The solution to postmodernism and relativism, explained in a series of tweets. See 🧵🧵🧵beginning below.

1. Since all tyrannies are based on dogmas, that is, on fundamental statements of absolute fact, and since all dogmas are based on lies, it behooves us first to seek for truth, and freedom will not be far away. And the truth is ... that we know nothing.
2. Objectively speaking, we know nothing at all. Any system of intellectual thought--whether it be science, logic, religion, or philosophy--is based on certain fundamental ideas or axioms which are assumed, but which cannot be
proved. This is the grave of all positivism.
3. We assume, but we do not KNOW (objectively speaking), that there is a real and objective world outside our own minds. Ultimately, we do not know what we are, or what
the world is.
4. Further, if there is a real world apart from ourselves, we
cannot know what that is; all we can know is what we perceive and theorize it to be.
5. Heretofore, these evidentiary postulates, or similar ones, their matters cognate, and the objective reality of our inability to achieve 100% objectivity, have been misused and wrangled to put forth notions such as postmodernism, moral relativism, and the like.
6. I am about to postulate the way out from that, based entirely upon the assumption of the four postulates being evidentiary truths themselves.
7. To do so is by no means at all to attribute any level of philosophical objectivity or objective reality to them OR to my forthcoming postulate; we are being 100% self-consistent in that here.
8. Simply observe: what works, versus what does not.

This is what actual science does when developing a hypothesis. Actual scientific method bases its hypotheses upon what has demonstrably WORKED and withstood the test of time in doing so.
9. What derives consistent results? What proves itself in the field of application and activity? What holds together cohesively as opposed to falling apart and disintegrating into chaos?

And yet ... even chaos has its role to play ...
10. Because reality itself is a layered sandwich of order and chaos. Order is determinate; chaos is indeterminate. Therefore order is resolute in nature; chaos is where possibilities, not yet filtered or selected, reside.
11. A mind irresolute disintegrates into madness; therefore we observe "order out of chaos" to be the active principle upon which the fabric of reality is woven.
(to be continued)
Working addendum pending continuation:
(A) All religious systems lay claim upon absolute / objective truth. However, as there is no method to remove one's own subjective brain & experience from the equation, there is no way to verify said claim.
@threadreaderapp unroll please

More from Twitter

This is why I'm not a critic of "cancel culture." It's crucial to impose social costs for the breech of key social norms. The lesson of overreaction is that we need to recalibrate judgment to get it right next time, not that we need a lot more bad judgment in the other direction.


Obviously, people will disagree about which norms are important, about how bad it is to violate them, and thus about how severe the social cost ought to be. That's just pluralism, man, and it's good.

It's important to openly talk through these substantive differences, which is why derailing these conversations with hand-waving moral panic about "cancel culture" is obnoxious and illiberal.

Screaming "cancel culture!" when somebody pays a social costs other people have been fighting hard to get others to see as necessary is often just a way to declare, with no argument, that the sanction in question was not only unnecessary but in breach of a more important norm.

It's impossible to uphold social norms without social sanctions, so obviously anti-cancelers are going to want to impose a social cost on people they see as imposing unjustly steep social costs on others.
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Dependency Confusion; Adam Curtis on criti-hype; Catalytic converter theft; Apple puts North Dakota on blast; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/Osts9lAjPo

#Pluralistic

1/


This weekend, I'll be participating in Boskone 58, Boston's annual sf convention, where I'm doing panels and a reading.

https://t.co/2LfFssVcZQ

2/


Dependency Confusion: A completely wild supply-chain hack.

https://t.co/TDRNHUX0Ug

3/


Adam Curtis on criti-hype: Big Tech as an epiphenomenon of sociopathic mediocrity, not supergenius.

https://t.co/MYmHOosTk3

4/


Catalytic converter theft: Rhodium at $21,900/oz.

https://t.co/SDMAXrQwdd

5/
1/

Thinking about this tweetstorm, one of the issues I’ve run into as an engineering leader is what to call the software engineering stuff that’s “agile” given that the Agile Community(tm) has killed the brand.


2/

And by & large, I’ve taken to call it “DevOps”, because the DevOps community have taken up much of the mantle @KentBeck & the XP community started with. & Kent has independently focused on safe small changes deployed to production. Which is DevOps.

3/

Much of the art here is making changes safe enough to deploy to production continuously. And to do that, we need to design incrementally, test obsessively, take architecture seriously so we decompose dependencies. & we need to automate everything & do it all the time.

4/

It turns out that this is what Kent & @RonJeffries @GeePawHill & many other folks have been nattering on about & being broadly misunderstood. @KentBeck has some brilliant essays (scattered across FB & his site alas) & @GeePawHill has amazing twitter threads on the topic

5/

When you look at *what it takes* to get to the DORA measures that @nicolefv & team write about in Accelerate, the input metrics for the DORA outputs, it’s making small changes safe.

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This is NONSENSE. The people who take photos with their books on instagram are known to be voracious readers who graciously take time to review books and recommend them to their followers. Part of their medium is to take elaborate, beautiful photos of books. Die mad, Guardian.


THEY DO READ THEM, YOU JUDGY, RACOON-PICKED TRASH BIN


If you come for Bookstagram, i will fight you.

In appreciation, here are some of my favourite bookstagrams of my books: (photos by lit_nerd37, mybookacademy, bookswrotemystory, and scorpio_books)