Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

academic.oup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 704 posts

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#521

Post by pdntspa »

ravenstine wrote: post #511
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no need for convoluted explanations. A good taboo, understood as a restriction on certain kinds of behavior or speech at least in certain circumstances, exists to protect some good. It's the same reason (or one of the reasons) we partition our houses into rooms by purpose. Human flourishing requires certain limits, not letting it all hang out. The latter is more akin to the liberal notion of freedom understoo…

> There's no need for convoluted explanations. I don't see how it's at all convoluted. If anything, it's too reductive. Taboos, traditions, etc., don't need to exist because of a reason that's explicit. Sometimes, they do, but that doesn't explain the taboos that don't make obvious sense. A taboo can be more or less a form of "cultural neuron" that doesn't have an explicit purpose but incidentally changes the balance…

How exactly does sexism (or lack thereof) signal confidence?

And on the word shit, there is a long tradition in various world cultures of curse words being named on bodily functions. But you are missing the obvious in that "curse" words are such because they were originally thought to bring a curse on the speaker or recipients from whatever god-entity they believe in. I suspect this is a manifestation of (ancient?) society's methods of trying to control the fuck out of everyone and it is a meme burned in our consciousness quite deeply at this point. But all that makes the entire notion of curse-words invalid; if their meaning is that which we attribute to them then they are meaningless and therefore harmless. But with morality unable to escape the shadow of primitive, ignorant times, they continue to be "taboo"

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#522

Post by leviathant »

jlrubin wrote: post #377

anecdotally, i had a professor (if you're reading this, hi) who would wink in conversation at exactly the right point to add a little "isn't the world a funny place" comedy to whatever he was saying... wasn't clear if intentional or a tic for when he thought he had said something clever. I noticed that habit to have transferred to me for a while after, though I think now it's faded.

As a presales engineer, I worked with a winky sales rep for a year or two and absolutely picked up this winky habit.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#523

Post by christophilus »

maxbond wrote: post #199
christophilus wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s not worth vagueposting about, it’s worth tweeting and TikToking about.

You are saying, because you are uncomfortable discussing it, no one should discuss it? Feel free to correct me if I'm misreading you, it sounds like you're more or less saying, "things I don't like should go away and stop existing."

No, I’m saying: if it’s not worth saying, it’s worthy of Twitter and TikTok.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#524

Post by LesZedCB »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #515

"they can be viewed as the 21st century expression of a culture-bound stress reaction of our post-modern society emphasizing the uniqueness of individuals and valuing their alleged exceptionality, thus promoting attention-seeking behaviours and aggravating the permanent identity crisis of modern man." There is a tendency to reify aberrations and disorders and to identify with them because it gives you another way of…

this reads to me like a typical modern's response to an unfamiliarity with the feeling of actually being one of the alienated people who are attempting with varying degrees of success to find anything of substance.

but really I think that alienation is dealt with differently by each subject, with temporally near groups just chosing similar patterns based on environmental and cultural factors.

there isn't any "right" way to deal with it, just the ones were currently trying. maybe it's good, maybe it's unhealthy, maybe it's going to cause the death of society. either way, the earth still spins.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#525

Post by zozbot234 »

RC_ITR wrote: post #519
LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea of "men and women need to be segregated in certain places (particularly when nude) and must dress differently' is likely the cause of how prevalent transgender people have become. Have you ever been a parent? Because males and females are different, and the sexual pressures on them are immensely different too, for both social and physical reasons. Similarly, sexual risk (to anyone, but especially children)…

.

> You're making an argument to make better men, but your method is victimize weak boys instead.

Unfortunately, even weak males are a physical threat to females. The difference in upper body strength is that stark. So if you're trying to split society along some line to reduce the problem of physical aggression, gender is not a bad place to do it.

(Add more lines, and you'd end up with a system more akin to boxing weight classes, which would be more than a bit ridiculous. It's way better to invest in enforcement of very rigid norms against physical abuse.)

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#526

Post by jnovek »

LesZedCB wrote: post #524
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #515

"they can be viewed as the 21st century expression of a culture-bound stress reaction of our post-modern society emphasizing the uniqueness of individuals and valuing their alleged exceptionality, thus promoting attention-seeking behaviours and aggravating the permanent identity crisis of modern man." There is a tendency to reify aberrations and disorders and to identify with them because it gives you another way of…

this reads to me like a typical modern's response to an unfamiliarity with the feeling of actually being one of the alienated people who are attempting with varying degrees of success to find anything of substance. but really I think that alienation is dealt with differently by each subject, with temporally near groups just chosing similar patterns based on environmental and cultural factors. there isn't any "right"…

As someone who deals with the misery of an “invisible” chronic illness, one of my great fears is that everyone (or the majority, anyway) thinks like GP.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#527

Post by Nevermark »

badRNG wrote: post #423
screye wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good place to start - https://omny.fm/shows/revisionist-history/from-inside-voice-... Lake Bell asks the person to speak in their highest note and then their lowest note and then yodel for a couple of times. Then to asks her to just speak, and the voice that comes out much closer to what we associate with a 'normal' woman's voice. I guess having to manually change tone to such extremes resets the body's abi…

> resets the body's ability to recover this incredibly specific learnt behavior, and the person momentarily reverts to a clean sample of their own voice. What is one's "own voice?" Nearly all speech patterns, dialects, accents, patterns and phrasing is learned from one's social circle. Speech itself is "learnt behavior." It makes sense that those engaged in a subculture or online community may take up the way people…

The "normal" voice would probably be associated with clear diction, produced with the least physical effort based on the speakers physiology.

Think sighing loudly but neutrally, producing white noise. Then sigh loudly again, tightening the vocal cords just enough to add sound, with the least effort. Try talking like that or near that where it feels comfortable.

Wasted physical effort (in the sense of not adding clarity) in speaking is almost certainly culturally learned or due to the aesthetic/self-image of how one wants to hear oneself, attract and maintain listeners attention, differentiate oneself, etc.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#528

Post by RC_ITR »

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #520
RC_ITR wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Operating based on a sampling of women I know How big and diverse is that sample? >You can slice it 6 different ways but outside of a small minority How small is that minority? >the vast majority of women want to "be pretty" Are you implying that there's an objective idea of 'pretty' as it relates to fashion? That a woman in pants can't be 'pretty'? Can I point you to powerful men in high-heeled shoes in the 10th Ce…

> > History shows us that almost all expressions of gender are fluid > Again, are high heels for boys or girls? History's opinion will surprise you! If transgenderism were only changing fashion trends it wouldn't involve psychiatric or surgical interventions and transition wouldn't be called life-saving, etc. > Or are you implying that it's fine for men to dress in women's clothes? Because if so then why are we here?…

.

^I realized I'm arguing with one account across many branches of the tree (which is against the spirit of this forum) so might as well just move on

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#529

Post by RC_ITR »

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #516
RC_ITR wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please answer my question directly. Is it 'subjective' that many activities are segregated by gender in the West? If a person doesn't like that, how is it not a logical response to try to change their gender?

> Is it 'subjective' that many activities are segregated by gender in the West? You're conflating sex and gender. If you used the two terms as others do there's no surprise. Washrooms, in almost the entire world, are sex segregated. They aren't gender-segregated in the sense of transgender because they forbid all males and allow all females, or vice versa. > If a person doesn't like that, how is it not a logical resp…

.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#530

Post by erenyeager »

elil17 wrote: post #421
walkhour wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the reason you discuss you should delete your comment. Airplanes crashes rise when the media discusses these topics: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1746810 .

It's not clear to me that discussing the effect causes the effect. It's an effect that's been specifically documented in response to media coverage of suicide. The consensus from suicide prevention orgs seems to be that compassionate, interpersonal discussions about suicide prevention are probably helpful. Not sure if that's backed by research.

It is helpful because discussing a negative thing in society spreads it without need. Like if you find out everyone’s secrets and scandals, you become more uninhibited
Post reply on HN