9 ms·

The Tyranny of Ideas

75 points by jger15 8y ago

mdonahoe 7y ago
The most interesting part of that post to me was the tweet about Charles Goodyear. Dude had a rough life. Further reading lead me to learn that the Goodyear tire company was founded 30 years after Charles’ death.
- hodgesrm 7y ago
  Wikipedia has a good summary of his tribulations. It's sobering reading if you think you are having rough day at your start-up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodyear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodyear
mistermann 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics > Memetics is the study of information and culture based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution. Proponents describe memetics as an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. Critics regard memetics as a pseudoscience. Memetics describes how an idea can propagate successfully, but doesn't necessarily imply a concept is factual. > The term meme was coined in Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene, but Dawkins later distanced himself from the resulting field of study.[2] Analogous to a gene, the meme was conceived as a "unit of culture" (an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour, etc.) which is "hosted" in the minds of one or more individuals, and which can reproduce itself in the sense of jumping from the mind of one person to the mind of another. Thus what would otherwise be regarded as one individual influencing another to adopt a belief is seen as an idea-replicator reproducing itself in a new host. As with genetics, particularly under a Dawkinsian interpretation, a meme's success may be due to its contribution to the effectiveness of its host. I believe memetics is one of the most impactful but underappreciated ideas out there today, and plausibly explains the bizarre polarization of opinions on a wide variety of hot button current topics. Everyone perceives that their opinion/knowledge is based on facts, but very few are even slightly aware that their knowledge is actually based on a hodge podge of memes, each with varying levels of truthiness.
- ndiscussion 7y ago
  Shh, don't wake us... This is one of the most obvious things in modern life if you look. But no one seems to be looking. I'm not sure what life would look like if they were. Probably very different and with a very violent transition.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > But no one seems to be looking. There are a few people on HN and elsewhere, but I concede that our numbers are extremely small. > I'm not sure what life would look like if they were. Probably very different and with a very violent transition. I'm curious why you think a transition to a more enlightened (a significant decrease in both delusional meme-based beliefs, as well as ignorant over-confidence in the beliefs people do still hold) society would be violent? I tend to think the transition would be rather orderly, with people tending to hang their heads in shame for their former stupidity. Violent lashing out is what we have now.
    - ndiscussion 7y ago
      I don't mean violence from the individual, but from the buckling of systems currently supported by society. If everyone became enlighted simultaneously, we would probably help each other out, but it would cause a huge disruption in the global economy. Part of that economy is food, and it takes a while to grow a new crop... basically breaking supply chains can cause mass starvations, that's all.
      - mistermann 7y ago
        Ah I see....yes, from that perspective you are absolutely correct, I reckon mass enlightenment in a short period of time would wreak absolute havoc on the world and result in serious public unrest, likely including significant violence. Even if democracy could accommodate a transition, I have no idea how the impacts on the economic system (decreased spending on trillions of dollars in worldwide military budgets for example) would be safely managed.
  - 7y ago
gumby 7y ago
The Lil Wayne example is interesting. The Beach Boys faced this problem too. Some, like the Beatles, Bowie were able to transcend it. A couple of alternatives: - The Beastie Boys faced this problem, and released a jazz album outside the US (I think it was eventually imported). It was largely invisible to their customer base. - Steven King and J. K. Rowling both used pseudonyms to publish outside their recognised genres.
- dTal 7y ago
  Richard Feynman used a pseudonym ("Ofey") for his painted art, so that it would be judged on its own merits and not "that art by that physicist chap". He seems to have been quite good too: https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/feynmanart2.jpg https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2...
- ljm 7y ago
  I wonder how Radiohead fits into this when everybody expects them to deviate from a style. The two albums that would typecast them (OK Computer, The Bends) are one of a kind. No one wants more of them.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    why not?
quanticle 7y ago
One book-series that engages with the feeling of being trapped by one's ideas is Dune (specifically, the first three books: Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune). Those three books are all about a person who has a great (in the sense of large, not morally good) idea, unleashes that idea onto an unsuspecting world, and then spends the rest of their life attempting to stop the very memetic demon that they unleashed.
- hguant 7y ago
  Spoilers ahead for a 30+ year old novel. What's particularly interesting about this idea of a 'memetic demon' is that the character unleashing it knew all along that it would be/had the potential to be [0] a monsterous thing, and spends a good deal of the first novel both looking for alternatives to unleashing this monstrosity[1], and is ultimately destroyed in the second because he attempts to maintain some sense of self in the face of the overwhelming power of this idea - he wants to be himself, _and_ maintain control of the idea that's swept him into power. This dichotomy is ultimately fatal. Only the one who sacrifices himself to the 'Golden Path' and allows in a very real sense his self to be subsumed by destiny is able to control this bloody, powerful idea. [0] The idea of a thing that has the potential to be another thing or the potential of a thing in being is defined by a precise word in German and in Greek that I can't remember right now. Aristotle's _Metaphysics_ goes into this question (can a thing that is not yet but will be if the thing that exists now lives rightly be said to be real? Does that future thing guide the present thing? Can it be talked about as if it is real?) in exhaustive detail. [1] The idea needs controlling because it's in part a techno-cultural jihad. Humanity needs to break out of its ossified structures to grow, but the cultural forces that have the power to do so (primarily religion in the novel) are equally capable of reducing this space empire to a series of isolated planets with nothing but memories of space flight. The protagonists want to have it both ways - just enough entropy to keep the system moving forward, but not enough to bring everything to chaos.
  - BjoernKW 7y ago
    I think the word you refer to under [0] is 'teleology'.
- 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
Hmm. I usually like Nadia's writing a lot. This article, though, seemed to be much less "crisp" than others, and it confused me quite a bit. Most of what she tries to describe in the initial part reminds me of the concept of "Moloch" (specifically in the sense described by Bertrand Russell's A Free Man's Worship, and Allen Ginsberg's poem): almost like a super-entity, resulting from the interactions of many individuals, but with a specific behavior of its own. I don't thinks that it's about "ideas", as Nadia states; rather, it's the fact that molecule : gas = person : humanity, a person has personality but a large mass of persons has a behavior of its own, an inertia that you can't change as an individual. In the second part of the article, I get the question, I am not sure it is related to the first part or not, and I am not sure whether it's important to compartmentalize, etc.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  >molecule : gas = person : humanity, a person has personality but a large mass of persons has a behavior of its own, an inertia that you can't change as an individual. It's interesting, and there's a lot of truth to it; but I really believe the truth is somewhere in the middle and I would be much more careful not to want to cheapen the heroes of the world. Certain people do have a willingness to put themselves at risk to seek virtue.
d_j_b 7y ago
There was so much to enjoy in Embassytown: the Hosts, the Metaphors, the Festival of Lies, biorigging, Immer, the super-cerebral ending. Anyone come across anything equally juicy recently?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- smogcutter 7y ago
  Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. If you're into Mieville you'll probably dig it; I think Perdido Street Station in particular owes a lot to Wolfe. It's hard to pitch the series (4 books, but currently published in two volumes) without giving anything away, and part of the pleasure of the book is piecing together information as you go. But for more detail here's the article that out me onto it, after Wolfe's recent death: https://www.theringer.com/2019/4/25/18515675/gene-wolfe-science-fiction-author https://www.theringer.com/2019/4/25/18515675/gene-wolfe-scie...
winningcontinue 7y ago
Ideas are fascinators and the most interesting of which will find audiences. Those audiences will not depose of those ideas easily. It's a not an entirely novel new concept. I think of the spread of a religion throughout most of human history. Stoya wasn't talking about some high minded conceptual idea when she chose her stage name, but rather something she just connected to at a point in her life.

75 points by jger15 8y ago

The most interesting part of that post to me was the tweet about Charles Goodyear. Dude had a rough life. Further reading lead me to learn that the Goodyear tire company was founded 30 years after Charles’ death.

hodgesrm 7y ago
Wikipedia has a good summary of his tribulations. It's sobering reading if you think you are having rough day at your start-up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodyear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodyear

mistermann 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics > Memetics is the study of information and culture based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution. Proponents describe memetics as an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. Critics regard memetics as a pseudoscience. Memetics describes how an idea can propagate successfully, but doesn't necessarily imply a concept is factual. > The term meme was coined in Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene, but Dawkins later distanced himself from the resulting field of study.[2] Analogous to a gene, the meme was conceived as a "unit of culture" (an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour, etc.) which is "hosted" in the minds of one or more individuals, and which can reproduce itself in the sense of jumping from the mind of one person to the mind of another. Thus what would otherwise be regarded as one individual influencing another to adopt a belief is seen as an idea-replicator reproducing itself in a new host. As with genetics, particularly under a Dawkinsian interpretation, a meme's success may be due to its contribution to the effectiveness of its host. I believe memetics is one of the most impactful but underappreciated ideas out there today, and plausibly explains the bizarre polarization of opinions on a wide variety of hot button current topics. Everyone perceives that their opinion/knowledge is based on facts, but very few are even slightly aware that their knowledge is actually based on a hodge podge of memes, each with varying levels of truthiness.

ndiscussion 7y ago
Shh, don't wake us... This is one of the most obvious things in modern life if you look. But no one seems to be looking. I'm not sure what life would look like if they were. Probably very different and with a very violent transition.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > But no one seems to be looking. There are a few people on HN and elsewhere, but I concede that our numbers are extremely small. > I'm not sure what life would look like if they were. Probably very different and with a very violent transition. I'm curious why you think a transition to a more enlightened (a significant decrease in both delusional meme-based beliefs, as well as ignorant over-confidence in the beliefs people do still hold) society would be violent? I tend to think the transition would be rather orderly, with people tending to hang their heads in shame for their former stupidity. Violent lashing out is what we have now.
  - ndiscussion 7y ago
    I don't mean violence from the individual, but from the buckling of systems currently supported by society. If everyone became enlighted simultaneously, we would probably help each other out, but it would cause a huge disruption in the global economy. Part of that economy is food, and it takes a while to grow a new crop... basically breaking supply chains can cause mass starvations, that's all.
    - mistermann 7y ago
      Ah I see....yes, from that perspective you are absolutely correct, I reckon mass enlightenment in a short period of time would wreak absolute havoc on the world and result in serious public unrest, likely including significant violence. Even if democracy could accommodate a transition, I have no idea how the impacts on the economic system (decreased spending on trillions of dollars in worldwide military budgets for example) would be safely managed.
- 7y ago

gumby 7y ago

The Lil Wayne example is interesting. The Beach Boys faced this problem too. Some, like the Beatles, Bowie were able to transcend it. A couple of alternatives: - The Beastie Boys faced this problem, and released a jazz album outside the US (I think it was eventually imported). It was largely invisible to their customer base. - Steven King and J. K. Rowling both used pseudonyms to publish outside their recognised genres.

dTal 7y ago
Richard Feynman used a pseudonym ("Ofey") for his painted art, so that it would be judged on its own merits and not "that art by that physicist chap". He seems to have been quite good too: https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/feynmanart2.jpg https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2...
ljm 7y ago
I wonder how Radiohead fits into this when everybody expects them to deviate from a style. The two albums that would typecast them (OK Computer, The Bends) are one of a kind. No one wants more of them.
- jacobush 7y ago
  why not?

quanticle 7y ago

One book-series that engages with the feeling of being trapped by one's ideas is Dune (specifically, the first three books: Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune). Those three books are all about a person who has a great (in the sense of large, not morally good) idea, unleashes that idea onto an unsuspecting world, and then spends the rest of their life attempting to stop the very memetic demon that they unleashed.

hguant 7y ago
Spoilers ahead for a 30+ year old novel. What's particularly interesting about this idea of a 'memetic demon' is that the character unleashing it knew all along that it would be/had the potential to be [0] a monsterous thing, and spends a good deal of the first novel both looking for alternatives to unleashing this monstrosity[1], and is ultimately destroyed in the second because he attempts to maintain some sense of self in the face of the overwhelming power of this idea - he wants to be himself, _and_ maintain control of the idea that's swept him into power. This dichotomy is ultimately fatal. Only the one who sacrifices himself to the 'Golden Path' and allows in a very real sense his self to be subsumed by destiny is able to control this bloody, powerful idea. [0] The idea of a thing that has the potential to be another thing or the potential of a thing in being is defined by a precise word in German and in Greek that I can't remember right now. Aristotle's _Metaphysics_ goes into this question (can a thing that is not yet but will be if the thing that exists now lives rightly be said to be real? Does that future thing guide the present thing? Can it be talked about as if it is real?) in exhaustive detail. [1] The idea needs controlling because it's in part a techno-cultural jihad. Humanity needs to break out of its ossified structures to grow, but the cultural forces that have the power to do so (primarily religion in the novel) are equally capable of reducing this space empire to a series of isolated planets with nothing but memories of space flight. The protagonists want to have it both ways - just enough entropy to keep the system moving forward, but not enough to bring everything to chaos.
- BjoernKW 7y ago
  I think the word you refer to under [0] is 'teleology'.
7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

Hmm. I usually like Nadia's writing a lot. This article, though, seemed to be much less "crisp" than others, and it confused me quite a bit. Most of what she tries to describe in the initial part reminds me of the concept of "Moloch" (specifically in the sense described by Bertrand Russell's A Free Man's Worship, and Allen Ginsberg's poem): almost like a super-entity, resulting from the interactions of many individuals, but with a specific behavior of its own. I don't thinks that it's about "ideas", as Nadia states; rather, it's the fact that molecule : gas = person : humanity, a person has personality but a large mass of persons has a behavior of its own, an inertia that you can't change as an individual. In the second part of the article, I get the question, I am not sure it is related to the first part or not, and I am not sure whether it's important to compartmentalize, etc.

wallace_f 7y ago
>molecule : gas = person : humanity, a person has personality but a large mass of persons has a behavior of its own, an inertia that you can't change as an individual. It's interesting, and there's a lot of truth to it; but I really believe the truth is somewhere in the middle and I would be much more careful not to want to cheapen the heroes of the world. Certain people do have a willingness to put themselves at risk to seek virtue.

d_j_b 7y ago

There was so much to enjoy in Embassytown: the Hosts, the Metaphors, the Festival of Lies, biorigging, Immer, the super-cerebral ending. Anyone come across anything equally juicy recently?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
smogcutter 7y ago
Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. If you're into Mieville you'll probably dig it; I think Perdido Street Station in particular owes a lot to Wolfe. It's hard to pitch the series (4 books, but currently published in two volumes) without giving anything away, and part of the pleasure of the book is piecing together information as you go. But for more detail here's the article that out me onto it, after Wolfe's recent death: https://www.theringer.com/2019/4/25/18515675/gene-wolfe-science-fiction-author https://www.theringer.com/2019/4/25/18515675/gene-wolfe-scie...

winningcontinue 7y ago

Ideas are fascinators and the most interesting of which will find audiences. Those audiences will not depose of those ideas easily. It's a not an entirely novel new concept. I think of the spread of a religion throughout most of human history. Stoya wasn't talking about some high minded conceptual idea when she chose her stage name, but rather something she just connected to at a point in her life.