Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

Emotional reactions & personal experiences

• Many express sadness at his health decline and anticipate his death soon given age and stroke.
• Numerous commenters share stories of cold‑emailing him over decades and receiving thoughtful, rapid replies, even from outside his institutions.
• He is praised for accessibility, patience with “naive” questions, and willingness to engage with non‑elites and students.
• Some describe quasi‑parasocial attachment built from years of watching his talks and interviews.

Intellectual legacy

• Widely lauded as an “intellectual giant” in linguistics, cognitive science, and political thought.
• Manufacturing Consent and The Fateful Triangle are cited as foundational for understanding media and US foreign policy; some suggest they should be school reading.
• Others note his influence on anarchism/libertarian socialism, critiques of imperialism, and skepticism of “rules‑based order.”

Linguistics, universal grammar & AI

• Debate over whether his “innate/universal grammar” hypothesis still holds.
• Several argue humans’ extreme data‑efficiency vs. LLMs implies innate structure; others say this is unproven or outdated.
• Discussion that LLM success doesn’t refute innate grammar because they learn differently and with far more data.
• Some see transformers as having an architectural “bias” analogous to innate grammar; others say UG is hard to falsify.

Political views & support

• Admirers emphasize his consistent anti‑war, anti‑imperialist stance, critique of US elites, and “moral courage.”
• His framework—suspicion of hierarchy, focus on one’s own state’s crimes, and media filtration—resonates with many, especially those disillusioned with official histories.

Major controversies & criticisms

• Strong criticism for positions on Cambodia, Bosnia/Serbia, and later Russia/Ukraine and NATO; accusations include genocide denial/minimization and apologetics for anti‑US regimes.
• Detailed back‑and‑forth over his Cambodia writings: whether he denied genocide, was misled by bad data, later recanted, or systematically cherry‑picked and distorted sources.
• Long, heated subthreads on whether NATO expansion “caused” or contributed to Russia’s invasion, whether the war is a “NATO proxy,” and whether his framing assigns undue blame to the West and erases Ukrainian agency.
• Some argue his anti‑US focus blinds him to other imperialisms; others defend his method of prioritizing critique of one’s own state.
• Additional skepticism raised over his engagements with Epstein and his stances on Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.

Meta & regional perspectives

• Commenters from Eastern Europe note he is often disliked there for underplaying their fears of Russian domination and opposing NATO expansion they see as essential.
• A few remark that the HN thread itself was heavily downvoted, suggesting community polarization.