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Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

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Re: Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

#91

Post by tomxor »

hnbad wrote: post #88
tomxor wrote: post #64

> Meritocracy is a fallacious idea – a convenient lie told to those whose lack of wealth or social class leaves them at a distinct disadvantage. This is a bit oversimplified. Meritocracy is not an outright fallacious idea, but depending on the subject, there is a certain threshold of opportunity above which it becomes the dominant force, and for many that threshold is out of reach. For instance, learning to program i…

Meritocracy is a fallacious idea exactly because it ignores social context. It's the equivalent of talking about spherical cows. Meritocracy not only assumes you can judge merit perfectly and that merit is expressed perfectly, but also that it is observed and rewarded perfectly. None of these is true and none of this can be true in any human society. It's a lot like trying to reason about society as a network of perf…

> Meritocracy is a fallacious idea exactly because it ignores social context.

This is just a war of semantics: I'm using it as a distinct abstract idea, you are implying it must be an all encompassing model of society. As an analogy, would you say we should ban seatbelts because they ignore the fact that some people drink and drive and still cause death and destruction despite seatbelts?

Literally all i'm saying is that meritocracy is a part of equality just like seatbelts are a part of safety, and not a panacea... to be accompanied by other mechanisms.

Can you imagine a world where we do not reward people for improving themselves and becoming more useful? How is that not part of equality.

Re: Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

#92

Post by silvester23 »

hnbad wrote: post #90
silvester23 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For some reason people seem to feel the need to say they enjoyed it for reasons other than just enjoying inventive, competitive death games I guess that's because otherwise you are kind of taking on the role of the sadistic spectators. I'm not saying that's true but it might feel like that to some people. I kind of enjoyed Squid Game but I totally agree with you, I do not think it had much to offer in terms of soci…

What I think distinguishes Squid Game over The Platform most was that Squid Game directly portrays (and thus critiques) the society outside the "game" whereas The Platform is a self-contained allegory. (Spoilers galore) In both participants sign up without initially knowing what they're signing up for and in both there are volunteers who join despite understanding the violence and death, thinking they can "win" (i.e.…

That's a very interesting point, I think you are probably spot on about why Squid Game seems to resonate with people more.

Funnily enough, the inclusion of so much of the outside world is actually one of my bigger personal gripes with the series. The game itself seems so detached from reality and just formulaic that I cannot suspend my disbelief enough to reconcile that with an outside that, as you say, is so close to our own.

I think for me, such a setting works better if it is mostly self-contained, like The Platform or Cube from 1997.

But I guess that's just a matter of taste. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

Re: Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

#93

Post by donkeyd »

agent008t wrote: post #76
donkeyd wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Back in 2007 Back in 2007, Netflix wasn't a globally available streaming service and they were still sending out DVDs. > would not have looked twice at Kaiji I still wouldn't, it's a cartoon, I'm not into cartoons. > it first had to be publicly announced as 'popular' I didn't figure out it was popular until after I finished watching the show. Meanwhile, while watching the show, I was telling all my friends about ho…

It is more of a lamentation of the fact that people's opinions of things are significantly affected by the perceived popularity of those things. I guess the benign explanation is that people are more likely to invest time into something that is recommended by many people they believe they have a lot in common with, but I think it runs deeper than that. I suspect it applies to a significantly lesser degree to the HN a…

> and so popularity is often a negative indicator

And that's what bothers me so much about those types of people, disliking because something is popular and then thinking that's better than liking something because it's popular. They're just doing the same thing, but they're following a different crowd. A more negative, gate keeping crowd at that.

I've never liked Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones was popular. Those things are separate facts and I will never go on the internet to tell people that Game of Thrones was bad because there's some obscure book or movie that might have some resemblance to the story line. I just didn't like it, I ignore it and enjoy the things I do like. It's really that simple.

Re: Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

#94

Post by mihaic »

miguelmurca wrote: post #7

To be completely honest I don't understand the appeal of Squid Game. It's a very thin metaphor around super shocking imagery --- and don't get me wrong, although it's not my thing, I can understand people liking slasher movies and the like, but I don't understand why this discourse that Squid Game is very deep (and anything other than cheap gore horror) became so popular.

The success of Squid Game I think is mostly that it somehow allowed western audiences to put on it the anticapitalist sentiment that is rightfully in the air. It often happens that there's some work that matches common sentiment well enough that it becomes a thing of itself, even if the author didn't intent it.

To me honestly it feels like a boilerplate manga/anime plot, but to a more untainted audience it can be more.

Re: Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

#95

Post by Jensson »

tomxor wrote: post #84
kiba wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meritocracy is a friend of disadvantaged people, really? Merit reward merits. It's advantage compounding on advantage, whether that's luck, gene, talent, or just good environments and good parents. You win, then you can then plow that back into winning more. A meritocracy is inherently a society of elite. It is not egalitarian.

> whether that's luck, gene, talent, or just good environments and good parents. You win You are conflating the very two things i am trying to distinguish here... luck, good environment, good parents are all opportunities . Talent is something you earn with hard work, passion, effort, and yes is compounded and encouraged by merit, but can only do so given the opportunity. If society does not reward these things it fa…

> Many people suggest the merit is all that's needed, and that's not true, you need both. Honest insightful and successful people recognise how important opportunity was in their success, and when the world is viewed with this perspective you realise meritocracy is not enough

The whole point of meritocracy is to give opportunity to those with talent. If you think that is what we need to do, then you are pro meritocracy, that is its main strength. The opposite of meritocracy is nepotism where opportunity goes to the friends and family of those in power.

Re: Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

#96

Post by merpnderp »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #87
merpnderp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what’s the alternative to freely trading your labor for goods and services? Taking them through government decree?

You can't freely trade your labor. The market is rigged. If you give people rights, capital will emigrate to other countries. Just look at outsourcing. See, it is human nature that is flawed. There are always people on top and people below.

How so?

Re: Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

#97

Post by kiba »

Jensson wrote: post #95
tomxor wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whether that's luck, gene, talent, or just good environments and good parents. You win You are conflating the very two things i am trying to distinguish here... luck, good environment, good parents are all opportunities . Talent is something you earn with hard work, passion, effort, and yes is compounded and encouraged by merit, but can only do so given the opportunity. If society does not reward these things it fa…

> Many people suggest the merit is all that's needed, and that's not true, you need both. Honest insightful and successful people recognise how important opportunity was in their success, and when the world is viewed with this perspective you realise meritocracy is not enough The whole point of meritocracy is to give opportunity to those with talent. If you think that is what we need to do, then you are pro meritocra…

The whole point of meritocracy is to give opportunity to those with talent. If you think that is what we need to do, then you are pro meritocracy, that is its main strength. The opposite of meritocracy is nepotism where opportunity goes to the friends and family of those in power.

If you have two world class mathematicians as parents with connections to a network of the world greatest mathematicians, then chance are you will receive world class mathematics education.

If you have the correct gene that confers even higher IQ, then of course, you will do even better.

The idea who your parents are don't matter when selecting purely by ability is a farce. Of course they matter.

Re: Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

#98

Post by kiba »

hnbad wrote: post #88
tomxor wrote: post #64

> Meritocracy is a fallacious idea – a convenient lie told to those whose lack of wealth or social class leaves them at a distinct disadvantage. This is a bit oversimplified. Meritocracy is not an outright fallacious idea, but depending on the subject, there is a certain threshold of opportunity above which it becomes the dominant force, and for many that threshold is out of reach. For instance, learning to program i…

Meritocracy is a fallacious idea exactly because it ignores social context. It's the equivalent of talking about spherical cows. Meritocracy not only assumes you can judge merit perfectly and that merit is expressed perfectly, but also that it is observed and rewarded perfectly. None of these is true and none of this can be true in any human society. It's a lot like trying to reason about society as a network of perf…

Meritocracy is a fallacious idea exactly because it ignores social context. It's the equivalent of talking about spherical cows. Meritocracy not only assumes you can judge merit perfectly and that merit is expressed perfectly, but also that it is observed and rewarded perfectly. None of these is true and none of this can be true in any human society.

Meritocracy is a form of elitism, perfect ability to select by merit or not. We would have end up with a moneyed elite either way.

Re: Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

#99

Post by dagw »

z3c0 wrote: post #45
peakaboo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You picked the worst acting of the series as an example here. The previous episodes actually did have superb acting. One huge difference to American and British shows is that nobody tried to be cool in squid game. They were acting like humans would.

It's also not afraid to have protagonists of questionable character. Northern Asian media at least understands that people aren't perfect and crafts excellent stories of growth at the hands of a self-inflicted struggle. Western media is full of level-headed, mild-mannered, sharp, witty, moral paragons of protagonists with motives that are practically announced from loudspeakers.

Northern Asian media

OT, but I have never heard of South Korea described as "North Asia". Is that a common thing? Just looking at a map it is clearly way to the south.

Re: Sorry, but you're already living in the “Squid Game”

#100

Post by SuoDuanDao »

mandmandam wrote: post #79
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking only for myself... It's not that I'm wilfully blind to the flaws of the system I live in. It's that the overwhelming majority of people who offer critique offer absolutely nothing in the way of workable solutions. If the public intellectuals who came up with the doughnut economy, teal society, or the Rojavan system were having a talk in my town, I'd be very interested in going. But note that these people act…

I'd love to see more focus on solutions, but there are _huge_ numbers of people who don't (or won't) even recognize that there are problems; and that recognition is step one. The public intellectuals and concepts you mention may be known in your bubble, but they are not popular or talked about. It's insane that with all of our gains in productivity the last hundred years Americans are working two or three jobs just t…

I don't believe it's true that huge numbers of people don't recognize there are problems. I think rather that the majority of the solutions being put forward look like ways to exacerbate the problems a plurality finds most pressing.

I'll try and illustrate what I mean with a very personal example. A number of years ago, I was in a fragile state mentally and a precarious position economically. I chose to bite the bullet, humble myself, and ask my family for help even though I wanted to be successfully independent before I really had all the necessary skills. I could have chosen to look for opportunities in my immediate vicinity, which would have likely lead to a downward spiral of drug abuse and mental illness. I made what in retrospect was the right choice and am now in a quite good situation.

About half the solutions being put forward would focus on the fact that I had the means of getting help when I needed it, while the other half would focus on the fact that I chose to get help when I needed to. Any sane person can agree that for a positive outcome, both are necessary. But two issues arise: The first is that there genuinely are predatory elements of the investor class that subvert the need for self-directed action and room to manoeuvre by taking all the best opportunities for themselves. And there are also genuinely parasitic elements of the professional-managerial class that subvert the need for mutual aid and communal resources by channelling most of those resources towards administrative salaries that don't add much value.

The second issue is that criticisms of either effort at subversion often comes across as criticising the value being subverted. I see that in your post - Meritocracy is a sham, is it? My making the right decision in a moment of crisis had no bearing on the outcome, did it? We can help people without their active participation, can we? Of course, if you're well intentioned you don't actually believe any of that. But plenty of ill-intentioned people are participating in the public debate and genuinely attacking some foundations of a healthy society, the better to exploit the people who don't have both. It's easy to have difficulty distinguishing well-intentioned criticism of subversion and ill-intentioned criticism of the values themselves. Without knowing what someone would propose to do if their critcism galvanised large-scale action, it seems safest to assume the worst.

TL;DR: If you don't want to come across like a parasite it's necessary to distinguish your criticism of the idea meritocracy alone is enough with criticising the idea of meritocracy itself.

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