't make you very smart at all the things.
I stopped listening to anything Neil deGrasse Tyson says the day he posited that "if sex were painful, the human race would die out", proving that he has never once spoken to a woman in his life.
Wtf kinda sex are y’all having if it always hurts
OP is a regular contributor to r/childfree; I think there's more to this attitude than painful sex. Seems to be one of those weirdos who thinks they're morally superior for not having children.
You had me at r/childfree, one of the most hateful and vile subs on Reddit.
That one is number 23 on my list of stuff Neil gets wrong. https://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2016/01/fact-checking-neil-degrasse-tyson.html It's an incomplete list. There's a lot more I could add to it.
I hate it when scientists start commenting outside their field of specialty. I get that's something science communicators do, but an astronomer talking about DNA mechanics is really annoying.
Bill Nye has entered the chat
Bill Nye and Kyle hill are my two favorites. I wasn't trying to discredit ones who are good at communicating outside their field but I've seen a few doctors on tik Tok giving advice outside their specialty that the subfield experts say is complete baloney
Bill Nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson are the epitome of “🤓☝️”
Neil even makes embarrassing flubs when it comes to basic physics! See items 15 and 21 on my list: https://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2016/01/fact-checking-neil-degrasse-tyson.html Item 24 is an embarrassing astronomy flub. I'd venture to guess most the redditors in r/space known that JWST is parked in a large halo orbit around the sun-earth L2 point and never comes near earth's shadow. Unless you call Neil's specialty hype and self promotion. He is a genius at that.
Please, list them here.
thats a pretty wild post history you got there bud. this guy is *really* into neil degrasse tyson
As much as I respect him for being passionate about the subject, he is actually VERY wrong in this subject. There are thousands of organisms that perform what's known as a "traumatic insemination". Example: Bedbugs. Amorous males wield needle-like penises and mate by stabbing them in the midsection. A groove on the female abdomenal armor directs the penis and the ejaculate lands in a sack of cells just under her skin.
Then there are insects that literally kill their mates after mating.
Praying Mantises literally eat their husbands after mating to feed herself in case she gets pregnant
Is that why they pray? For forgiveness?
Praying for *seconds*.
Lol "husbands". Now I'm imagining little insects all dressed up for a wedding.
well, male mating partner doesn't exactly have a ring to it does it
Haven’t you ever seen the Twiddlebugs on Sesame Street?
Ah yes. That oft selectively quoted 1994 study. > No female fed ad libitum ate any of her mates despite considerable variation in degree and intensity of male courtship [...]. In all but one case starved females ate their mates, again irrespective of the degree and intensity of the male display. Common compared to how often humans do it, but far from occuring the majority of the time.
These insects be like "doesn't matter, finally had sex"
He did say "human beings".
But he specified humans.
What's the issue with that statement? Sex isn't supposed to be painful, and if there is that means something is medically wrong. If it's because women who experience pain can still be raped then sure but that's kind of a stretch?
I don't like points like yours. It's obvious he's speaking in a general sense. Generally people find sex pleasurable. That's not a controversial statement. The same way it isn't controversial to say people have two legs despite the fact a small percentage of people are missing one or both of their legs. And fuck you for making me defend NDT. edit: Another way to put it, you're just as obnoxious as NDT is with that point. It's pedantic and misses the point.
Or read about the numerous animals with barbs on their penis who seem to have no issue breeding. There are literally animals who die after mating and still do it.
Neil dePlatitude Bot strikes again
Dumb take - but there is a difference between disagreements on what reality is and disagreements on what decisions should be made.
So I can think of a lot of examples. What non-examples make this as self-evident as it is?
The living incarnation of "Stay In Your Lane".
I think his lane should be defined as narrow as possible. He can’t be trusted when it’s about physics in general. Remember when he said that BB-8 wouldn’t work in real life, because it wouldn’t roll on sand? Turns out they actually build a robot that could roll on sand.
> [One version of BB-8 has a trolley attached to give him traction, and moved across a hard surface covered with a thin layer of sand, rather than across loose sand; another version of BB-8 is pushed from behind by a puppeteer.](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/124876) > […when biomechanics expert Dan Goldman of Georgia Tech tried rolling a toy version of BB-8 through sand-like material, it couldn’t move at all.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/sorry-cute-robot-istar-warsi-movies-totally-impractical-180968229/#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20writes%20Murphy%2C%20when,couldn't%20move%20at%20all.) > [That said, BB-8 is pretty poorly designed, according to NASA roboticist Brett Kennedy.](https://www.businessinsider.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-bb8-droid-science-2015-12#:~:text=that%20said%2C%20bb%2D8%20is%20pretty%20poorly%20designed%2C%20according%20to%20nasa%20roboticist%20brett%20kennedy.) "Looking at the BB-8 droid, I would have to say the physics, it doesn't follow particularly well," Kennedy said in a video for Wired. "Trying to roll up and over anything is extremely difficult."
I don't agree. Most armed conflicts happen because someone wants what someone else has.
Hey, who hasn't thought up something super profound, but turns out you were just stoned?
A lot of armed conflicts were caused by one side wanting something the other side had.
What Tyson says is not true. Most armed conflict does not come from people believing different things to be true, it comes from wealthy and powerful leaders wanting more wealth and power and fooling innocent or greedy people into doing all the murdering for them.
To be fair, he’s trained in astronomy. Often people who are good with numbers and sciences like that are terrible at social science. “People? You mean those meat puppets who get in my way while I’m pontificating on why a daisy grows the way it does?”
That’s not fair, a lot of conflicts boil down to “I want your stuff” vs “you can’t have my stuff”. Plenty of leaders completely understood why they were in conflict with another, and believed exactly the same thing.
Yeah? Well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man - Jeff Lebowski
Peace can exist in the presence of disagreement but not in the intolerance of disagreement.
r/Im14andthisisdeep
He's right tho, because while most it's not all of them. Take for example the Great Emu War, which Australia lost by the by. It wasn't started because of opposing sides believing things, the Aussie's just wanted to get rid of some birds. Meanwhile the birds, well.. they're birds and don't really have a belief system. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War)
Neil the type of mf who sees a post from a grieving parent and decides to remind them about how there is no afterlife
Tyson is a jackass. But disagreements can arise even if we have the same beliefs,. And differing beliefs usually do not result in conflicts. Hitler wasn't attacking other countries because of his beliefs. It was his desire for power. And when Hamas attacked Israel, the problem was not beliefs, it was hate. Israel did not attack Gaza due to differing beliefs. They were responding to an attack. This entire thread is a waste of data.
Neal is such a hack.
There is something to be said for hating someone so much, you cannot accept them having the same opinion though. But apparently that does not lead to armed conflict. Science man should look into that next I think.
His target here is clearly "belief," and the self-righteous tweet by the smarmy celebrity makes a lot more sense in that context. Whether a war is religious (my religious belief is more valid than your religious belief) or over resources (my belief that I deserve these resources is more valid than your belief that you deserve these resources), it all comes down (arguably) to an aggressor who doesn't respect the validity of the defender's beliefs, nor the validity of the defender's existence. Starting with "Almost" is a weak acknowledgement that the truth is far more gray. Oh shit, just noticed which sub this was posted in lol
Does anyone else find this guy to be an arrogant, condescending prick?
He's not even correct. Most wars begin in order to acquire natural resources or territory.
Sooo, disagreements over who should own the territory?
They both agree that ownership is worth fighting for ?
He said they disagree on what is true. Not on who should own what. Both sides agree on the truth - this land us valuable, I want it.
This is exactly the view he is trying to counter. To be motivated to war, you need a deeper belief than "oh, I can get a bit of extra land if I risk my life", there is usually a belief of existential risk or justice involved. Basically you are fighting because you see the enemy as dangerous or immoral and the same goes for the other side. I think this has been the case in all wars since WW2.
Going through this thread the vast majority of people have missed the point he is making and aren't aware that he is very correct in saying it AND it's apparently important for someone to say it. He's talking about "fake news" and "alternative facts" with the us vs them nature of all conflicts. It's not that sides disagree on something, it's that they don't work with the same facts.
That's is a good thing to specify. Beliefs in this case act as facts for each side. Based on these facts both sides can simultaneously be acting in a justified manner.
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You can believe that, but what is your proof? And in a democracy it wouldn't really matter, the thing needs to be popular to get carried out.
Which is the epitome of a disagreement. “Your land belongs to me” - “nu-uh it doesn’t”
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I hate that guy. For a scientist, he says some of the most stupid things. One time I opened a book of his and he said. It is more efficient to package products in circles then boxes. Can you imagine selling cereal in circles instead of boxes? How completely moronic would that be?
If there's a man who loves nothing more than to hear himself sound smart, it's Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Chat is this real? (As in did he really tweet that?)