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

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

#561

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

nordsieck wrote: post #542
el_nahual wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"limitless indulgence of the appetites and desires" has a different word. That's not freedom , that's called debauchery and has absolutely nothing to do with "liberalism" in the political science meaning of the term.

> "limitless indulgence of the appetites and desires" has a different word. That's not freedom , that's called debauchery and has absolutely nothing to do with "liberalism" in the political science meaning of the term. Could you explain more? From what I can tell, there is no inherent separation between freedom and debauchery aside from someone's judgement about whether particular choices where good for the person wh…

I enjoy some debauchery as much as or more than the next guy, but clearly the difference between freedom and debauchery is that people don't automatically go for debauchery just because they can, because we still have societal norms that most people follow most of the time. But we're free because we get to make that choice for ourselves.

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

#562

Post by r00fus »

el_nahual wrote: post #503
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…

"limitless indulgence of the appetites and desires" has a different word. That's not freedom , that's called debauchery and has absolutely nothing to do with "liberalism" in the political science meaning of the term.

The more apt words would be hedonist/libertine.

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

#564

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

fleddr wrote: post #535

The times we live in, utterly bizarre. Pre-internet, one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird. It would still happen but in moderation, for which I'll use the stereotype "village idiot". A village idiot is isolated for having off-base ideas and behavior, hence bad ideas don't take root. Now it's as if all the village idiots of the world had a meeting and started to ru…

It's not just "social media". For five centuries now advertising has been bending society out of shape, and making us happy about it.

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

#565

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #559
Jerrrry wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>don't need to exist because of a reason that's explicit Why do men have nipples? Because there is no reason not to. Evolution need not a reason, but unless things do have a purpose, all things have a cost, whether it is raw unnecessary complexity, inefficient energy expenditure, or a novel external selective pressure. Taboos and traditions may not _seem_ to have purpose - but that ignorance is basically the inverse…

To some degree Chesterton's fence applies here: if you don't know why a fence was put up, don't demolish it until you find out. Many taboos and instincts have their roots in completely outdated utility - racism and sexism both used to serve evolutionary purposes, but stuck around LONG after they became useless. Other taboos and traditions are still useful for society today, but are somewhat under attack - like the ta…

I'm quite sceptical of these studies.

I don't see how you control for the fact that couples who stay together are happier on average. That's why they're still together(at least some of the time), whereas divorcees are by definition not happy together.

To have a proper comparison you need to compare divorced parents to married, but miserable parents. Growing up with the latter can be just as miserable or possibly even more if it's an abusive marriage.

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

#566

Post by ravenstine »

Super_Jambo wrote: post #553
pdntspa wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?) s…

>How exactly does sexism (or lack thereof) signal confidence? I think the argument they're making is that in a sexist culture all men will present with more confidence due to the belief that women are lesser. So the average woman will find the average guy more attractive... I can't say I'm convinced.

Not sure how you came away with that conclusion. It's the exact opposite.

In a culture where sexism is more common, casual sexism will not stand out at all. The average guy will not appear more attractive. In a culture where sexism is largely frowned upon, being sexist but not too sexist is an act that stands out. A man who is either not sufficiently sexist or is silently sexist (for fear of repercussion) will appear average, because that category describes the average man. The man who is only slightly sexist and is just charming and good looking enough will win out because being sexist in front of a woman is the polar opposite of lacking confidence or placing the woman on a pedestal. They reside in a cozy region between the silent/supplicant majority of men and the ones who are either disgustingly sexist or are too physically unattractive to make up for saying something sexist.

No one's saying you or anyone have to like sexism. Being offensive in spite of blowback is a confidence move whether any individual finds it toxic or not.

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

#567

Post by ravenstine »

Jerrrry wrote: post #543
ravenstine wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>don't need to exist because of a reason that's explicit Why do men have nipples? Because there is no reason not to. Evolution need not a reason, but unless things do have a purpose, all things have a cost, whether it is raw unnecessary complexity, inefficient energy expenditure, or a novel external selective pressure. Taboos and traditions may not _seem_ to have purpose - but that ignorance is basically the inverse…

> all things have a cost

Yes, and it's not a simple matter to estimate those costs, let alone any point where a cost reaches the threshold of evolutionary pressure. There are plenty of examples in nature of things that are inefficient and suboptimal but the pressure to remove them is lacking. Or, there is an unseen benefit to things that seem to be "bad" that 21st century humans haven't figured out yet.

In theory, everything has a cost, just as the First Law of thermodynamics suggests that energy is conserved, even though in the real world neither energy or mass are conserved, making it much more complicated if not impractical to make predictions from alone. On the flip side, all matter has the added factor (substituting cost) of gravitation, which one might assume to always matter to some degree, yet it's so inconsequential at the molecular level that it's basically not even factored into most chemistry. My point being that whether we are capable to actually determine whether anything is a meaningful cost on a system is dubious.

> Taboos and traditions may not _seem_ to have purpose

And that could be a result of them actually having no purpose, but consequently having an effect that manages to allow them to survive and propagate.

> We evolved from apes; taboos and traditions are just remnants of our collective unconscious, and are just unneeded artifacts we will grow out of as technology and modernity progress.

Be careful what you wish for.

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

#568

Post by vkou »

reb wrote: post #558
fleddr wrote: post #535

The times we live in, utterly bizarre. Pre-internet, one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird. It would still happen but in moderation, for which I'll use the stereotype "village idiot". A village idiot is isolated for having off-base ideas and behavior, hence bad ideas don't take root. Now it's as if all the village idiots of the world had a meeting and started to ru…

The times we live in are absolutely brutal for people who struggle with diversity of belief (wherever they are on the sociopolitical spectrum). Never before has an individual had so many perspectives to contend with at once. It breaks a lot of people in different ways, although I think people who can navigate the noise without losing their sense of self are better for the experience. Still, it's impossible to deny th…

They aren't 'coping' with reactionary extremism, it's always had its seductive song.

What has changed is just that extremist groups have very successfully adopted the communication tools available to them for recruitment and engagement.

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

#569

Post by madrox »

fleddr wrote: post #535

The times we live in, utterly bizarre. Pre-internet, one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird. It would still happen but in moderation, for which I'll use the stereotype "village idiot". A village idiot is isolated for having off-base ideas and behavior, hence bad ideas don't take root. Now it's as if all the village idiots of the world had a meeting and started to ru…

Someone on HN once described this as the "toaster fucker problem" and I've thought about it this way ever since: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362

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

#570

Post by this_steve_j »

From the article:

> Functional ‘Tourette-like’ symptoms can be regarded as the ‘modern’ form of the well-known motor variant of mass sociogenic illness.

> Moreover, 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.

Whoa! I’m gonna have to let that sink in.

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