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Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

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Re: Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

#21

Post by xyzelement »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #17
xyzelement wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think my feeling would be “The planet cannot possibly stand having 100 grandchildren for every current person. What have I done!?!?”

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.

Re: Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

#22

Post by lo_zamoyski »

xyzelement wrote: post #10
Zetice wrote: post #2

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!

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…

> 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.

Re: Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

#23

Post by lo_zamoyski »

xyzelement wrote: post #21
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my feeling would be “The planet cannot possibly stand having 100 grandchildren for every current person. What have I done!?!?”

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.

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.

Re: Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

#24

Post by foobarbecue »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #19
foobarbecue wrote: post #7

There is no anti-memetics division

Yes, I misread the title as anti-memetic, but it is anti-mimetic which is very different.

Hm, I had thought it was two different spellings of the same word. It does seem the ideas were created independently but are quite similar (I'm reading https://marketingmemetics.com/essays/mimetics-vs-memetics )

Re: Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

#26

Post by rootsudo »

This is a great article, it's nice to have someone else come to the same conclusions about life and ways to live.

I never considered it would be "counter-cultural life" but I agree with that phrase now that I read all this and it lets me be confused into thinking - am I just supposed to mirror what other people want? e.g. the American dream, the car in the driveway, the wife and 2.5 kids stereotype.

So it's nice.

Re: Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

#27

Post by foobarbecue »

jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #20
foobarbecue wrote: post #7

There is no anti-memetics division

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.

Yeah. Here's the review I wrote when I read it: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3687038034

Haven't read any of his other stuff, thanks for the recommendation.

Re: Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

#28

Post by ImaCake »

inconceivable wrote: post #5

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 t…

For this article in particular the author could have cut the entire intro down to two sentences and then each of the 25 tips could be one or two sentences each. Nothing of value would have been lost, indeed, that's all I read of it.

There's good ideas in here, but no one reads shit that isn't in dot points.

Re: Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

#29

Post by majormajor »

ssivark wrote: post #11
ttctciyf wrote: post #3

> 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?

> "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.

I read the paragraph as saying "the market is what you should want to validate you - or not (it might reject you) instead of the 'theater' of seeking publicity." It seems dreadfully sincere about "market validation" still being good while "publicity validation" is "bad." Despite "do something the market values" is basically foundational western capitalistic culture.

Look at the rest of the list too: It's all about being "socially" "counter-cultural" to pursue extremely traditional cultural things (market validated company! classic films! be grounded in the real! go analog! etc).

Re: Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

#30

Post by dang »

Discussed at the time:

Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29692848 - Dec 2021 (267 comments)

Anti-Mimetic Tactics for Living a Counter-Cultural Life - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592786 - Dec 2021 (5 comments)

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