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I've always felt that the oddballs and outcasts among us are like the sentinels or vanguards of society. They detect problems before the majority and try to wa

I've always felt that the oddballs and outcasts among us are like the sentinels or vanguards of society. They detect problems before the majority and try to warn others. It's a painful and unappreciated role, exemplified by one of the major alien characters in Greg Egan's book Incandescence.

thrower123 6y ago
Cranks on Twitter are a fantastic early warning system. You start to suspect that people who actually do know things are behind the racist beagles or the shitposting norse god avatars...
- krapp 6y ago
  > You start to suspect that people who actually do know things are behind the racist beagles or the shitposting norse god avatars... Like the Machines from the Matrix who learned to exploit humanity's inherent mistrust of the status quo and created Zion as a cattle-pen to draw "enlightened" humans who rejected the system into and periodically slaughter, the powers that be have discovered that no mind is easier to enslave than the one that believes itself free. So yes, people who do actually know things are behind a lot of that, but not for the reasons you might think.
  - pinopinopino 6y ago
    Interesting, but I wouldn't draw too much out of the matrix. The matrix is a nice movie, but made in Hollywood. So it is also part of the establishment. If I were you, you should also distrust its message. Who says its goal was not to demoralize the rebel from taking action? I think the shitposters of the 'anime right' feel we are living more and more in a dystopian corporate crime ridden hellscape. They want to go back to their youth or to a fictitious past. If you ask them what they want, a lot of them wants a traditional family, a farm and a nice green patch around them. It are modern day romantics in their core. They fear what is coming next. And you remember perhaps what is said about fear: "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
- troughway 6y ago
  You might start to wonder if it's all interconnected.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cko 6y ago
Or Holden Caulfield.
- devtul 6y ago
  That guy is such a phony
szhu 6y ago
> painful and unappreciated role I think the fact that an outcasts are unappreciated is an inherent correlation. Being influenced by appreciation is mostly useful for getting individuals to adhere to the behavior of the group. As for it being painful? That's all relative. Individuals tend to choose the actions that result in the most reward and least pain, so outcasts probably choose to be outcasts because following the group must produce not as much reward or even more pain.
j4yav 6y ago
Now that we can see all the oddballs on Twitter, doesn't it just seem like they are in total warning about every possible outcome all the time, to the point that it would only ever be actionable in retrospect? Every day my local health agency reports the latest pandemic statistics, and then all the oddballs pile in with every (incompatible) permutation of conspiracy theories that you can imagine.
- devtul 6y ago
  Some of them might not be broken-clock right, but I don't see a way of filtering the noise.
mjklin 6y ago
There is a Chinese saying 当局者迷, 旁观者清 “the one involved is baffled, the one watching from the side sees clearly.” The observers see more than the players.

thrower123 6y ago

Cranks on Twitter are a fantastic early warning system. You start to suspect that people who actually do know things are behind the racist beagles or the shitposting norse god avatars...

krapp 6y ago
> You start to suspect that people who actually do know things are behind the racist beagles or the shitposting norse god avatars... Like the Machines from the Matrix who learned to exploit humanity's inherent mistrust of the status quo and created Zion as a cattle-pen to draw "enlightened" humans who rejected the system into and periodically slaughter, the powers that be have discovered that no mind is easier to enslave than the one that believes itself free. So yes, people who do actually know things are behind a lot of that, but not for the reasons you might think.
- pinopinopino 6y ago
  Interesting, but I wouldn't draw too much out of the matrix. The matrix is a nice movie, but made in Hollywood. So it is also part of the establishment. If I were you, you should also distrust its message. Who says its goal was not to demoralize the rebel from taking action? I think the shitposters of the 'anime right' feel we are living more and more in a dystopian corporate crime ridden hellscape. They want to go back to their youth or to a fictitious past. If you ask them what they want, a lot of them wants a traditional family, a farm and a nice green patch around them. It are modern day romantics in their core. They fear what is coming next. And you remember perhaps what is said about fear: "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
troughway 6y ago
You might start to wonder if it's all interconnected.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cko 6y ago

Or Holden Caulfield.

devtul 6y ago
That guy is such a phony

szhu 6y ago

> painful and unappreciated role I think the fact that an outcasts are unappreciated is an inherent correlation. Being influenced by appreciation is mostly useful for getting individuals to adhere to the behavior of the group. As for it being painful? That's all relative. Individuals tend to choose the actions that result in the most reward and least pain, so outcasts probably choose to be outcasts because following the group must produce not as much reward or even more pain.

j4yav 6y ago

Now that we can see all the oddballs on Twitter, doesn't it just seem like they are in total warning about every possible outcome all the time, to the point that it would only ever be actionable in retrospect? Every day my local health agency reports the latest pandemic statistics, and then all the oddballs pile in with every (incompatible) permutation of conspiracy theories that you can imagine.

devtul 6y ago
Some of them might not be broken-clock right, but I don't see a way of filtering the noise.

mjklin 6y ago

There is a Chinese saying 当局者迷, 旁观者清 “the one involved is baffled, the one watching from the side sees clearly.” The observers see more than the players.