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Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

aethermug.com

71–80 of 102 posts

Re: Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

#71

> And culture is, by and large, random, arbitrary, and self-reinforcing. The best definition of "culture" I've ever found is "how we do things 'round here". It's valid in both the large and in the small. Of course, why and how we converge on those norms is mysterious, and the anthropologists, the psychologists, and etc. can have a go at explaining those parts. I can't.

Yeah, please leave the cultural analysis to anthropologists, sociologists, etc. The engineering-focused materialist way of looking at stuff like this makes my head and heart hurt.

Why gatekeep like this? If you had developed an interesting account of some engineering topic and were told to leave it to the pros, you would find it deflating

Re: Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

#72
post #68
post #28

Queueing culture is hilarious. Indians > Italians (ok, Italians are probably more entertaining), brits (I imagined them trying to bring queueing to indians and gave up... although india does have a semi-line culture in limited ways nowadays). As an american, grocery checkout queueing always angered me.

> As an american, grocery checkout queueing always angered me. It should, because practically everywhere in the US does it wrong. There should be a single entry queue that distributes to the multiple handlers. Instead, you wind up with multiple queues so that people get hung up behind someone causing slow handling. The one that infuriates me are bank queues. Look, folks, both queuing theory and experience show that y…

> It should, because practically everywhere in the US does it wrong

Where do they do it differently? I've been in grocery stores across Western Europe, Asia and Latin America, and the only place I recall seeing the single entry queue was at a Trader Joe's in NYC

Re: Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

#73
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your epistemology is historicism?

Did you recently discover the idea of epistemology or does your line of questioning have a purpose?

The OP suggested “The engineering-focused materialist way of looking at stuff like this makes my head and heart hurt.”

Therefore excluding “materialist way of looking at stuff” from the question of social theory

I have still yet to hear any elucidation with any type of philosophical rigor of why about the questions of humanity should exclude materialist lenses

Further, at no point was there a epistemological foundation laid for the claim that consciousness is the foundation apriori from materialism

Re: Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very uncharitable and questionable on a few levels. Every human exists in context of society, no human exists standalone—the very definition of self , as in self-awareness, has the existence of other as a prerequisite. People you see are perfectly aware of themselves; it’s just that awareness of yourself does not mean you have to violate societal norms and show how individual you are all the time—at best, it requires…

> People you see are perfectly aware of themselves Are they rote-students imitating or copying memes and as such are driven by inadequate-ideas or are they students who understand the subject from its first assumptions and as such are driven by adequate-ideas. In the quote above, the suggestion is that majority are rote-students.

There’s a lot of ground between “imitate” and “understand the subject from its first assumptions”. Arguably, the former is how all learning happens at first. We imitate to get a taste for it and start enjoying it (humans are mirrors), then we can dig deeper if we become sufficiently interested. You can hardly become truly interested in music if you are presented with all the music theory up front and don’t get to have fun playing the instrument; same with math.

Even if someone never becomes sufficiently interested to dig deeper into some academic subject and sticks to imitating, I wouldn’t say they are somehow worse and have no awareness. They may have other interests and joys in life, there’s many fulfilling things outside academia. Why would you expect everybody to be like you?

Re: Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

#75

> sarcasm is simply not a thing in Japan, and people aren't (I'm tempted to say can't be) sarcastic. It doesn't occur to them to be it. Japanese culture absolutely has sarcasm, it simply manifests in an unfamiliar way. Homegoroshi (killing-compliment) and using a flagrantly inappropriate politeness register are some of the most common forms. Sarcasm, and more broadly humor, are highly contingent on culture and langua…

That sounds more like irony than sarcasm

But maybe that's my English-media tainted view of sarcasm as something quite unfunny (and also socially .. deficient?)

Different take from mine here tho :)

https://www.thescop.com/archive/2011/09/irony-vs-sarcasm

>Sarcasm happens when the observed irony does not extend to the speaker.

Re: Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

#76
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you recently discover the idea of epistemology or does your line of questioning have a purpose?

The OP suggested “The engineering-focused materialist way of looking at stuff like this makes my head and heart hurt.” Therefore excluding “materialist way of looking at stuff” from the question of social theory I have still yet to hear any elucidation with any type of philosophical rigor of why about the questions of humanity should exclude materialist lenses Further, at no point was there a epistemological foundati…

I read it as an expression of personal experience, not a declaration of anything.

"Be not arrogant because of your knowledge, but confer with the ignorant man as with the learned, for the limits of skill are not attainable."

Re: Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

#77
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an american, grocery checkout queueing always angered me. It should, because practically everywhere in the US does it wrong. There should be a single entry queue that distributes to the multiple handlers. Instead, you wind up with multiple queues so that people get hung up behind someone causing slow handling. The one that infuriates me are bank queues. Look, folks, both queuing theory and experience show that y…

> It should, because practically everywhere in the US does it wrong Where do they do it differently? I've been in grocery stores across Western Europe, Asia and Latin America, and the only place I recall seeing the single entry queue was at a Trader Joe's in NYC

The Barnes & Noble Bookstore (at least the two or three I have been to in the past 10 years) has a single queue. Fry's Electronics did it that way. The self-pay corral at HEB (a huge Texas grocery chain) with about 14 check-out stations does it that way. The Academy Sporting Goods store near me does it that way. The Austin Bergstrom Airport security gates are that way.

I agree that many places have a queue for each registers, but the other way isn't entirely rare.

Re: Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

#78

> sarcasm is simply not a thing in Japan, and people aren't (I'm tempted to say can't be) sarcastic. It doesn't occur to them to be it. Japanese culture absolutely has sarcasm, it simply manifests in an unfamiliar way. Homegoroshi (killing-compliment) and using a flagrantly inappropriate politeness register are some of the most common forms. Sarcasm, and more broadly humor, are highly contingent on culture and langua…

That sounds more like irony than sarcasm But maybe that's my English-media tainted view of sarcasm as something quite unfunny (and also socially .. deficient?) Different take from mine here tho :) https://www.thescop.com/archive/2011/09/irony-vs-sarcasm > Sarcasm happens when the observed irony does not extend to the speaker.

> That sounds more like irony than sarcasm

I only mentioned forms. They're sarcasm because they're explicit mockery. I've read plenty of foreigners in Japan who comment on how it's weird they won't get praise from their boss in certain contexts where they expect it. This is a shadow of the killing-complement. Praise isn't issued because in that context a Japanese person would get the same sense that you would if your boss said "Good job!" in a baby voice.

> sarcasm as something quite unfunny (and also socially .. deficient?)

Probably because it's insulting someone to their face without just outright insulting them, often with the desire to cause offense (but varies in degree depending on your relationship with the person and the general situation). It's the same thing here and there, up to and including making everybody else in the room uncomfortable. It's simply manifested in a different shape.

Re: Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

#79
The reason why people form two lines to board the Marunouchi line in Ikebukuro is not because they prioritize seating, or going as soon as possible.

The true reason is that the line forks into two lines later on, with the final station being either Honancho or Ogikubo. The second line that form is just for the people whose destination would not be served by the incoming train.

Re: Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings

#80

> sarcasm is simply not a thing in Japan, and people aren't (I'm tempted to say can't be) sarcastic. It doesn't occur to them to be it. Japanese culture absolutely has sarcasm, it simply manifests in an unfamiliar way. Homegoroshi (killing-compliment) and using a flagrantly inappropriate politeness register are some of the most common forms. Sarcasm, and more broadly humor, are highly contingent on culture and langua…

That sounds more like irony than sarcasm But maybe that's my English-media tainted view of sarcasm as something quite unfunny (and also socially .. deficient?) Different take from mine here tho :) https://www.thescop.com/archive/2011/09/irony-vs-sarcasm > Sarcasm happens when the observed irony does not extend to the speaker.

>Sarcasm happens when the observed irony does not extend to the speaker.

This seems... dead wrong. In the examples in the article, both comic frames function as sarcasm, because everyone involved has no illusion that anyone is going to die if they don't see the film. The irony is entirely in the speaker's statement, which everyone knows to be false, including them. People treat 'ironic insults' as sarcasm, but this only works amongst good friends who have the shared context necessary to understand the falsity of the insult. But, then socially incompetent see this and attempt it, and fail to achieve the sarcastic humour. Which is probably why people conflate sarcasm with... failed sarcasm, frankly.

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