Nobody, stated explicitly, but the word “progress” links a lot of those dimensions together, so it’s easy to think, functionally, as if they are. Wiggins and all that.
There’s a difference between thinking as if dimensions are linked together, and thinking as if there’s “some cosmic niceness built into the universe that makes everything improve monotonically along every dimension at once” (emphasis mine). Switching between attacking moderate and extreme versions of the same claim is classic logical rudeness.
This ain’t the UR comment section, dude; here we assume responsibility when saying smug things. Give me proof that “Whig history” (assuming you mean modern historical science taught by liberal universities) ignores or discounts the natural chaos and contradictions of life in a way that’s worse than other human narratives.
It’s not the peak of human sanity, but unless you have evidence of its unique badness, take that back.
I was going to upvote this for its opposition to one-line, smug comments. However, your insistence that RomeoStevens’ example must be of something uniquely bad spoiled it. I think albeola was just calling for an example to show that OP was strawmanning.
Who believes this?
Nobody, stated explicitly, but the word “progress” links a lot of those dimensions together, so it’s easy to think, functionally, as if they are. Wiggins and all that.
There’s a difference between thinking as if dimensions are linked together, and thinking as if there’s “some cosmic niceness built into the universe that makes everything improve monotonically along every dimension at once” (emphasis mine). Switching between attacking moderate and extreme versions of the same claim is classic logical rudeness.
whig history? shrug
This ain’t the UR comment section, dude; here we assume responsibility when saying smug things. Give me proof that “Whig history” (assuming you mean modern historical science taught by liberal universities) ignores or discounts the natural chaos and contradictions of life in a way that’s worse than other human narratives.
It’s not the peak of human sanity, but unless you have evidence of its unique badness, take that back.
I was going to upvote this for its opposition to one-line, smug comments. However, your insistence that RomeoStevens’ example must be of something uniquely bad spoiled it. I think albeola was just calling for an example to show that OP was strawmanning.
Also, Whig history does not mean what you seem to think it means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history
No. The person above me asked for an example. I gave a possible example I’m not sure of, hence the question mark and shrug.
Huh? Fair enough. My sarcasm detector must be uncalibrated then. Sorry about that, I’ll retract.