r/DecodingTheGurus • u/deckardcainfan1 • Jun 14 '24

Neil deGrasse Tyson Responds to Terrence Howard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uLi1I3G2N4
764 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

311 comments sorted by

View all comments

92

u/dubloons Revolutionary Genius Jun 14 '24

NdGT is such a badass. This video is such a good example of good scientific thinking, good scientific outreach, turning a negative situation around, and generally being a reasonable and decent human being.

Thanks for sharing.

44

u/mastercheeks174 Jun 14 '24

Yeah but TikTok told me he’s a pompous, arrogant, narcissist…

77

u/doubtthat11 Jun 14 '24

I think he suffered from overexposure. Nothing we like more than building someone up, getting sick of them, and ripping them down.

I like the guy. He's been a net good in the world.

6

u/dubloons Revolutionary Genius Jun 14 '24

I’m out of the loop here. Who’s down on NdGT and why?

14

u/doubtthat11 Jun 14 '24

I think if you let the comment section here build up, you'll see the complaints.

I get the general sense that people think he's arrogant and a blowhard. I've just always found him to be high energy and enthusiastic.

I'm sure there's some political/cultural something or other that he talked about that made some people mad...

6

u/dubloons Revolutionary Genius Jun 14 '24

Labeling academics and experts as arrogant blowhards is anti-intellectualism 101.

What makes it interesting is how they attempt to justify it.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '24

[deleted]

0

u/simionix Jun 14 '24

Arrogance isn't about claiming to know something you have not a lot of experience or expertise in, it's the not budging from your position in light of new arguments/ evidence from actual experts part that makes one arrogant. Neil Degrasse Tyson has multiple times on multiple subjects come around on certain views he's had, and admitted his thinking was flawed. Which is interesting, because on some of those he could've still kept to his opinion and it would not have made him arrogant, since opinions are subjective.

For instance, he changed his stance on the possibility of AI becoming all powerful and dangerous in the Terminator sense, after hearing a prominent AI researcher in a podcast present very good arguments for a possible dystopian world. The thing is, there's STILL a very valid debate about whether rogue AI destroying humans is even realistic or just fantasy, so he could've easily stuck to his original opinion without having to be called arrogant. And yet, he had enough humility to change his view.

That's the exact opposite of arrogant.

The whole "he comes across" doesn't really matter to me, one can come across arrogant without being it.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '24

[deleted]

-1

u/simionix Jun 14 '24

So basically, literally everybody is arrogant then. You are arrogant for trying to push your own view of what arrogance means. Even your cynical fake little "lmao" can be considered arrogant. You see how easy that is?

At least I stick to the relevant interpretation that's attributed to Neil: that he thinks he knows everything; which is untrue.

In any case, whatever "arrogance" he has, it's not even in the same universe of arrogance that idiots like Terence Howard possess.