[HN Gopher] Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life
___________________________________________________________________
Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life
Author : Ariarule
Score : 404 points
Date : 2021-12-26 15:00 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.epsilontheory.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.epsilontheory.com)
| giantg2 wrote:
| Just remember, society will have an implict bias against anyone
| is is not like them. I happen to fit many of the suggestions in
| the list and it has gotten me nowhere.
| em-bee wrote:
| what makes you think that getting nowhere is caused by you
| doing as the article suggest?
|
| i am just curious here, not judging. where do you want to get,
| and what do you think it takes to get there?
|
| i too thought that most of the points applied to me and my
| feeling was that i would be miserable if they didn't. i can't
| in fact imagine living another way. this is me, and i am going
| to make the most of it, regardless what others think.
|
| (to all the commenters who suggest that this list makes for a
| miserable life: if that's the case then this list is not for
| you. it's for those of us who don't enjoy following others)
|
| i'd like to share one specific experience that seems relevant.
| in highschool i was a contrarian. a quiet one who expressed
| this by wearing different things than everyone else. at one
| point i realized that if everyone else started to copy my style
| then i would change my own style, and that meant that my style
| was just as dependent on others as was everyone elses.
|
| that realization made me stop being a contrarian and instead i
| simply chose a new style that i could enjoy on its own
| regardless whether it differentated me from anyone or not.
|
| so instead of asking: will this differentiate me from others?,
| i am asking: is this comfortable for me? is this something i
| want? does this fit into my principles of life? ...
| giantg2 wrote:
| Being contrarian and being anti-mimetic are different things.
|
| The simple thing is that people who get promoted (or any
| other favorable thing) are the ones who share the most
| similarities with the person doing the promoting. I see this
| all the time at my company and in my life. This is even true
| in things like law and government (law enforcement and
| prosecutorial discretion).
|
| Just stop doing isn't necessarily an option. Why should one
| not be their true self, and how difficult and painful would
| that be? Some people are stuck between the options.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| It's gotten me nowhere as well but it has allowed me to be me,
| which is quite alright. I wasn't trying to get anywhere
| necessarily. But I was always comfortable with that.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's a painful existence to be oneself and see the negative
| consequences/treatment by society because of it.
| quesera wrote:
| It's also a painful existence to be someone else, and live
| an unfulfilled life.
|
| And it's a rewarding experience to be oneself and
| _eventually_ find the set /setting/companion/environment
| that correlates to you in a fulfilling way.
|
| Sometimes that's very difficult or impossible. It is never
| the easiest choice, but worthwhile things rarely are.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm going with impossible.
| quesera wrote:
| I won't deny the importance of luck.
|
| There are things one can do to increase their
| apportionment of luck in life, but outcomes are not
| guaranteed.
|
| I don't mean to be glib. Equanimity is required for
| lasting contentment. Equanimity comes more naturally with
| age.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yet equanimity alone will not bring contentment either.
| em-bee wrote:
| i don't want to pry, but if you don't mind, what kind of
| negative consequences are you experiencing?
|
| i too experience negative consequences, but these are owed
| to finding it difficult to make friends. however, i do not
| believe that this difficulty comes from doing what is
| suggested in the article but rather the reverse, the
| difficulty to make friends is something i grew up with, any
| behavioral quirks developed later as a consequence of not
| having friends.
|
| so in other words, the negative things you experience maybe
| don't come from being yourself but because you may be
| missing something else, something that may have had a hand
| in shaping who you are now.
| frontman1988 wrote:
| Most important in these times is to not get influenced by
| ubiquitous advertisement. Be that radio ads, youtube
| recommendations or highway billboards. One needs to be really
| careful to not let their subconscious get influenced. I
| personally make a list of most of the ads I see and don't buy
| stuff from those brands unless there is no alternative.
| 95014_refugee wrote:
| > "I think that a massive deficiency in religious literacy is
| causing confusion."
|
| In an article about selective anti-mimeticism, worship at the
| altar of self-oppressive mimicry. Too serious to be a joke, but
| the irony...
| grassgreener wrote:
| These are fantastic advices to turn into an arrogant insufferable
| person. I used to be that person, it's miserable. There is a lot
| of good in drinking the social kool aid and embracing our
| cultural quirks
| rglullis wrote:
| _The difference between the medicine and the poison is in the
| dosage._
|
| TFA states quite in the beginning that the point is not about
| becoming a contrarian, even less being a contrarian for the
| sake of being a contrarian. Seems like you are projecting quite
| a bit.
| cryptica wrote:
| > 20. Read Foreign Newspapers
|
| As someone who has lived in many different countries around the
| world. I can strongly relate to this point. Media in different
| countries cover mostly the same information but the angle is
| different. Watching the media of two different countries which
| are opposed to each other politically gives you a better general
| idea of what's going on. When you do that, you can easily see the
| spin/deception and you train yourself to spot it.
|
| There is always spin in the media. It's a bit like cross-
| examining two people in an argument; of course each individual
| will try to subtly twist the facts in their own favor. Nation
| states are no different; if anything, they're more consistent.
| prog_1 wrote:
| moderation is the key
|
| combine and synthesize the best of antifragility, postmodernism,
| dao te ching, science and what have you
|
| this article made step #2 of thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
| bluishgreen wrote:
| For an anti-mimetic article it could have used something other
| than a reverse sorted listicle format.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This reads like a Buzzfeed listicle for people who hate Buzzfeed
| listicles.
|
| By all means, please do read more books, consume less
| frivolously, watch old "under-rated" films, &c. But do it because
| you want to do it, not because some weirdo on the internet told
| you that it'll make you "counter-cultural."
| crowbahr wrote:
| Insisting that people should be more anti-mimetic and
| simultaneously calling humanity homo-religiouso (fundamentally
| religious), insisting that people don't read the Bible enough
| etc...
|
| Oh well. At least this goes into my pile of "read things you
| deeply disagree with".
| webdoodle wrote:
| Fantastic list, and was quite happy to see, I'm already doing
| most of these, many for most of my adult life. The big ones for
| me were I threw away my phone a couple years ago, and have
| essentially stopped using all social media. I also made an effort
| to go completely analog when hiking, something I do daily, for
| instance barometric altimeter and contour maps vs gps/google
| maps.
|
| There are 2 that I weren't on my radar at all though, and will
| take them to heart and work them into my lifestyle: "Return Anger
| with Kindness" and "Forgive Someone. Repeat.". These are really
| hard in today's divisive world, but someone has to take the first
| step.
|
| Thanks for putting together a wonderful list.
| FourthProtocol wrote:
| _#13. Social Media with a Purpose_ made me pause - I have two
| Instagram accounts, and a Facebook account.
|
| Instagram 1 is for family and friends. It's snapshots of daily
| life for family and friends all over the world.
|
| Instagram 2 is for others that like me enjoy making radio-
| controlled replica cars and trucks from flat sheets of styrene.
|
| Facebook is to let people who know me find me.
|
| Why would one NOT have a reason for social media? Anything as
| mundane as keeping up with distant friends and family is reason
| enough, no? And of course that's going to forever remain mimetic
| unless you're a business. That's why there's the word "social" in
| social media, or did I miss the boat?
|
| TikTok for entertainment. Twitter to be heard... I can't believe
| one would have any kind of social media account without a
| purpose. Even if it's showing off your wealth, or pretending to
| be something you're not - they're all reasons, no?
| nulbyte wrote:
| > If you have a vague answer, dial it in immediately.
|
| I think this covers most people's use of social media. Many at
| best have a vague notion of why they are on social media, or at
| worst have not even considered the possibility of not
| participating. "With a purpose" to me suggests forethought:
| Think about why you are on social media before participating
| (or before your next interaction), if you haven't thought much
| of it before. This is very different from coming up reasons
| after the fact, which I think is far more common.
| FourthProtocol wrote:
| Not sure it needs to be dialled in for social media. If you
| want to achieve a result like monetisation then yes, but then
| it's no longer social, it's just become an income-related
| activity (job!!) and is no longer social media -- it's now a
| tool to achieve a non-social media goal.
|
| A counter case -- for sure as a consultant at McKinsey,
| umlaut or Accenture you'll write out a communications plan in
| which you detail and map project stakeholders, places/times
| of project news and briefings, publicity, dealing with
| external inquiries and so on. That's a very, very specific
| and detailed set of requirements for what boils down to
| social media at corporate level.
|
| Way over the top for Jane and Joe Average. For whom "keep in
| touch with friends and family" is specific. For many the
| notion of not participating is unthinkable - becuase THAT's
| where all their family and friends are. And so it requires no
| additional pontification, I'd think.
|
| What might an example of a loftier, more dialled-in purpose
| be?
| nulbyte wrote:
| I don't think dialed-in has to be lofty. Keeping in touch
| with family is a perfectly fine reason. My point, and I
| think the point of the author, is that thinking about it
| before, not after, offers an opportunity to deepen your
| understanding.
|
| For the longest time, those in my circle who used Facebook
| to "keep in touch" really didn't. Sending me an apple on
| the latest farm game isn't a genuine interaction to me. It
| was only after I quit that close friends finally got the
| hint that Facebook was not a good way to reach out to me,
| despite explicitly saying it many times before.
|
| For those for whom not participating is presently
| unthinkable, maybe thinking it over would do some good.
| That doesn't necessitate changing one's choice in the end,
| but considering it can be useful in and of itself. Family
| and friends are not only on Facebook. They have a real
| presence in the real world. Even if one chooses to stay on
| Facebook or whatever social media du jour, realizing this
| can be immensely helpful.
| xrd wrote:
| Isn't hacker news, for all the excitement about mimetics, just
| another form of Instagram? Aren't we all just here for all the
| things listed in that article?
|
| Isn't the internet itself, as a giant copy machine, the opposite
| of the goals of a mimetic life?
|
| Maybe this says a lot more about how I approach HN than anyone
| else. I truly love this community and the ideas put forth by
| Girard are so interesting. But, it makes me wonder if by pursuing
| them I'm just following the herd anyway.
|
| I also would love to hear someone write about being anti-mimetic
| with kids and with another parent. There is an entire industry
| trying to make you spend money that's so mimetic.
| indigochill wrote:
| Probably. The article itself had a comments CTA in point #25, a
| newsletter subscription CTA in #15, and then I stopped reading
| because it seemed like a hypocritical list in that it was on
| course to hit all the typical content marketing milestones.
| Struck me a bit like Thoreau praising the wilderness from the
| comfort of civilization.
|
| Which is not to say it's all nonsense. I think the front matter
| sums it up nicely. Life is about what you focus on. Your
| personal focus is what will separate you from the "dead fish".
|
| Focus is dividing what matters from what doesn't and that's
| unique to each person. People do this focus calculus all the
| time when deciding whether and who to marry, how many kids to
| have if any, what school subject to study and how hard to
| study, and so on. The "dead fish" in the article's analogy
| aren't really dead, but they're acting on subconscious, pseudo-
| instinctive drives (usually some form of search for social
| validation) whereas we can at least attempt to be more
| conscious of what we want our life to be about (social
| validation maybe doesn't matter as much as we often feel it
| does, at least relative to other things).
|
| This can sometimes mean abandoning, at least in part, the
| principles of those around us because they don't lead where we
| want to go (a common experience between parents and their
| children). Or at least being able to better negotiate
| compromises when someone knows what they actually want rather
| than just trying to get along.
| steelstraw wrote:
| This is perhaps the most important point right now in our
| increasingly polarizing society:
|
| "The time has come for us to forgive one another. If we wait any
| longer there will not be time enough." He understood that the
| only way that we wouldn't be 'battling to the end' in a never-
| ending mimetic escalation is through an anti-mimetic movement
| away from violence and retribution and toward reconciliation and
| peace.
| podgaj wrote:
| Yawn...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592786
| xwolfi wrote:
| Bit off topic but there's something I never got quite right in
| american linguo: do they say people do 9am - 5pm workdays ? Cause
| in France where I worked 3 years and Hong Kong 7, it's more
| 8:30-7. Someone leaving at 5 is almost reason for a riot in a
| team in both countries, how is it so common in the US?
| ianbutler wrote:
| I read this and while I view some of the points as good advice,
| like others have pointed out -- being counter cultural for the
| sake of it is a path to misery. Articles like this miss one
| crucial overarching point and that is, what ever you do in life,
| do it intentionally. Go with the flow, don't go with the flow --
| whatever as long as every once in a while you have a think and
| ask yourself "is this really what I want out of life" if it is
| great keep on keeping on but if it's not then think about what
| you have to do to change your life to get to where you want to
| be, doing what you want to do. Don't be merely an observer in
| your own life.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| The problem with most of the advice is that hindsight is 20/20
| and some decisions or circumstances are extra hard to invert or
| redirect.
|
| People change, we do not have infinite time and over time
| actually making lasting acquaintances takes ever more energy.
| And if you change, so may your circles of friends, or even
| family.
|
| Few people make themselves available later on, everyone is busy
| or sapped, either by work or other obligations. A decision to
| change and go against the flow can easily become a lonely one.
| Danborg wrote:
| This article is full of dumb advice that will cause nothing but
| grief if you follow it. This is an anti-mimetic comment. ;-)
| [deleted]
| programmarchy wrote:
| To tie this into tech a bit, Peter Thiel is a Girardian. There's
| at least one interview out there of him expanding on his views
| about Girardian mimetics.
| dpweb wrote:
| Also the importance of intuition, but going against the crowd can
| be a lonely road, not for everybody. I'm reminded of warning not
| to read too much. "When we read, another person thinks for us, we
| merely repeat his mental process" - Schopenhauer
| mrVentures wrote:
| They focus so much on disobeying the crowd that they still let it
| dictate their decisions.
| arpa wrote:
| Being anti-mimetic and following lists is kind of... mimetic,
| ain't it?
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| The deep bookshelf rings true to me. I use https://audile.app for
| exactly this - but in music.
|
| A book version would be neat.
| Veen wrote:
| The Audile page suggested Jackie Gleason singing Christmas
| classics, which is certainly different to what I would normally
| listen to.
| foobiekr wrote:
| On a whim I started listening to 1920s and 1930s music. It's
| not at all my style but you know, after awhile, it's kind of
| good. The feeling was very much like learning a new language.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| Keep refreshing - you'll get a different album each time!
| xwdv wrote:
| At first I thought this was about _Antimemetic_ tactics which
| would be far more useful as a lot of time and potential for
| original thoughts is wasted through the absorption of memes these
| days. Memes tend to stay in my head far longer than what seems
| healthy and makes it harder to be truly creative and imagine
| novel ideas.
| scubbo wrote:
| Same. Arguably there's strong crossover, though - mindful
| consumption would be both antimimetic and antimemetic.
| adfm wrote:
| Memetic mimeticism? Is there a Dawkins/Girard intersection?
|
| Are "Anti-mimetic tactics" selfish?
|
| And does the mnemonic I before E except after C rule apply in
| this context?
|
| We might be close to a CRISPR for memes here. Memesplicing
| anyone?
| stareblinkstare wrote:
| This is yet another social signal. You've created a group D by
| harping about Groups A, B and C.
| jancsika wrote:
| What's the criticism here? These are just truisms.
|
| E.g., suppose the defining trait of group D is: "always reads
| the entire article before posting a response to it." If Groups
| A, B, and C do _not_ possess that trait (and judging by HN,
| they may not) then the benefit of group D even becoming a
| supermajority by harping on A, B, and C far outweighs any
| contradiction in their counter-culture identity.
|
| On the other hand, if the reason for group D existing is to
| simply reject any position held by a majority of citizens,
| growth of group D could be detrimental to democracy.
|
| In the first case, group D harped its way to a better society.
|
| In the latter case, group D harped its way to a worse society.
|
| In conclusion, your truisms don't say anything meaningful about
| the potential creation of another social signal.
| whodidntante wrote:
| There is no antimemetics group
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| Some interesting ideas here.
|
| I still found it funny that he talks about avoiding frictionless
| consumption yet links book titles to the Amazon store.
| tiagod wrote:
| This is one of the most pretentious and ironic pieces of writing
| I've ever seen on HN front-page. Maybe only surpassed by pg's
| "How to think for yourself" being #1.
| draw_down wrote:
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Idk the highly upvoted pg article about "orthodox privilege" is
| also up there for me.
| zerobits wrote:
| This is one of the best articles I've read in awhile - thank you!
| krnsll wrote:
| Ah yes, learning (imitating?) how not to imitate from a listicle
| that itself cites advice from a compendium of books and sources.
|
| Sorry, couldn't help myself.
| smk_ wrote:
| Ironically reading and engaging in commentary on the article is a
| girardian desire
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| This chap needs a decent editor. The tone is dissonant. Maybe,
| there's some decent stuff in here, but who'd know? In the same
| sentence we encounter "Nobody wants to be the disagreeable, anti-
| mimetic guy" and then, "grab a beer or a bite to eat". I don't
| know for sure, but the person with whom I want to "grab a beer"
| doesn't know wtf an "anti-mimetic guy" is. Write it up, or write
| it down, but FFS, just write it for the reader you're trying to
| reach. Don't try to fit in so many buzzwords (mimicry?). It's
| rare that ideas are new, so you're better off just trying to
| express them more clearly, and move on from there.
| durpleDrank wrote:
| When the RIAA (and by extension music streaming services) went
| after youtube-dl I decided to orchestrate my media consumption a
| lot differently. I started to collect tapes and cds again. Same
| goes for movies.
|
| My rational is that David Bowie isn't collecting those streaming
| royalties anyway and his estate is getting 0.0005 cents per play
| so isn't it better to own a physical copy and not line the
| pockets of lawyers who think they can go around dictating FOSS
| projects?
|
| Honestly it's kind of fun too. Ripping your collection to FLAC
| and setting up a samba share is a nice Sunday afternoon project.
|
| The writing is on the wall, this will only get worse.
| edna314 wrote:
| I think he didn't quite understand the depth of Girard's thought.
| It's not like that you can really fight mimetic desire,
| especially not by following any kind of tactics. Reproducing
| behavior in a certain way is nothing but mimesis.
| phosphophyllite wrote:
| raldi wrote:
| _> Simple heuristic: ask yourself what price you would pay at the
| moment you are using a digital product to be doing the real
| thing. Take running on a treadmill through a digital forest on a
| 10" screen. If the answer is $10, then do the math: I bet that's
| more than what you pay for a daily gym membership. That means
| that there is more value for you to unlock if you find a way to
| make that desire a reality._
|
| I don't understand this. What is he proposing you do with the
| $10? Why would this advice change if your declared value was
| _less_ than a daily gym membership?
| lolc wrote:
| The way I read it: The argument starts with the reader being in
| a gym. So having paid the gym is given and we assume that the
| gym must provide some sort of value. At some higher fee, the
| value would be negative and the reader would not have gone to
| the gym. Rationally.
|
| Now the article argues that since the reader would pay more to
| be in the forest than the gym, they should evaluate their
| options to run in the forest. Because that could provide more
| absolute value. Even if it meant travelling further.
|
| The only way it makes sense to argue this way is when you're
| trying to convince a consumer of a non-consumer option that is
| better. Because, it presumes, only when a consumer evaluates
| the forest as a product, they will see its value.
| em-bee wrote:
| i didn't get that either, but then maybe that's because i would
| never even consider using a treadmill when i can go for a walk.
| most other digital things like watching videos or listening to
| audio books don't have practical analog equivalents, or have no
| benefits. (i really don't see the benefit of playing vinyls. in
| the end i still get sound made through electricity. for the
| real analog experience i actually play an analog music
| instrument myself.)
| max1cc wrote:
| Apparently I've reached the maximum number of free articles
| despite never visiting this site before
| _0ffh wrote:
| Same here. I used the 12 foot ladder, it works.
|
| https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.epsilontheory.com/25-ant...
| Veen wrote:
| I just opened the article in a different tab. Something is
| amiss with their paywall implementation.
| 3np wrote:
| Maybe they're going by Referer? Which sounds utterly silly.
| howdydoo wrote:
| I got halfway through and a newsletter signup modal
| interrupted me and wouldn't close. Good thing I know CSS or
| I couldn't have finished reading.
|
| So much for being anti-mimetic and bucking the trends.
| jackyinger wrote:
| Here's a few little tricks I use. These may seem trivial and
| silly, but given that mimetic behavior is rooted in a very basic
| level of existence, I believe these counter mimetic attitude
| exercises are useful in maintaining the foundation of a anti-
| mimetic Maslow's hierarchy.
|
| When I know I'm going to be exposed to a video advertisement I
| summon all of the rage and contempt I can to make my mental state
| as unlikely to retain the ad's message as possible.
|
| I take perverse pleasure in letting my devices
| alarms/notifications ring without rushing to attend to them.
| Similarly I talk back to the maps directions voice.
| beardedman wrote:
| My personal philosophy on this is to not live life by tactics
| like "anti-mimetic" or "counter cultural". Like what you like, be
| present & don't treat life like a to-do list. There's room to be
| well read alcoholic with a good heart & a love for 90's hip hop.
|
| EDIT: And for god's sake be kind to someone who doesn't share
| your worldview, even if that worldview is offensive in some way.
| eat_veggies wrote:
| It's hilarious that this is standard self-help advice designed to
| make you a better worker, packaged up as something subversive or
| "anti-mimetic." I am reminded of Mark Fisher:
|
| "Witness, for instance, the establishment of settled
| 'alternative' or 'independent' cultural zones, which endlessly
| repeat older gestures of rebellion and contestation as if for the
| first time. 'Alternative' and 'independent' don't designate
| something outside mainstream culture; rather, they are styles, in
| fact _the_ dominant styles, within the mainstream. "
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| Had exactly this thought reading it. Here's a list of
| platitudes to make you a subversive independent thinker!
| throwanem wrote:
| I'm surprised they haven't yet sold them as NFTs.
| WFHRenaissance wrote:
| This piece is definitely haunted by the flood of self-help
| listicles that we've seen in the past decade or so, but also
| there are facets of it which are actually very effective ways
| for cultivating meaning in one's life outside the dominant
| styles. There is a film of fetishism going on here, but still
| some good parts. Outsideness is possible.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > It's hilarious that this is standard self-help advice
| designed to make you a better worker,
|
| Are we reading the same article? This article doesn't read at
| all about becoming a better worker. It emphasizes anti-
| consumerism and building diverse personal experiences and
| insists on not blindly following your peers and doing what
| others want you to do.
| Cpoll wrote:
| I think they meant that the same advice is presented in a
| different context as self-help/better worker advice.
|
| I can see what they're saying, a lot of this also gets
| mentioned as productivity advice:
|
| - Anti-Mimetic Scheduling: take advantage of the off-peak
| times
|
| - Building a Deep Bookshelf: allocate 10% of your annual
| reading to books where you know you're not going to 'agree'
| with the fundamental premise
|
| - Don't Participate in the Shark-Tankification of Worth
|
| - Learn to Navigate without GPS: It kills the brain and it
| kills the wandering -- the spirit.
|
| - Stop Writing to Please
|
| - etc.
| eat_veggies wrote:
| It's for a specific kind of worker -- the neoliberal
| individual, the "entrepreneur of the self" who cultivates
| their personal value like a capital investment because _they
| are human capital_. "Building diverse personal experiences"
| is a nice euphemism for this. Although you are not doing what
| others want you to do, it's a freedom conditioned by the
| market. Being anti-memetic is already priced in.
|
| Not all of the tips, like "be nice" and "forgive people"
| accord to this logic, but as a general through-line: Burgis
| is relentlessly focused on "the way great companies are
| built" (#23), worships the great innovators Henry Ford and
| Steve Jobs (#18), demands that everything has a purpose (#17,
| #13), in service of what he deems most important, "the
| calling" or personal vocation (#1).
|
| We might read this through the lens of 20th century German
| sociologist Max Weber, who traces the spirit of capitalism to
| the Protestant ethic [1]. As a very short summary, it's an
| ethic defined by the very same vocational calling [ _Beruf_
| ], where labor acquires a religious significance and produces
| values that then become secularized. From my copy of his
| book:
|
| > One of the constitutive components of the modern capitalist
| spirit, and, moreover, generally of modern civilization, was
| the rational organization of life on the basis of the _idea
| of the calling_. It was born out of the spirit of _Christian
| asceticism_ [...] The Puritan _wanted_ to be a person with a
| vocational calling; we _must_ be.
|
| Whether or not you believe the historiography, the function
| of the vocational calling is to produce a subject who works
| and disciplines themself automatically.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber#The_Protestant_Et
| hic...
| xwolfi wrote:
| Sure, and it's hard to detach from the idea we must have a
| purpose - which I would even argue predates and exists
| outside the christian sphere. I'm an atheist and I still
| think life should try to expand outwards in space for the
| sake of structuring the chaos...
|
| Look having no goal, purpose or calling seem to work now
| that we organized process-heavy societies where one
| dilletante wouldnt hurt too much. But let me remind you not
| so long ago we did what our father did and his father
| before. And also, that if we jump back into natural
| nihilism to live as free of purpose as animals, we'll miss
| many of the intellectual wonders that the group managed to
| accomplish, maybe through the illusion it has no
| alternative, I concede.
|
| Probably not important to you, after all, since there's no
| inherent rule nor purpose, but sad a bit to me.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| No one is suggesting having no goal. But if you have
| exactly the same goals as everyone else - build a
| business, become an executive, do executive things -
| while persuading yourself that you are somehow
| _different_ because you read a few extra books and don 't
| use a GPS etc, you are very much not operating outside of
| your culture, never mind being counter to it.
|
| And you are at least metaphorically - and possibly also
| literally - "doing what your father did."
|
| What goals are _genuinely_ countercultural in 2022?
| krapp wrote:
| >What goals are genuinely countercultural in 2022?
|
| Undermining or opting out of society: Crypto, neo-
| reactionism, antiwork, anti-capitalism, even alternets
| like Gemini to a degree.
|
| Undermining societal norms or rejecting status quo
| reality: incels, anti-vaxx, flat earthers, pro-
| pedophilia. QAnon and BLM are both explicitly against
| society, albeit for vastly different reasons.
| jameshart wrote:
| Yes, surely the main 'anti-mimetic' strategy to adopt is _not
| adopting lifestyle affectations from a blog post that claims
| that that will make you a better person_.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| "To learn more about [anti-memetic counter-culture] my website
| and be notified when we release new content sign up here."
|
| OK.
|
| I'm going with Mark Fisher on this one. This is absolutely
| generic and unoriginal cut-and-paste Californian lifestyle
| advice trying to package itself as something deeper - which is
| something generic and unoriginal Californian lifestyle advice
| _always_ does, as part of its own branding(tm).
|
| But it does raise the question: what would a genuine online
| counter-culture look like?
|
| I'm pretty sure going to museums and restaurants and playing
| golf at off-peak times wouldn't be part of it.
|
| But what would?
| turminal wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure going to museums and restaurants and
| playing golf at off-peak times wouldn't be part of it.
|
| Why not?
| Nowado wrote:
| That's the point of Fisher and those before him, isn't it?
|
| Counter culture gets recuperated. New terrain becomes
| deterritorialized and reterritorialized. Edge becomes
| fashionable and popular.
|
| Even if we knew what would, would that thing survive getting
| mentioned on HN?
| liaukovv wrote:
| Something like 4chan in the past
| jmfldn wrote:
| I'm a big fan of Mark Fisher's work but I must say that I
| didn't read this piece in this sort of light. Seems like quite
| different to the usual co-opting of wisdom in the service of
| capitalist hegemony. At the very least, more insightful and
| wiser than a lot of listicles.
| champagnois wrote:
| For someone who talks so much of loathing social media, they
| seemingly do very little to avoid it.
|
| Acknowledging the technology is basically poison at scale, maybe
| remove it from your life so you do not suffer the same brainrot
| as the masses.
|
| The great Naval once wrote: Be wary of anything that uses the
| word "social".
|
| Social Media is conditioning people to discuss moral crusades,
| launch moral crusades, and dwell on moral crusades. Humans are
| being conditioned to write and say things that inspire anger
| towards the opposition, because that is the best approach to
| getting likes, upvotes, and subscribes. Poison for your mind.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I learned about this Naval guy through Twitter, ironically.
|
| I haven't looked into him too much, but from what I can tell,
| people only respect him because he has money.
| exotree wrote:
| Most of his pontifications and influence are only distributed
| to people at scale because of Twitter. I'm not sure he's great
| or particularly good example to follow.
| champagnois wrote:
| He is friends with Nick Szabo and has a pretty sharp mind
| with some good experiences. I think he is basically done with
| the rat race of becoming successful now and he has written a
| bit of relevant advice for folks.
| gerikson wrote:
| > The great Naval once wrote: Be weary of anything that uses
| the word "social".
|
| I was not aware of this quote, so I googled, and it turns out
| it's a Twitter account
|
| https://twitter.com/naval/status/1383520778361065474
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| I would guess this is Naval Ravikant?
|
| I'll also point out that Naval correctly used the word
| "wary", but I do weary of these things too.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| There's a lot of good stuff in here, things I've used in my
| personal life to great effect.
|
| The really important thing here (that's hinted at towards the
| end) is moderation.
|
| Do some of these things. A little at a time. Find what works and
| what doesn't.
|
| Saying the truth no matter what the cost is extremely dangerous
| advice to follow literally.
|
| Pick battles you can win. Know when saying the truth matters and
| when it doesn't. Know when your "truth" is just another opinion
| no one around you at that moment agrees with.
|
| As my dad always told me, "you can be dead right."
|
| Life is too short to be miserable trying to obtain someone else's
| goals. It is too short to optimize everything. Remember that
| happiness in the moment matters. (But not at the expense of the
| future.)
|
| You'll never find me reading a book I don't like or skipping
| using GPS, because things cause more stress than benefit.
|
| Having a car break down and having a magical moment because of
| it? Do the opposite. Actively seek those moments by finding
| people to help instead of waiting for the moment to happen.
|
| If I have any advice to add, it is be honest and be kind. Fight
| when you need to fight, make peace when you don't. You don't need
| to fix everything, just make the world better by being in it.
| fnord123 wrote:
| > Pick battles you can win
|
| Don't forget to pick some battles to make sure you still know
| how to battle. And pick some where you will lose so you can
| grow.
| duxup wrote:
| > Saying the truth no matter what the cost is extremely
| dangerous advice to follow literally.
|
| And there's the risk that you could be wrong... and / or just
| do more damage than good.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Often times people don't want to hear the truth. A classic
| example in my own life was the gender wage gap in the late
| 2000s and early 2010s, especially with the Obama (forget the
| year) state of the union with the "all things equal" comment.
| A complete misunderstanding of the data by the majority of
| the population, and filled with highly charged emotions.
|
| Sometimes it's dangerous to be right.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| another way to think about it is if you reach a point where
| telling the truth no matter the cost, then maybe the path
| you've followed is sub-optimal.
|
| but yes, this doesn't help you if you find yourself in that
| position.
| topkai22 wrote:
| How you say what you perceive as the truth matters a lot. For
| example, saying "I believe this to be true" has a different
| effect then saying " this is the truth."
|
| Providing the reasoning behind conclusions can also help- "I
| believe that unlimited migration is harmful to those poorest
| of those already here and that the rule of law is incredibly
| important, so I'm opposed to extending a path to citizenship"
| or "all human beings deserve the same dignity and from a
| practical standpoint an undocumented immigrant that has been
| working, paying taxes, and staying out of trouble is more
| worthy of citizenship than many who gained it simply at
| birth, so I support a pathway to citizenship."
|
| Both statements may still be problematic depending on the
| circumstances (where depending on the circumstances, the best
| option may be to say nothing) but they are far better than
| saying "illegal immigrations wrong" or "giving people a
| pathway to citizenship is the right thing to do."
| akiselev wrote:
| _> Pick battles you can win. Know when saying the truth matters
| and when it doesn't._
|
| Great rules to live by. My own little corollary: learn which
| rules can be bent and which ones to disregard completely.
| They're not all created - or enforced - equally.
|
| Win build on each other like compound interest. So does
| confidence. The two are almost inextricably linked.
| akomtu wrote:
| Sounds like the buddha's middle path (that's a half serious
| remark). Those books also add that it's important to keep your
| thoughts, emotions, words and actions aligned, but like you
| say, nowhere those books say that you should express your
| opinion unprompted on every corner, and silence is a good
| answer when truth would only make things worse.
| jquery wrote:
| > Saying the truth no matter what the cost is extremely
| dangerous advice to follow literally.
|
| An example I use is someone knocks on your door and asks if you
| know where Maria is. You do, and you're sheltering her. If you
| tell the truth, the person at the door will kill Maria. If you
| lie and say "I haven't seen Maria", the person will leave and
| continue looking elsewhere.
|
| In this case, telling a lie is the moral thing, and telling the
| truth would be evil.
| jbay808 wrote:
| I mean, you can truthfully say "even if I knew, I wouldn't
| tell you".
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| This invites much more opportunity for speculation on the
| person hunting a vulnerable person that you're trying to
| protect. This is precisely what someone would say if they
| were avoiding lying but are trying to cover for a
| vulnerable person.
| Thorrez wrote:
| It's also the sort of thing that someone would say who
| wants waste the time of an evil government to delay them
| from carrying out their plans.
| clort wrote:
| Alas the first part "even if I knew" when you know that you
| do know, is not truthful..
| amcoastal wrote:
| A common anecdote from Kant. Im not Kantian but I think
| (feel) that he is somewhat right that the lie IS wrong. I
| think the key is that no one can be perfect, and sometimes
| you have to make a decision between two things that are
| wrong. In this case lying is much less wrong than not.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| This is why I reject the categorical imperative. The claim
| kant makes is that you still lie because it's more
| unethical to normalize a society of people being given up
| to murderers than it is to normalize a society of
| (white?)-liars.
|
| I claim that this has degenerated into utilitarianism. This
| is also word for word what scopenhaur (a huge fan of kant)
| has to say about Kant's categorical imperative in his
| critique of Kant's ideas...
| kibwen wrote:
| This suggest a sort of morality that contains the axiom
| "lying is always wrong", which then demands torturous
| philosophical gymnastics in order to justify one's actions
| in circumstances when lying is obviously right. To say that
| lying is sometimes right does not diminish the merit of
| truthfulness, rather it is an acknowledgement that
| communication is a means to an end, and not the end itself.
| zzedd wrote:
| Just fix your mind on another Maria who isn't here, and tell
| the truth about her.
| 323 wrote:
| Someone who is unable to lie is classified by psychiatrists
| as "cognitively impaired".
| mystickphoenix wrote:
| > You don't need to fix everything, just make the world better
| by being in it.
|
| I wish more people would follow this advice. I've made it a
| habit to try to make the world an infinitesimally better place
| every day. It doesn't always work out, but the effort is a huge
| boon to my mental health and maybe I succeed and the world is a
| better place.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| This is a demanding thing to achieve. The road to hel is
| paved with good intentions.
|
| Philospy spends a lot of literature on how to tell if what
| you are doing is making the world any better?
|
| History, current history is filled with examples of "making
| it better" and doing enormous damage.
|
| Is your intent when you do the action what is important? Or
| is it how your action is received in the moment? Or what a
| spectator might conclude. Or is it the eventual consequences
| of your action that is important? Or none of the above.
|
| Your intent is selfish. I want to be a person who makes the
| world a better place. Do you do so in a vacuum? You do the
| act, and then never ever speak about it to anyone. Or is the
| real goal the adoration of those you "tell"? (Innocently and
| self deprecating of course)
|
| If you were (or are) an evangelical Chrisitan, sharing the
| word of God, and saving souls would be the greatest good you
| could ever accomplish. "Today I shared the Word with 5
| people. "
|
| Those 5 people may have found a person rambling about God to
| be unwelcome. Annoying. Rude.
|
| Or maybe one was in a deep crisis, and he was moved and
| accepted Christ and his life took meaning from it. His life
| got better and afterwards he kept a good job, got married,
| had wonderful kids.
|
| Or a person who was rambled at has terrible trauma from
| childhood from being sexually abused by a Catholic priest and
| this forceable reminder brings him over the edge, and he
| kills himself 20 minutes later in a public toilet.
|
| Maybe one is a woman who was viciously demonized by
| protesters for having an abortion two weeks ago. This most
| unwelcome vocal assault by another right-wing misogynist is
| what finally drives her to take a stand and gets involved in
| politics, changes her major to political science and many
| years Later she is a senator who casts a deciding vote in
| something she think is wonderful
|
| Did this evangelical guy make the world better?
| soperj wrote:
| >You'll never find me reading a book I don't like
|
| Some of the best books I've ever read I didn't like at first.
| Love in Time of Cholera was an absolute slog for the first 89
| pages, I didn't actually get through those pages the first time
| I tried to read it. It's one of my all time favourite books.
| First 30 pages of Dune were similar. Found the same with
| another book by Dostoevsky.
| willhinsa wrote:
| Which Dostoevsky book?
| e40 wrote:
| I'm at that stage with The Brothers Karamazov right now. I
| have no idea what people see in it. Book 1 chapter 5.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| funksta wrote:
| The first 100-200 pages were a slog for me too. But
| pushing through was completely worth it, it's a
| masterpiece IMO
| downut wrote:
| Yeah. In the last three years I picked up Joyce's Ulysses,
| which I sputtered out on 35 years ago, and Pynchon's Mason &
| Dixon, which I sputtered out on 15 years ago. I now believe
| that Ulysses is the best book I've ever read, and Mason &
| Dixon is very good.
|
| So much process. People think there's a formula, not well
| known, that greatly raises the chance for "success" however
| defined, for everything. Nope. IMHO the key to "anti-
| mimetic"[0] living is to cultivate your inner bullshit
| detector. My friends have a fully functioning one; people who
| turned out to be false do not; I have no idea how to nurture
| one for anyone else. There is no process, other than get as
| broad non-digital experiences as you can and use those to
| learn to think for yourself. I have no idea how _you_ can do
| that, because apparently no-one who is not my friend appears
| to think doing this is sane.
|
| [0] This Rene Girard stuff, fueled by lavish attention from
| Peter Thiel and his acolytes, is bullshit. Think not? Well a
| while ago, I thought it might have some validity, but then I
| read the review by Joshua Landy in my previous HN comment:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955489#21956253
|
| The child comments are interesting too. A moral of the story
| is that my bullshit detector initially failed me, but
| eventually, with more experience, I got it straightened out.
| akomtu wrote:
| > I have no idea how to nurture one for anyone else.
|
| The bullshit detector is usually intuition and, very
| rarely, is what's called 'wisdom'. Intuition is what I'd
| describe as "the right feeling" - ability to "hear" truth,
| in a sense. Wisdom is "the right knowledge" - ability to
| see the truth. Intuition is related to emotions, and can be
| improved by straigthening up one's emotions. An
| uncontrolled storm of emotions obscurates intuition, and
| hatred burns it. That's why, I think, a known occult
| aphorism says: "a moment of hatred erases eons of
| achievements". Wisdom is similarly related to thoughts and
| words, and so straightening up what one says and thinks,
| allows the wisdom to show up. The " all seeing eye" is the
| typical symbol of wisdom. Afaik, only few top scientists
| had it, and they attributed their ability to see truth to
| luck and lots of read books.
|
| I believe that most people out there give in to emotions,
| those gradually turn into something more sinister - hatred
| fueled by vanity, that burns their intuition to the ground
| and from that moment they're unable to feel what's right
| and what's wrong.
| Retric wrote:
| The best bullshit detector is to simply keep running
| through the implications of whatever is being suggested. If
| you see something marked 80% off look for a similar item
| that's five times as expensive. I think the core issue is
| people have a lot of false and conflicting ideas floating
| around so they get used to cognitive dissonance.
|
| Many groups have a vast vested interest in convincing
| people of obvious falsehoods. The phrase used is "Diamonds
| are forever" rather than the more honest "Diamonds are
| flammable."
| catillac wrote:
| Taking the book example further, I've often found that doing
| something I don't like in the moment can more than make up for
| it in long term happiness or skills gained. Skiing is a good
| example for me. I hated skiing, hated learning it, hated
| driving out to the mountain to do it. After putting in a lot of
| work, now I absolutely enjoy it and look forward to it
| seasonally and treasure all the memories I have created.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > "I read many books not because I think I'll 'like' them but
| because I think that I won't..."
|
| I won't necessarily intentionally look things I don't like but I
| will ask others what they're reading, what they suggest, and so
| on. It helps me escape confirmation bias.
|
| The other hack I use is to read books referenced in the book I'm
| reading. These are often the book that influenced the book I'm
| reading. Getting back to basics, back to the source, is often
| helpful.
| anonymoushn wrote:
| These are pretty mimetic ways to find books to read.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Not really. Not relative to myself. If you're going to
| deviate from patterns, that starts with self.
| technotarek wrote:
| This was one of my favorite recent reads.
|
| The most tangible tech related thing it made me think about is
| Google News. There are reasons to dislike the service (or the
| beast behind it), but at the end of the day, it's a great way to
| help break your own personal political ethos bubble. Read the
| headlines of CNN right next to FOX. Consider the angles. On that
| point, I'd love to find a non-FAANG alternative that does the
| aggregation as well as Google. Anyone have suggestions?
|
| Separately, I will quibble with this:
|
| " I've never understood why the debate our education has focused
| so heavily on the type of school (private, public, parochial,
| charter, etc.). Shouldn't we be more concerned about the quality
| of education?"
|
| He's grossly glossing over the socio-economic subtleties. Those
| ARE ultimately meant to be debates about quality -- and about how
| quality education can be delivered at mass, fairly and justly.
| chernevik wrote:
| The debates over the type of schools are about school
| governance, and what sorts of school governance are best suited
| for "quality education".
| technotarek wrote:
| Coming from a public policy perspective and background, I
| don't see it that way. Rather that's simply how some have
| chosen to frame it (and some like yourself have come to
| accept it).
| Stevvo wrote:
| Misread the title as 'antiemetic'. Went in expecting strategies
| for keeping food in your stomach when consuming 'counter-
| cultural' substances.
| emodendroket wrote:
| > Read Foreign Newspapers
|
| Depends on which ones... gets a little dispiriting to realize I
| just labored through what was actually a Japanese translation of
| an article from Reuters originally written in English.
|
| In a wider sense, if you're actively trying to go against the
| grain of society, they've already got you, in a way.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Eh. Some of these are dangerous and misguided.
|
| A commitment to truth has value. A commitment to speak it always
| and essentially pick fights and cut your own throat is not really
| a dedication to the truth. It's some kind of misguided puritan
| guilt or something like that.
|
| Forgiveness is a gift. Trust is earned. People hold grudges when
| they know no means to have compassion for another while still
| protecting themselves. Telling people to run around randomly
| forgiving others is an unnuanced idea that advocates for
| encouraging bad behavior and a professional victim position.
|
| If you can help them move on, cool. Wonderful. If you can't, it's
| bad advice that amounts to saying "The nice thing is to cut your
| own throat and actively encourage others to keep cutting throats
| without consequence."
| noodleman wrote:
| How do people actually read this and take it seriously? It's
| listicle level non-conformist hogwash, ran through a thesaurus.
| By all means, watch more old movies and read more books. But
| don't pretend it makes you anything other than pretentiously
| edgy.
| jancsika wrote:
| Suppose I wanted to use the namespace clash here with "anti-meme"
| posts on reddit/etc. in order to boost the concept of "anti-meme"
| posts, with the goal to eventually take over the name in the
| popular consciousness. E.g., the way that Uber ate "ride
| sharing," Bitcoin/blockchain is attempting to eat "crypto," or
| how current Ripple literally paid to take over the name from the
| old Ripple.
|
| How much money would that cost me?
|
| I guess the easiest starting place is-- how much would current
| Ripple have paid the original Ripple guy to buy the name?
| bckr wrote:
| > How much money would that cost me?
|
| Weird thought experiment, love it.
|
| I'd first ask the question "how could this be accomplished"
| mym1990 wrote:
| I am surprised the word 'listen' was used only once in the entire
| article. There is so much to be gained by simply perking up those
| little ears of ours, and I would certainly say it is becoming
| anti-mimetic.
|
| Also, being flexible. You don't have to avoid using GPS all the
| time. But sometimes I find a fun challenge in seeing if my brain
| can figure out A to B on its own, etc...
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| > I have always had disdain for the show Shark Tank and all of
| its many derivatives.
|
| Shark Tank is itself a derivative.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons%27_Den
| jonstewart wrote:
| I was thinking, jeez, there's a whole lot of Christian mysticism
| in this article, and so it's not surprising --- indeed, downright
| mimetic --- to read the author's at Catholic University.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I don't think it's a good idea to make deviance an end-goal. It
| should rather follow naturally from your other goals and needs.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| There are interesting ideas, but despite even speaking down on
| hipsters who do things just because they are not mainstream - the
| whole concept reminds me still of it.
|
| Being anticultural for the sake of it.
|
| "Being anti-mimetic is the power to live in freedom"
|
| I mean do that, if that is your thing. But rather just do what
| you really want. Whether your local culture supports it, or not.
| This I call freedom.
|
| Just note of course, going against the mainstream is a lot
| harder. And there are cultures that are very repressive against
| even small sidetracking from the norm. And they will try to make
| your life hell, for bringing chaos into their stable order of
| things. Because this is how they might perceive you, for not
| adopting to their standard.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| > The Marriage of Anti-Mimetic and Anti-Fragility
|
| And that was when I realized the whole article was bullshit.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Liked most of this except #1
|
| > Discovering and living out a sense of calling -- a personal
| vocation, or something you are uniquely meant to do -- is the
| ultimate way to cut through the mimetic noise of the world and
| begin to shape both a moral and a vocational compass.
|
| There are on the order of 7 billion human beings on earth. We
| don't all have a personal vocation or something we are uniquely
| meant to do. One of the keys to leading a happy and fulfilled
| life is being able to be content to live within the bounds that
| most of us operate in. Most of us are not uniquely gifted, not
| particularly special, not here to do one thing in this world. But
| we can be kind, be helpful, try to do as little damage to other
| people and the world as we can, to find value in things that last
| and do not cost the world very much, to enjoy our lives
| regardless of what we do for a living, not because of it.
|
| It may be a gift from the Renaissance to believe in individuality
| in the way that #1 clearly does, but it's a gift that doesn't
| scale to huge populations (it may not even have been right with
| much smaller ones). It's wonderful to live in a society that
| allows for individual self-discovery and self-expression, but we
| should not blind us to the reality that almost all of us are not
| on a unique, singular mission.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Here's a dialogue my father attributes to CF Gauss
|
| Young student: Should I finish my college studies or jump
| straight to a thesis in advanced mathematics?
|
| Gauss: You should finish your studies.
|
| Young student: But you jumped straight to a thesis!
|
| Gauss: I also didn't ask anyone's advice.
|
| IE, people who march to a different drummer, who have a unique
| vocation, aren't the ones who need to be told about it.
| nathias wrote:
| Vocation is your own sense of purpose, you don't need to be the
| best at X to have X as vocation at all. What you need is that
| you can contribute something special to X, and anyone that
| dedicates their working life to some purpose definitely can.
| chana_masala wrote:
| This is the Hindu idea of svadharma - one's personal work in
| this lifetime. As you said, it need not be anything outwardly
| unique, just that it is what is right for you.
| itronitron wrote:
| But think about all of your past classmates and coworkers and
| whether any two of them were exactly alike.
|
| Even within a specialized class or career the people there will
| have wildly different backgrounds and life experiences. Hence
| their sense of calling from a personal standpoint will be
| unique..
| jtr1 wrote:
| [deleted]
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Yes, these are all lovely examples. However, in the meantime
| (at least for the time being), millions of people:
| * build cars * work in retail * construct and
| repair buildings * sew mass-market clothing *
| build, maintain, manage the energy supply system(s) *
| plant, grow, harvest and process food * run the
| machines that move people, products and materials around
|
| It is quite possible to find meaning and purpose doing any of
| these things, but they are generally unlikely to offer the
| sense that you exist in this world to do whatever it is that
| you do for a living. Despite that, the people who do this
| sort of work play an invaluable role in how our societies
| work. Rather than encouraging everyone to run away from the
| critical work that needs to be done, I'd rather build a
| society in which people can feel meaning and purpose in their
| lives regardless of what they do for a living.
| cgriswald wrote:
| _All_ sense of meaning, purpose, and satisfaction stems
| from our own minds. I found deep meaning and purpose in
| being a busboy and sometimes I still miss it. I had a
| friend and coworker who felt the same way. I had other
| coworkers who hated the job and just did it to earn some
| money (often, but not always, for college).
|
| It's easy to understand why someone might feel a strong
| sense of meaning and purpose if they win an Olympic gold;
| but they could also be miserable and generally dissatisfied
| with life.
|
| Any prejudice we have about how someone _should_ feel if
| they are doing a particular job is just our own
| interpretation of how _we_ would feel doing the job; but
| there isn 't anything inherent in any of these jobs that
| gives meaning or purpose. (I also think people confuse
| being satisfied with the perks of a job--say fame or
| fortune--with meaning and purpose and satisfaction with the
| job itself.)
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| It was TFA, not me, that said
|
| > Discovering and living out a sense of calling -- a
| personal vocation, or something you are uniquely meant to
| do -- is the ultimate way to cut through the mimetic
| noise of the world and begin to shape both a moral and a
| vocational compass.
|
| and that's what I was calling out, not the idea that
| certain jobs can prevent you from having meaning and
| purpose.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Right. You're misunderstanding the quote.
| [deleted]
| rfrey wrote:
| Believing something is the best past for an individual does not
| mean believing it to be "scalable" or that it would be good for
| society (or even possible in a society) for everyone to adopt
| that path.
|
| Socrates was executed for corrupting youth. He never denied it.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Sure. But then I don't think it makes much sense to be
| dispensing "advice" like this in such a generalized way.
|
| Suggesting to a particular person that you know that they
| should try to find their life's mission and purpose may make
| sense given whatever you know about them. It may be
| absolutely the right advice (and path) for them to take,
| since there are undoubtedly people who do have such singular
| purpose.
|
| However, that doesn't imply that this way of thinking about
| how to approach life makes any sense in a generalized "how to
| live an XXXX kind of life" article or book or talk or
| whatever. That's even more true if one of the metrics
| supporting why "an XXXX kind of life" is good includes
| happiness. If you're only going to be happy if you manage
| your singular unique mission and purpose in life, then the
| chances are extremely high that you will not be happy.
| civilized wrote:
| This "you're not special, so just live within the bounds
| everyone else lives in" thing seems like a depressing spin
| on life.
|
| I agree that there's a lot of rules that everyone should
| follow and philosophies that most would benefit from,
| but... everyone's life involves situations and
| relationships that are unique and singular and special to
| them. For example, most adults are taking care of a family
| that is very special to them. "Take care of your family" is
| maybe not a special, unique purpose on its face, but it is
| special to each person who is doing it.
|
| While it's perhaps true that few people are called to live
| lives that would look utterly unique and remarkable in an
| autobiography, I think we should take care not to define
| out of existence the inherent uniqueness and singularity of
| purpose of each life.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| I'm not going to dis the OP's hypothesis, but he missed much of
| Girard's point. It's not that children mimic the desires of their
| parents or individuals mimic the desire of society writ large,
| it's that desire is embedded in the perceptions of reality
| transmitted to children and reinforced by society.
|
| That being said, I like the article and maybe the author was just
| side-stepping complications by presenting Girardian desire as
| being consciously culpable. But that is a complication in and of
| itself: desire is often unconscious and accessible only to the
| hidden self of the subconscious.
|
| That the desire the author describes may be a meta- (or pata-)
| desire is worth noting when reading the text.
|
| Or at least that's my 2 bit commentary.
| pjbeam wrote:
| I'm reminded of broken mirror guy from Black Mirror who starts a
| YouTube (whatever it actually was) channel at the end.
| paganel wrote:
| As other HN-ers have mentioned this is a really good article over
| all, just wanted to add something extra related to this part:
|
| > Not all who wander are lost. And sometimes, I like to drive
| with absolutely no destination at all.
|
| more exactly a link to _la Derive_ [1]:
|
| > The derive is a revolutionary strategy originally put forward
| in the "Theory of the Derive" (1956) by Guy Debord, (...) It is
| an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, in which
| participants drop their everyday relations and "let themselves be
| drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they
| find there"
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9rive
| [deleted]
| mawise wrote:
| > How many people can honestly and explicitly articulate their
| purpose, or mission, on social media? Is it to gain followers?
| Sell books? Build a Substack list? What?
|
| This line resonated a lot with me and some of my goals and anti-
| goals when I started working on Haven[1]. I don't want to support
| any sort of commercial or brand-building goals on Haven and I
| explicitly send those people to Wordpress on the features page.
|
| [1]: https://havenweb.org
| WFHRenaissance wrote:
| I like this article, and I also like the Girardian
| theory/terminology, but I wish I could send this to my younger
| brother without him having to muck through the context of RG and
| mimetic theory.
|
| I know it would sort've just become a self-help article at that
| point. There's been a deluge of those lately, most of which are
| of s** quality and usually preaching the sort of "hustle hard
| bro" message Luke decries, but I just think this sort of stuff
| would _actually_ do well on TikTok with a smidge of substitution
| for the more core-RG terminology.
| hairofadog wrote:
| Wish I could send it to my younger _self_ , but life lessons
| can only be learned by people who decide to learn them.
| rapht wrote:
| Rene Girard actually _is_ a must-read. No need to go through
| everything he has written -- though his works are a great
| gateway to our (Western) culture as they draw on everything
| from ancient mythologies (notably greek) to modern philosophy,
| with a focus on the sources on the Christian religion. Start
| with "I See Satan Fall Like Lightning", a very straightforward,
| almost romanesque read, and if interested, read "Violence and
| Religion" and "Things Hidden Since The Foundation Of The
| World". A great way to dive into Humanities.
| WFHRenaissance wrote:
| I've read Girard, but I don't think everyone in my life has
| the attention span or interest to dive into him. I'm
| imagining what the conversation of me recommending THSTFOTW
| to my bro would be like LOL.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _Speak the truth in accord with your conscience no matter what
| the cost._
|
| My conscience keeps saying that vaccines are a depopulation
| scheme. Now what?
|
| I say, don't be just another member of a set of people who follow
| bullshit articles on how to be anti-mimetic.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Mimetic frenzy is the engine behind accusatory networks (as we
| see with cancel culture) and revolutionary movements that result
| in incredible amounts of bloodshed and destruction when left
| unchecked. Refusing to accuse in one's personal life and instead
| focusing on measured reaction as a counter-mimetic approach to
| these movements is the way to remain human in the midst of it
| all.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Or it is the way to be milked and shaved to the skin while not
| saying no.
|
| Any act of opposition can land you on a blacklist or worse,
| even small one, even if you do not expect it.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This section is particularly important and worth re-reading:
|
| > Being "anti-mimetic" does not mean being a 'contrarian' or
| refusing to imitate one's peers. That's what every hipster thinks
| he's doing, too. "Everyone leaves the beaten path only to fall
| into the same ditch," wrote the social theorist Rene Girard, the
| father of mimetic theory. This kind of naive rejection of the
| culture is not what we're talking about here.
|
| This mindset runs deep in tech communities, where some people
| seem to think they can build a personality around doing
| everything differently than others. It's the person who can't
| resist the urge to remind everyone that they don't use a popular
| text editor, programming language, or operating system.
|
| I'm actually all for exploring the less popular path and trying
| different things. It becomes a problem, however, when someone can
| only view every choice as a false dichotomy in which only one
| option can be chosen. And of course, they'll find a way to
| casually mention how they chose the less popular of the two
| options every time it comes up. They _need_ everyone to know they
| are different (which they believe is equivalent to being better).
| soheil wrote:
| WJW wrote:
| Perhaps offtopic, but this argumentation style of "So you
| think XYZ", where XYZ is a complete strawman of what the
| original post was arguing, is that some new fashion? I don't
| recall ever seeing it even just a year ago, but these days it
| seems to be in every other thread on HN.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Perhaps offtopic, but this argumentation style of "So you
| think XYZ", where XYZ is a complete strawman of what the
| original post was arguing, is that some new fashion?
|
| No, there is nothing new about it, either in general or on
| HN.
| WJW wrote:
| Perhaps it's just my imagination then (or I noticed it
| once and now the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is causing me
| to see it everywhere).
| soheil wrote:
| You just did what you accused me of doing.
|
| I wasn't saying there is never any point in going with the
| flow. I was just highlighting that there is wisdom in not
| following the crowd all the time as long as you're both
| contrarian and right.
| detaro wrote:
| I think their accusation was fair: The comment you
| replied to wasn't arguing for "following the crowd all
| the time", so "So you want to be lemmings running off the
| cliff" was attacking something they didn't say.
| soheil wrote:
| That's assuming the worst possible interpretation of what
| I said.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| If you always choose the anti- path, the mimetic is controlling
| your behavior just as much as if you always choose the mimentic
| path; it determines what you do. The point is to make decisions
| on other values, disregarding the mimetic (except when you
| choose to regard it).
|
| Analogously, in decision theory, someone is equally reliable
| and predictable if they are always right or always wrong.
| bananamerica wrote:
| Being autistic mean I don't really need to make an effort for
| that. Silver lining, maybe?
| javajosh wrote:
| This is a path to more meaning and engagement, but at the cost of
| much more misery. Post-modernism is lame, but Lyotard's "tyranny
| of consensus" is real - the vast majority of people do NOT want
| to be challenged, and these days it feels like the ones that need
| to be challenged are on the edge of violence.
|
| At least in this time and place (2021 USA), keep your head down.
| At least for now.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-12-26 23:00 UTC)