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Straussian Memes

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Re: Straussian Memes

#51

Post by _yb2s »

dmichulke wrote: post #42
_yb2s wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religions themselves are a great example of a Straussian meme, it’s shocking how close they got to using that example but instead went somewhere else with it that made zero sense. I suspect that the use of incredibly bad examples is some sort of intentional Straussian joke, and that the entire article itself, and not the examples in it, is supposed to be the real example of a Straussian meme.

Once you assume that any collection of Straussian meme examples is itself a Straussian meme example, you're free to start with the worst examples And maybe that's the higher reading.

Is this HN or Tyler Cowen’s blog?

Re: Straussian Memes

#52

Post by xtiansimon »

xtiansimon wrote: post #44

> “There's a bit of a category mistake here, because a single utterance by a father is not a meme. But the example is meant to be an aid to developing an intuition for the general idea.” In the Dawkins sense, if the Dad’s use of the Santa myth makes the child feel happy, and preserves in some sense their innocence (ignorance of the world the way it really is), then the mother can recreate the same myth pattern elsewh…

-1? Semiotic hater, or clinical psychologist? The former doesn’t like language games, and the latter just doesn’t like any suggestion not backed by observation (god knows where they get their ideas).

Re: Straussian Memes

#53

Post by kp1197 »

motohagiography wrote: post #9

I think the author is talking about "exoteric" meaning, which is for public consumption, and "esoteric" meaning, which is for the initiated. Even though they say they aren't dogwhistles or shibboleths, these Straussian memes are closely related, as the accusation asserts that there is an "esoteric" meaning to something beneath its "exoteric" face value. They may be a converse of the Scissor Statement, which has a dua…

I kind of regret calling it Straussian because of the baggage that comes with that label. The key differentiator here compared to exoteric/esoteric is the stabilization mechanism: social costs to either upgrading one’s own understanding, or upgrading someone else’s understanding. That’s what keeps the readings differentiated and therefore the tiered structure stable. Keeping the structure encourages the memes survival, because it widens the acceptability of the message to meet audiences where they are. I think I need a few more examples and I ought to make this point a little more explicit.

Re: Straussian Memes

#54

Post by [deleted] »

kp1197 wrote: post #53
motohagiography wrote: post #9

I think the author is talking about "exoteric" meaning, which is for public consumption, and "esoteric" meaning, which is for the initiated. Even though they say they aren't dogwhistles or shibboleths, these Straussian memes are closely related, as the accusation asserts that there is an "esoteric" meaning to something beneath its "exoteric" face value. They may be a converse of the Scissor Statement, which has a dua…

I kind of regret calling it Straussian because of the baggage that comes with that label. The key differentiator here compared to exoteric/esoteric is the stabilization mechanism: social costs to either upgrading one’s own understanding, or upgrading someone else’s understanding. That’s what keeps the readings differentiated and therefore the tiered structure stable. Keeping the structure encourages the memes surviva…

[deleted]

Re: Straussian Memes

#55

Post by galaxyLogic »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23
ryandv wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In many respects, it’s an essential feature of commanding language. Compressing multiple meanings into fewer words is the essence of poetry and literature. Aye, perhaps prompting is the be-all-end-all skill, after all: the ability to distill out an idea into its most concentrated, compressed essence, so it can be diluted, expanded, and reworded ad infinitum by the LLMs. brb while I search for the word prompt that g…

> the ability to distill out an idea into its most concentrated, compressed essence, so it can be diluted, expanded, and reworded ad infinitum by the LLMs Nobody said people haven’t rendered themselves unable to understand poetry or literature through the ages. Nor that these skills haven’t had a distinct class mark to them. Same here. Someone who relies on LLMs to speak and read will not be able to compete in a live…

That's an interesting image, having a mobile connections to AI and having it tell me what I should say in any interactive situation. But, I don't think you would get much respect from other people if that is all we do. Gaining the respect of others I believe is the way to succeed in life.

Further much anybody could repeat that, make AI responsible for all their speech, and even actions. But less we use our own brains, the less we learn, and thus cannot gain a competititve advantage over other AI-users. The most rewarded original thoughts and ideas probabaly need to come from outside of AI since AI is trained on people's original text outputs.

Re: Straussian Memes

#56

Post by galaxyLogic »

lcuff wrote: post #13
ryandv wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another phrase that comes to mind is "Plausible Deniability": By uttering ambiguous sentences you can deny all but one possible meanings of what you say. And talking to different audiences at different times you can claim you didn't mean anything like what your citics are claiming you did. This is the core rhetorical tactic of the progressive left in a nutshell. Linguistic superposition, equivocation, Schrodinger's…

"Core rhetorical tactic of the progressive left". Or the conservative right, depending on which side of this divide one happens to stand on. And speaking of Orwell, he was pointing out the doublespeak of the Fascists, not the socialists.

Fascists are the ones who want to manipulate other people to their Fuhrer's will. To do that they must manipulate language. Whereas "socialists" are about the common good, which can only happen through peaceful co-existence, which can only happen though democracy.

Depends of course on which definition of "socialism" you use. Didn't Hitler call his movement socialism as well? But I always associated "socialism" with "being social", which means taking into account other people's benefit as well, instead of trying to overpower them with propaganda and double-speak (and of course, violence).

If the goal is unlimited power to your party, to your leader, it would only make sense to lie to people as much as you can, to mislead them. To double-speak to them. If your goal is peaceful co-existence, then not so much.

And where there's smoke there is fire. Where there's Double-Speak, fascism is not far away.

Ironically Double-Speak succeeds because people are social beings, they really WANT to agree with others.

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