This is great. And not uniquely American.
Principles of the American Cargo Cult (2003)
41–50 of 62 posts
Re: Principles of the American Cargo Cult (2003)
#42Tragedy is a synonym for calamity It took me a little while to figure this one out, since I've always treated the two words as synonyms (non-ironically, I hope). In case anyone else also paused at this one, a tragedy is something horrible happening because of a weakness in someone's character, whereas a calamity is just something horrible happening. The point of the principle is that victims* of the American cargo cu…
That seems like an anachronistic meaning of the word tragedy. In the context of dramatic productions, a tragedy does indeed imply a flaw or weakness in character leading to some unpleasant outcome. But I don't think that implication is generally present when using the word in other contexts. I doubt many if any modern Europeans or Americans would find fault with the statement, "It's a tragedy when women die during ch…
> I doubt many if any modern Europeans or Americans would find fault with the statement, "It's a tragedy when women die during child birth."
They would not find fault with the statement because, particularly in the USA, they will indeed consider it a tragedy and that there must be someone to blame.
Re: Principles of the American Cargo Cult (2003)
#43I found this very helpful. It gives clear language for a number of things I’ve thought and felt about public discourse in America. To name a few in particular, the belief that complicated explanations are suspect and that certainty is strength. I’ve repeatedly observed that successful people seem to have very strong opinions and wondered if that was a contributor to their success. While it seems most things in this l…
In short it is a consequence of everyone became a seller and every conversation became a salespitch. There is never nuance in a salespitch. Everything projected needs to be flawless and beyond reproach, every competition vilified and without merit.
If everyone is competition, there is no more 'us' outside the context of 'them', and you can never show weakness in front of the 'enemy'.
Ultimately it is this projection of everything being a zero sum game that fuels our decend into tribalism.
Re: Principles of the American Cargo Cult (2003)
#44I found this very helpful. It gives clear language for a number of things I’ve thought and felt about public discourse in America. To name a few in particular, the belief that complicated explanations are suspect and that certainty is strength. I’ve repeatedly observed that successful people seem to have very strong opinions and wondered if that was a contributor to their success. While it seems most things in this l…
Largely, the American people have been targeted with campaigns to make every possible combination of events into sport. This isn't a conspiracy, the people responsible have said as much. From a New York Times article that quotes the president of CNN , Jeff Zucker: Zucker is a big sports fan and from the early days of the campaign had spoken at editorial meetings about wanting to incorporate elements of ESPN’s program…
It's one step deeper than that. It's not that everything is sports. If you watch sports coverage, the coverage is less and less about the actual sports and more and more about the underlying drama. Not even sports is sports anymore. Instead, both sports and politics are being transformed into a combination of sports and melodrama.
Which American institution lies squarely at the intersection of sports and melodrama? Professional wrestling. I'm not saying that politics (or even other sports) are turning into professional wrestling in the sense that the outcomes are completely rigged, but they are being covered and treated much like wrestling, even by the participants themselves. So it's no coincidence that the current President is a member of the WWE Hall of Fame.
Re: Principles of the American Cargo Cult (2003)
#45To some extent I have all of those. To a lesser extent, I believe we all have those, even my thoughtful non-American friends. Some of those flaws might be more characteristic I some people than in other peoples. So why call it “American” cargo cult? The only uniquely American aspect is that our inability to rise above these flaws is destroying the country. (I’m actually not American. I’ve just lived in the US for ove…
I think the author isn't doing any kind of comparison between Americans and other people - it's just that his focus is entirely on his own country and culture, so he calls this an American problem. I.e., it is a problem in America - but might as well be a problem everywhere else too.
Re: Principles of the American Cargo Cult (2003)
#46I can't say I agree with most of these points, but > Certainty is strength > [and survivorship bias] This I have definitely seen and experienced. Back when I thought I knew everything some people followed me and copied what I did. I unwittingly became a leader simply by being arrogant. Now that I have a little wisdom that's all out the window. Confidence is magnetic even if its foundations are nonsense. I think the m…
Yes, the phenomenon is true, but the point of the article is that it's a problem, and leads to bad outcomes. In your example, you've "became a leader simply by being arrogant". Were you, in your arrogance, to make a mistake, wouldn't your followers walk right into it and suffer the consequences?
Re: Principles of the American Cargo Cult (2003)
#47> Emulate the purported behavior of successful people
This one is very obvious and appears everywhere. People are fascinated by Jobs and the like, some even go as far as trating their employees like he did, considering this is one of the critical factors of his success.
Re: Principles of the American Cargo Cult (2003)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like an anachronistic meaning of the word tragedy. In the context of dramatic productions, a tragedy does indeed imply a flaw or weakness in character leading to some unpleasant outcome. But I don't think that implication is generally present when using the word in other contexts. I doubt many if any modern Europeans or Americans would find fault with the statement, "It's a tragedy when women die during ch…
> I doubt many if any modern Europeans or Americans would find fault with the statement, "It's a tragedy when women die during child birth." Where the implication of a personal flaw present in that statement, it would be a deeply offensive statement. This strikes me as a perfect illustration of the article's point. The US spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world, yet our maternal mortality rate i…
Please do not twist my words. I hope it should have been clear that when I said insinuating blame would be offensive, I meant that insinuating the woman died as a consequence of some moral failing on her part would be deeply offensive. I chose that as my example because I thought it universally agreeable, because I hoped to avoid political responses. Obviously in retrospect, my example was poorly chosen.
See also, my clarification 6 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21911068
Re: Principles of the American Cargo Cult (2003)
#49Such a terrible experience on mobile. Sigh. WTB a new Internet where only ten html tags are allowed.
Is it? I find a raw page like this better for pure reading than the majority of “well designed” websites, and reader mode works wonderfully.
Here is my experience: The text is tiny and I cannot double-tap to zoom into the article. When I use “reader view” the article disappears except for the donation section. When I rotate my phone to try to be able to read the text by making it bigger, a bar at the top eats a chunk of the page at all times and cannot be closed. A plain vanilla raw page is exactly what I’m wishing for.
Re: Principles of the American Cargo Cult (2003)
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd never heard of it before, but this everything as sport idea actually makes quite a bit of sense if you consider the multitude of weird behaviors all around us from this perspective. Makes one wonder if there are other things like this that are right in front of our eyes, but we cannot see them until they're pointed out. I guess it's an example of the "how's the water boys" fish story.
It's interesting: I had a friend explain this to me when I was fairly young, and it's definitely influenced my theory of society heavily.