[HN Gopher] Anti-Mimetic Tactics for Living a Counter-Cultural Life
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Anti-Mimetic Tactics for Living a Counter-Cultural Life
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 38 points
Date : 2023-06-23 17:09 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.epsilontheory.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.epsilontheory.com)
| LesZedCB wrote:
| i would prefer not to
|
| bartleby is the only antimimetic character, fictional or
| otherwise, who has ever been contrived
| jrflowers wrote:
| I love this checklist of behaviors that I can follow to ensure
| that I'm not following any trends.
| resolutebat wrote:
| Number 9 will shock you! Don't forget to smash that subscribe
| button and share with your friends.
| inconceivable wrote:
| i've heard ben hunt (epsilon theory) talk on various podcasts and
| he can spend literally 2 hours talking about something that can
| be said in one sentence.
|
| i'm sure he's very smart but all of his material is such a slog i
| don't even bother anymore.
|
| a lot of these ex-hedge fund podcast guys just love to hear
| themselves talk for hours on end. especially about how bad the
| current finance industry is, and of course when they did it, it
| was different, they were good, don't you see?
|
| finance is 99% bullshit artistry until you get to stochastic
| calculus and linear algebra. i recommend everyone just sit down
| and learn all the jargon. it's extremely complex language talking
| about extremely simple shit.
| Zetice wrote:
| Of all the things humans participate in to try and forget we
| eventually die, rejecting the one thing that makes humans special
| (our society, culture) seems to be to be among the most myopic
| viewpoints to take.
|
| Mostly because it's so self-defeating. Counter-culture _is_ a
| culture, just a different one. All of the stuff you hated about
| human culture and want to eschew also exists in the "counter"
| culture!
| xyzelement wrote:
| Maybe off topic to what you meant but I find the "to forget we
| will die" an unfortunate frame.
|
| I find some of the best people are motivated by the knowledge
| that they _will_ die and therefore try to make good and
| impactful use of their limited time here.
|
| I recently had a thought : I know a rabbi who has 11 children.
| If all of his children follow suit, he will get to meet 121 of
| his grandchildren in the next 20-30 years.
|
| Now imagine you are on your deathbed and you are surrounded by
| your 11 children and 121 grandchildren and they are all good
| and strong people. Do you really lament your own death or do
| you have a feeling of 'I will be continued.'
|
| A new thought for me...
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > Do you really lament your own death or do you have a
| feeling of 'I will be continued.'
|
| The rabbi is very blessed and I am happy for him, but it is
| important to note that this line involves an equivocation of
| two meanings of "continuation", using the figurative meaning
| (in the sense of "legacy") to suggest the literal meaning
| (immortality). Legacy is all fine and good, but it is no
| substitute for immortality. Furthermore, legacy without
| immortality merely passes the buck: those children and
| grandchildren, too, will die. The human species and the
| universe will probably be extinguished. So even the value of
| legacy really presupposes the immortality of the human
| person. To wit, a true materialist, trapped, as he is, in bad
| metaphysics, cannot take comfort in legacy on his death bed.
| His life, and the lives of everyone else, are reducible to
| nothing but meaningless atoms bouncing around aimlessly in a
| void, temporary arrangements that briefly coagulate and then
| dissolve. Nothing lasts, nothing progresses, nothing makes
| any difference, all is senseless flux. Perhaps the
| materialist simply won't care about his passing, as it will
| be as meaningless as the rest of his brief existence.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I think my feeling would be "The planet cannot possibly stand
| having 100 grandchildren for every current person. What have
| I done!?!?"
| xyzelement wrote:
| The "good news" (though I don't think it's good) is that an
| average person is having zero children.
|
| I suspect a generation out, we will be super grateful for
| those who had many, not those who had none.
|
| Or more like, we'll probably completely forget about those
| who had none - as history has with those who've made that
| decision in the past.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Indeed. We are experiencing a demographic catastrophe.
| Malthusian hysteria seems impervious to reason.
|
| > I suspect a generation out, we will be super grateful
| for those who had many, not those who had none.
|
| By definition! An understatement. Exactly zero members of
| the future population will be descendants of those who
| had no children, and it is difficult to imagine anyone of
| sound mind shaking his fist at his ancestors for having
| bred.
| dtx1 wrote:
| Counter Culture is not valuable in and itself. Sometimes your
| government is doing the right thing. Sometimes corporations
| create new things that have immense value for society and the
| individual. Being opposite of the main narrative doesn't mean you
| are closer to the truth.
| Scuds wrote:
| Tell that to Q-anon or anyone whose sense of self-worth is
| derived from being able to see 'The Truth'.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| I will happily tell any q-anon devotee that their opposition
| to the 'main narrative' is not not valuable and they are not
| closer to the truth for it. It may be a mentality from which
| they derive a sense of self-worth, but that does not make it
| a net positive influence on their own lives or society
| generally. Delusion is perhaps the worst way to derive a
| sense of self-worth.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| I woke up this morning still angry about a "discussion" I had
| with an denialist nutbag and this was my first thought when I
| read that comment.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| There is no anti-memetics division
| jasonladuke0311 wrote:
| Great ideas but a huge shit-mess. IIRC it's a lightly-edited
| compilation of his SCP writings? I enjoyed Ra and Fine
| Structure much more.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Yes, I misread the title as anti-memetic, but it is anti-
| mimetic which is very different.
| proto_lambda wrote:
| (this is in reference to the amazing novel/series by qntm:
| https://qntm.org/scp)
| ttctciyf wrote:
| > The sooner you kill this beast within yourself, the sooner you
| can get to the real work of creating something that the market
| itself will validate
|
| Highly anti-mimetic then, so long as you're committed to
| entrepreneuring and being validated by the market. Wait, what?
| ssivark wrote:
| > _" the sooner you can get to the real work of creating
| something that the market itself will validate -- or not."_
|
| I think the "or not" (that you've skipped) is crucial. In my
| reading, it emphasizes the irony that market validation might
| be just another flavor of social validation.
| asplake wrote:
| To be fair there was an "-or not" at the end of that quote, and
| I assume that the dash was for emphasis. Not clear what was
| meant by it though
| jrflowers wrote:
| It is meant to hedge against anyone mistakenly interpreting
| the sentence as having any meaning.
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