#stem vs humanities discourse

[tedkaczynskiofficial]

These were too funny to leave in the notes:

I was incredibly lucky that the ethics stuff I did was either online or an honors class of non-morons who actually wanted to be there. I would have gotten expelled from university if I had to do ethics with business major Kyle who is "pro life" but also thinks children deserve to starve if their parents are poor.

Nothing makes me want to do evil science more than people who are like "STEM students have no moral compass unless you FORCE them to take ethics classes and humanities classes they're so base and culturally illiterate" like I will personally make the giant fucking space laser to zap you i swear to god

[quasi-normalcy]

This is what I'm talking about. Like, this is embarrassing. People should be embarrassed for uncritically sharing it.

"STEM people are incapable of knowing when they're being lied to--" JESUS FUCKING GOD! Is this a thing you actually believe? Like...genuinely? That the only reason why anyone understands falsehood is because they read We Have Always Lived in the Castle when they were 17?

Do the black hearts of the STEM people beat at all, in your estimation? If you cut them, do they bleed tar? Sand? Wires? Do they think thoughts, do you imagine, or do they just process binary telemetry through their neural circuitry? Do they sleep in coffins?? Do they regenerate in alcoves???

And what about you? How, one wonders, the fuck do you know what you think that you know? Were you just blindly, credulously, and uncritically believing everything that you were told until some magnanimous English teacher, Moses-like, came down from the Mountain to explain the concept of deception to you?? Do you think that this is how things work? Do you just intrinsically know truth from falsehood because you read Lolita at some point in your long and storied career???

Look---I think humanities are valuable! I'm doing a PhD in a humanities discipline (in fact, applying the techniques of the humanities to the analysis of science), so it would be pretty awkward if I didn't! Humanities can make contributions to the vast ediface of human knowledge that sciences can't. Humanities can even make valid, substantive critiques of science that sciences can't. But this? This? This is just uncharitable, self-important BULLSHIT that any humanist, with their vaunted critical thinking skills, should be fucking ashamed to spread.

[sawthatmountainburn]

it's kind of funny seeing psych majors wading into the stem vs humanities discourse trying to act like they have the moral high ground. you guys lock up schizophrenics in big torture houses because they disagreed with you in their treatment. you're no better than a cop. you deserve to be beaten with sticks.

[knightofdeer]

STEM vs humanities is the worst discourse ever, especially since every side tries to guilt-trip you

[cto10121]

Finished watching that long-ass but well-done Contrapoints video on Twilight and it wasn’t clownish!!! It was literate!!! For once!!! Still, I have des Notes(tm):

Not sophisticated people like Contrapoints mixing up movie and book canon willy-nilly. 😑 Some of her analysis and argument, then, is greatly weakened by this, especially when she mentions Bella’s nightmare in Breaking Dawn (very different film vs. movie). Make it clear which one you’re talking about, sis!!!

By that token, her claim that the Port Angeles scene and the James fight in the ballet studio are examples of disavowal is not held up by the books. The would-be rapists are not described in any way, much less erotically; the focus is on Edward’s rescue and his fury. James is not even described as typically beautiful, actually average, and his framing is that of a typical villain

Re: Disavowal theory, Contrapoints misses the fact that Bella is a parentified teen of working class parents. There is even an in-canon explanation re: Midnight Sun as to why she doesn’t like birthdays (spoiler: her mother just dngaf). So Bella’s distaste for attention and parties and money is not an affectation or maidenly disavowal. It is a character weakness stemming from neglect. Her character arc is to accept her worth and to move away from disavowal and play-acting modesty, embracing her true self

She greatly undersells how much Twilight subverts typical gender roles and conventions. It’s Bella who wants vampirism, Bella who wants sex from Edward, Bella who comes up with plans and solutions, Bella who saved Edward. It’s Bella whose mind can’t be penetrated or manipulated, who develops an interest in motorcycles and loves her truck. Vampire Bella may be fully realized in her autonomy both physically and socially, but Human Bella did well with what she could do and worked hard to reach her goals (vampirism, sex with Edward). She was only physically weak.

Twilight also subverts the B&B/predator-prey dynamic just as much as it eroticizes it. Bella and Edward personality-wise are much more alike than different (there is definitely several shades of Romeo and Juliet there), so their physical inequality ends up being yet another obstacle to their romance rather than an inherent part of their dynamic. A big chunk of the reason why Bella wants to be a vampire so badly is because she knows it’s the only way to truly be with Edward, that this man-of-steel-woman-of-tissue situation cannot continue. The end of series sees Bella and Edward as explicit equals

Also, also, from the way the vampires are written in Twilight, becoming a vampire can be interpreted as very much an escape from patriarchal life. No need to cook or clean, male vampires can’t get you pregnant, and even if a male vampire threatens you, you have your own power to fend them off. Sex-based discrimination is impossible in the vampiric world. Only individual cases of misogyny can exist. So there’s that

For that token, there were and are hundreds of romance novels and erotica that do—or try to do—the same thing as Twilight. Before Twilight there was the Vampire Diaries and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And yet, while highly popular, none of these were as great a phenomenon as Twilight. Unfortunately, Contrapoints doesn’t really delve into what makes Twilight different from the world of romance and erotica, only why it was a success

A+ meta on how romance novels work. It’s a little no duh, but she explains it so well and eloquently

The toxic radfem/political lesbianism theory section explains the pearl-clutching around Twilight and Fifty Shades and misunderstandings about Twilight but did we really need a whole section on toxic radfem theory???? Otoh, I agree that bad intellectual ideas are super entertaining

Pamela discourse!!! Yeah, I learned all about that in my Development of the Novel course, it’s all good ☕️. But I disagree slightly with Contrapoints in that Twilight is not following that tradition. Bella does have virtue and purity signifiers; in many ways she falls under the Beautiful Maiden(tm) trope. But once again, Meyer gives it a twist in that Bella is portrayed as a modern agnostic girl who wants Edward’s D—preferably without marriage. And the narrative essentially cheers her on. Pamela would never

That Kristen Stewart interview where she says she didn’t feel like she was playing a character made me die inside and wonder if she has read the books. Contrapoints implicitly agreeing with her that Bella is a placeholder character made me die inside and wonder if she has truly read the books

Not Contrapoints actually agreeing with St. Augustine, that African-intellectual-turned-religious-dumbass 😑 Yeah, no, I do not agree that lust is inherently perverted. For one thing, what is “perversion” and what is “normal”? Spoiler alert: It basically all comes down to cultural and religious bias. It’s true that the sex act involves crossing boundaries and penetration of some form, but that in and of itself not inherently violent. You can hurt yourself exercising; doesn’t mean it’s something horribly violent!!! So yeah, there’s my fuck-St-Augustine rant for the day

[triviallytrue]

I'm going to be entirely honest.

What tf is a wordcel

short answer: a while back some random internet discourser came up with "shape rotator vs wordcel" as a dichotomy between STEM/humanities people. then Jordan Peterson used it and it broke containment and now it comes up randomly.

personally i hate these terms and wish they were scrubbed from the internet

[scarubaru]

I've never read anything by Charles Taylor, but based on this review I have a few disagreements:

He worries about the modern conception of the self—what he has called “the punctual self”—which he takes to be rooted in Enlightenment thought, and about the primacy it accords to autonomy, reason, and individual rights.

Really don't like that. Ok autonomy, reason and individual rights should be secondary to what, exactly?

We once lived in an “enchanted” universe of agreed-upon meaning and common purpose, where we looked at the night sky and felt that each object was shaped with significance by a God-given order. Now we live in the modern world the Enlightenment produced—one of fragmented belief and broken purposes, where no God superintends the cosmos, common agreement on meaning is no longer possible, and all you can do with the moon is measure it.

I'm making a critique of a writer through another writer's critique here, so maybe that's not fair, and maybe Adam Gopnik's reading of Charles Taylor is producing a skewed version of what the man is really about. But the notion that we would be better off by having our individual reasoning of the world subsumed by appeal to a sense of 'enchantment', and that this enchantment is in turn the product of a God-like authority's design strikes me as both terribly regressive and naïve.

Also, not to make this another STEM vs Humanities discourse post, but why is it such a common refrain that understanding the physical world makes it less enchanting? Do the people who make these claims ever bother to study, say, celestial mechanics, and think 'wow, it's pretty amazing that a theoretical framework established over 300 years ago allows to not only predict the motion of the planets, but also to land on the moon?' Like yeah, we can do a bit more with the moon than just measure it. We can go there. I don't know, but I feel there are plenty of scientists and engineers who deeply appreciate art, but not many writers and philosophers who do the same for say, physics or chemistry.

The last fifty pages of “Cosmic Connections” pivot decisively from the intricacies of poetic imagination to the specifics of contemporary American and Canadian (and, secondarily, European) politics—toward the social interspace, so to speak. A long section turns to questions of white supremacy, civil rights, national identity, the rise of Trumpist populism, and so on. A successful self-governing republic, Taylor believes, requires a community of shared purpose and a common space of deliberation. Antagonistic groups must go beyond the narrow aspiration of winning a contest against adversaries and come to one another with a sense of mutual recognition and regard. And the people best able to make this case, in Taylor’s view, “are people who are deeply rooted in their spiritual sources, often religious.”

Yes, we could certainly solve our ideological divides if disparate groups could establish consensus. I am just deeply skeptical that this consensus is attainable through increased religion and spirituality. This feels like an appeal to the notion that religion, and only religion, inevitably establishes social cohesion. I don't think such a notion forms the basis for a liberal society. I don't think it is necessary or wise to have to appeal to divine authority to establish moral norms and regard people you disagree with as people.

Again, I'm writing all this through another writer's view of Taylor, but if this is an accurate view of his ideas, I disagree with those ideas strongly as regards to politics and the natural world.

[fallowhearth]

Every so often the old humanities vs stem education discourse comes around again, sometimes with new flavours like compulsory humanities classes would stop weapons manufacturers, or only stem grads can get jobs, or whatever the new thing is. And as someone who has studied in both fields, the whole argument is so overegged and pointless. They're not that different!

I started with a Biology degree, transferred to a double Arts Sciences program, completed most of Science, but didn't like the day-to-day work of careers in Bio so I completed only the Arts (History) degree. I then did postgraduate study in History, but again did not like the day-to-day work. During this time I did however get a related parttime job with work I liked very much, which led me circuitously to my current career in tech (which I also like very much). As you can see I had difficulties committing to a path. But I'm happy where I ended up.

The thing is - ok, the domain knowledge is different, but they both teach broadly equivalent soft skills. Your career post graduation is unlikely to use the domain knowledge but will use the soft skills. Also, it's been the norm for ages that students are expected to take classes outside of their main subject area. Stem students take humanities classes all the time. Once they've understood the different requirements for writing style etc, they can and do succeed in those classes. And the reverse is also true. Undergraduate classes are just not that harrowing.

Stem students taking humanities classes do not, however, magically acquire Good Politics (whatever that means to the discourser). Unfortunately neither do humanities students! I heard (and participated in and led) a lot of deeply stupid class discussions! Arts is also, like, not a hard degree to get into in most places. You have a broad range of aptitudes and preparednesses and then a broad range of outcomes in terms of how much benefit the student got from the material (and the former and latter aren't straightforwardly connected). Ps get degrees!

It's also awful when people imply that any kind of university education is necessary for someone to be a good person, or an interesting person, or whatever else. I enjoyed it, am glad I did it, but there are plenty of other people who spent their time on other worthwhile things. They're not deficient in some way because they prioritised other things, or were forced by circumstance to make other choices. Also, both the soft skills and domain knowledge can be acquired in other ways. People can and do self-teach. Or learn on the job. Or any number of other means of acquiring the same stuff I got via higher ed. You'd also be amazed at how many people graduate without having learned any of that. Many students functionally major in doing drugs and hanging out (somewhat guilty myself).

I just wish people would stop trying to turn stem and humanities into oppositional categories. They broadly overlap in practice.

[errant-heron]

this frame, from the 1973 film O Lucky Man!, seen on the same day as some more voting vs political extremism posting, unpleasantly reminded me that nothing new has been said ever. anyway did you know they were having STEM vs humanities discourse in the 1880s? and along essentially the same lines as today.

given that these, so possibly many, recurrent internet arguments are themselves recurrences of the discourses of 50 or 150 years ago, I have had a change of heart: everyone should be required to have a thorough grounding in literature, in the broader sense of Matthew Arnold. this is not because it will make them a better person or give them the tools to appreciate their place in our world, but because a person who has studied the arguments of the past might feel the need to add something new before necro-ing them

[saulwexler]

humanities vs STEM discourse has never been good. STEM degrees are similar to trade school or traditional apprenticeship which might give a clearer path when applying to a first job (more tailored resume, less shit to filter through) but it’s not automatic financial upper hand. pay is pretty low without grad school.

this is for bachelors though. getting a humanities phd would scare the shit out of me 😭

[sunspira]

i often feel like the male socialization claim against trans women is bullshit but also has some "passing privilege" discourse aspects to it to unpack. and yet the specific damage and suffering of someone forced to pass and hide is sometimes HARDER to put into words and eats her from the inside out more insidiously and with less support systems for it or even Words for it just having words for misogyny can help us cope with the oppression be heard and validated and fight it when when youre a cis woman and have always be sure and assured that you are. that's why so many trans women are facing material oppression like poverty and mental illness (like actual mental illness caused by lifelong pain and trauma not the transphobic idea). tho even then there are such insidious, invisible aspects of misogyny that all women even we as cis girls are still trying to identify unpack and uplift each other out of so it's still a concern that runs deep. for me a lack of girls in stem is still so insidious and i would even give priority to helping more cis girls into stem because that pipeline to arts and humanities (and domestication) vs stem is pushed on kids and adolescents more subtly than the more obvious blantant misogyny. they don't outright say "oh you look like a boy to me you should work on computers" it comes in the form of subtle praise for one academic or life skill and subtle discouragement for another academic or life skill from adults who assigned your gender. so we say ya ok cool :) they're so proud of me :) not even cis women have put good words to it yet or figured out a good fight for it so we aren't really better off than trans girls in this aspect as we are on like more well established fights like autonomy in reproductive health or the right to vote or work

the passing privilege discourse thing to me isvery similar to a white passing person of color or a person with an invisible illness or disability or a gay guy who has a traditionally masculine personality. like a fem gay guy who was considered obviously gay since birth have problems that people who can kinda hide it don't and their childhood homophobia experiences were so different. tho still homophobia. but the people who can hide it are also forced to hide it, even from themselves!!?!. trans girls in childhood aren't visible girls until they come out. being closeted isn't a privilege but we know that invisibility vs hyper visibility are different kinds of pain that don't really counteract each other. also to be clear it's the aspect of being a GIRL that is invisible. often a trans girl is very visibly marginalized for not conforming to whatever a boy ks supposed to be. tho feminine boys and girls still have different experiences under misogyny where someone seen as a feminine boy is the indirect target. and how horrific that must be to homophobically / patriachically marginalized for not being the right kind of boy and on top of that like IM NOT EVEN A BOY LEAVE ME ALONE. it must be hell. it's not supposed to be about how easy it was for trans girls for fucks sake that's so deluded or that trans girls had the same experiences as cis het boys. it is usually just helpful to look at like opportunities and protections afforded to you by not being a visible girl like Mulan being encouraged and taken more seriously as Ping stuff like that is actually very healing to go over in your mind and process.

for me it was the dichotomy of having a serious but invisible childhood neurological disorder or difference but never being diagnosed until late in life early adulthood because i had atypical symptoms and was good in school. and i can't tell you how important it is formatively to be good in school and be able to blend in well enough to not get called out of class for extra help and not get bullied. but also the lack of help and slow invisible descent into madness and detachment from myself and denial of my own emotions and stressors and detachment from my soul while 24/7 masking and confusion every time i felt differently from what was expected like averse and avoidant and anxious or overwhelmed over "abnormal" things, or struggled with something that should be easy for "someone like me", i would just self gaslight and self deny and self blame. culminating in complete and total nervous mental breakdown at like 21 and at least a decade of recovery. with all that of COURSE i am sometimes gripped by envy of people who were diagnosed as young children as intended and spent their whole life knowing the most simple neurodivergent stuff about themselves like sensory overload because without that label when experiencing sensory overload i'm telling you it just seems like random bipolar mood swings, no wonder they put me on lithium. it was hell. and yet when i look at neurdivergent people who are so much more openly and obviously impaired than me and that increased NEED and severity is part of the reason they were dx'd in the first place, who are forced into abusive aba therapy and go nonverbal and want a relationship but struggle to connect with people irl or even go out or be allowed to go out. well i would never pretend like i have it harder in that regard even tho the experience of being undiagnosed were awful. not the cleanest comparison tho but

that hypervisibility vs invisibility thing. and the ramifications of being abused or controlled and silenced for a visible marginalization vs the life long debilitating scars and damage done by suppressed repressed and gaslighted marginalization is how i look at cis girls childhoods vs trans girls childhoods. cis hypervisible girlhood vs trans invisible girlhood. is this anything

[quasi-normalcy]

Can I just say,

as someone with multiple degrees in physics, history, and literature currently pursuing a PhD in science and technology studies,

that all of the "STEM vs. humanities" discourse on this website is fucking Terrible and you should be embarrassed of yourselves.

[problematic-fodlan]

I skipped over Fates so I won't comment on it, but I would argue the issue with Engage and why it is criticized so much isn't solely because of the quality of its writing, but also what kind of story the game tells to begin with and the obvious dissatisfaction fans felt with it. It is at its core the story about good dragons fighting against evil dragons plain and simple, supported by a cast of quirky characters.

3 Houses stands in such a contrast to it not only because of its strong writing and character depth, I'm a 3 Houses Fan so I will not hide around the bush here, but because in contrast it is a story fundamentally about very human conflicts. It is a story about nations fighting each other, about the role the church of the land should play in its future and the conflicting ideals every side represents. Even the Dragons of the games are defined by very human emotions, motivations and shortcomings which explain their actions and goals.

After all, this is were all the discourse stems from, the entire story is centered around each of its major players having their own motivations and believes which form the ethics and values of their respective route, with the player having to church themselves which one they deem correct and worth fighting for. It also leads to a game where during the central conflict, you have to fight and kill human characters with their own ideals, hopes and nuances which you get to know more or less during the lead up to the war. This alone makes it very different from Engages war, where you mostly fight against some mindless undead goons.

There is also the way how the world itself plays a wastly different role in 3 Houses than it does in Engage. Lets be real here, the kingdoms in Engage are basically just different theme parks for the party to traverse and recruit new members from while it does its quest. Meanwhile Fodlan becomes more like its own character through the games cast, the way they are all affected by the continent or its nations history, politics, religion or cultural values, which affect every member of its cast in some way or the other. Even characters who are considered more simplistic like Raphael have their lives shaped by the culture of rivaling and plotting nobles inside of Leicester.

There is also a reason why the those who slither in the dark stand out so much negatively inside of 3 Houses and become an element fans either try to pass over as much as possible or fix inside of Fanfics, because they are the only element that lacks this very human nuances, they are the only faction you can't empathize or agree with.

And I think it boils down to these elements of what make 3 Houses and Engage fundamentally different being also the reason why Engage is so controversial, because looking at the reception its clear that 3 Houses scratches an itch a majority of Fire Emblem players have while Engage simply does not. The whole Engage vs 3 Houses discourse as well as 3 Houses bigger success and more positive legacy shows that a majority just want Fire Emblem to deal more with down to earth human conflicts and political drama.

-

[littlelakitu]

some inchoate thoughts sprouting from the earlier post/retweet from justsomeantifas and some other STEM vs. humanities–themed discourse

"STEM" as a USA imperial project which frames the way they're taught, propagandized

interest or lack of interest in STEM vs. humanities as influenced by ones alignment with/against power structures as framed by said political project. and the ways that plays with race, gender, and so on. "girls in STEM" having the same resonances as "women business leaders"

the trope of engineers being reactionary—feels better explained by this alignment than by inherent skillset of engineering?

humanities as inherently or uniquely building critical thinking (tech guys being nazis -> "this is why we need english class")—some problems i have with this:

personal experience: i just did not learn critical thinking in my humanities classes

relatedly, i'm a bit anti-school/anti-teacher in that i don't really believe humanities curricula were historically conceived with critical thinking in mind nor do many teachers really point their ship in that direction

education/critical thinking/humanities don't make you a better person a priori. i mean duh but the idea of like, ah, if only nazis just read a book? it's very silly

critical thinking as a tool that applies to any subject. is it not critical thinking to evaluate whether an ecological intervention is worth it, looking at all the facts? is it not critical thinking to get a math word problem and judge how to apply calculus skills to it?

"humanities" also often focusing on lower-level skill-building. learning music scales, diagramming sentences, memorizing historical dates, conjugating spanish verbs

"humanities" and "STEM" being somewhat incoherent (political!) categories in the first place. which box do we put linguistics in? logic?

anyway, math is beautiful and i want to have more of it in my life

[thatsactuallywrong]

I understand that your vote was motivated by strong convictions about the future of the country, but I think there are a few points here that deserve a closer look:

Trump as a Savior: You mention voting for Trump to 'save this great nation from the corrupt politicians who have governed us for decades,' yet Trump himself was part of the political establishment for years, including during his presidency. The idea of him as an outsider challenging the system is complicated by the fact that he had significant influence over key political and institutional decisions during his time in office. How does this square with the notion of him being an 'outsider'?

Trump’s Own Role in the Negative Narrative: While you argue that the media has 'framed a negative reality of Trump,' it’s important to acknowledge that Trump’s own words and actions have contributed to his image. He’s often used divisive rhetoric, which has fueled public distrust and division. It’s easy to blame the media, but his inflammatory language has been a significant factor in shaping how he’s viewed.

The 'Tried to Kill Him' Claim: The statement that Trump has been 'tried to be killed multiple times' is, to put it mildly, laughable. The first shooter was a registered Republican, and the second was someone unaffiliated with a party but who voted for Trump in 2016. This oversimplified narrative about political persecution fails to address the complexity of such incidents and risks distorting the actual motivations of the individuals involved.

Spending Billions on a Campaign of Hate and Division: The claim that 'they spent billions of dollars on a campaign based on hate and division' seems to ignore the fact that Trump himself has often employed rhetoric that divides the country. His words have at times been the source of the very division he critiques, whether through personal attacks, dismissive comments about entire groups of people, or fostering an 'us vs. them' mentality. It’s not just the media, but his own actions that have stoked these fires.

Media Bias and Free Speech: The desire for 'truth and nonpartisan news' is something many share, but Trump’s relationship with the media has been anything but neutral. He’s consistently elevated certain news outlets while attacking others, which undermines the idea of fostering objective journalism. His approach to media and information isn’t about creating a more balanced discourse—it’s about controlling the narrative that suits his agenda.

Immigration and National Security: While it’s important to have a secure border and prioritize lawful immigration, the rhetoric around 'hardworking Americans' versus 'illegal immigrants' can overlook the broader contributions immigrants, both documented and undocumented, make to the economy and society. We should balance national security with compassion and fairness in how we treat people.

Gender and Ideology: Gender issues are complex, but framing gender diversity as a 'mental health condition' rather than recognizing it as part of the natural diversity of human experience can be harmful and stigmatizing. Inclusivity and respect for all individuals, including those who don’t conform to traditional gender norms, can coexist with a recognition of biological sex.

Election Integrity and Censorship: The focus on 'election integrity' is important, but the 2020 election was thoroughly examined, and multiple audits confirmed its legitimacy. Similarly, while social media platforms need to balance free speech with the need to curb misinformation, it’s important to note that concerns about censorship often stem from attempts to suppress disinformation, which can endanger public trust and safety.

[dandelionmoss]

in the stem vs humanities discourse i'm generally on the stem side but i understand why people are like "actually literature teaches critical thinking and it's the most valuable thing you can learn about". when faced with the view that the only things you're good at are worthless and you should be good at math instead, you can either give in and acknowledge your worthlessness or you can argue about it. and i'm doing the former but it fucking sucks so i understand the defensiveness