14 ms·

The Melancholy of Subculture Society (2019)

251 points by 0des 5y ago

dredmorbius 5y ago
Discussed 8 years ago (53 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6585711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6585711
dusted 5y ago
I came back to HN just to say how brilliant and insightful a read this is.
Animats 5y ago
This is worth reading in its entirety. There's a fair amount of original thinking, including in the notes at the end. His big point about subcultures is about scale. Most other writers about subcultures focus on behavior or alienation or something like that. This author's key point is that subcultures form a way to get out of competing with the entire planet.
- onecommentman 5y ago
  The author’s absolutist dicta (“There is essentially no common ground…”, “ostracism means death”, ”People are absolutely obsessed with money”, “you can’t be truly successful in mainstream culture”) makes this essay sound foolish. Maybe Ayn Rand fans might like it. I couldn’t stop giggling. The analysis of “older people” is a hoot and a half. I imagine the author striding about in his/her father’s bathrobe and carrying a broomstick, intoning wisdom. Maybe the author should talk to one or two (or a thousand) before theorizing. The author’s world view seems to be centered around “success” as the primary motivation behind human behavior. I am also guessing that “success” means to the writer some degree of celebrity and money, and the more the better. The author should consider the possibility that such a world view is not deeply held by a large part of the population, or perhaps the grip that “success” holds does weaken with age. A trip to a hospice or assisted living center might be a worthwhile experience for the author. And the key point is hardly original. That’s why the phrase “big fish in a small pond” has been around for so many decades…that particular motivation for developing/joining subcultures has been a thing for a long, long time. There are many other motivations, never mentioned by the author. This imbalance is another problem with the essay.
  - Animats 5y ago
    He asks some of the right questions, even if his answers seem a bit off. That's what's interesting. The "big fish in a small pond" comment is apt. What's new is that we now have improved small pond creation across distance.
  - uncomputation 5y ago
    Some of the glossing over cultural differences did strike me as a bit naive (I maintain an American and Japanese anime fan are still very different), but the piece as a whole is poignant and very well written. I don’t think there’s a “key point,” rather than an explanation of one facet of modern society and some synthesis as to why these online subcultures have developed as they have. Astral Codex Ten (on Substack) has a piece in this vein: “Epistemically Minor Leagues.” If you’re not familiar, Gwern (OP) doesn’t so much “argue” a key point but rather explore ideas and document various internet cultural artifacts and ideas. It’s quite the rabbit hole. But yeah, this piece has quite a bit of insight still in my opinion, despite some minor - not flaws, but weirdness let’s say. It’s exploratory, not argumentative.
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    >The author should consider the possibility that such a world view is not deeply held by a large part of the population, or perhaps the grip that “success” holds does weaken with age. That part would oppose the mainstream culture.
dane-pgp 5y ago
I'm glad that the article does mention what the title is a reference to, namely "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya", but somewhat disappointed that it didn't go completely meta by talking about "The melancholy of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya subculture".
- louloulou 5y ago
  I wish he had mentioned Haruhi though (not the Haruhi subculture). That's the most extreme case of a single mind generating the entire world in which they exist, and having to keep itself distracted from that fact so it doesn't all come crashing down in meaninglessness.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    Could someone explain what this means and what the difference is between "Haruhi" and "the Haruhi subculture"? The internet returns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruhi_Suzumiya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruhi_Suzumiya but that doesn't help.
    - flyingfences 5y ago
      "Haruhi" refers both to the show, which asks some existential questions in line with the article (there's one line quoted), and to the show's main character. "The subculture" in refers to the fandom, which is... you know how crazy fandoms can get, and this one got there.
  - gwern 5y ago
    My own opinion of _Haruhi_ is that it is (or at least, should be) a more positive retelling of Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger", and Haruhi is an ordinary girl made special by her wish to be extraordinary: https://www.gwern.net/The-Melancholy-of-Kyon https://www.gwern.net/The-Melancholy-of-Kyon
    - louloulou 5y ago
      I haven't read the LNs, and have no opinion on whether it's Haruhi's mind or Kyon's. Either way, after watching it, I was left with a feeling of emptiness and the sense that life is meaningless if you're not able to interact with other minds that are independent of your own but can still understand you. If the world is wholly a product of your own mind, and there is no objective reality, you had better delude yourself in to believing that the other minds that populate it are independent. Otherwise you'll constantly be destroying and recreating the would in search of novelty because you've given up on meaning. The best way to convince yourself the world is real is if the other beings in it know things you don't know and can do things you can't do.
PaulHoule 5y ago
This book is an early (and fun) exposition of the "subcultures" theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pump_House_Gang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pump_House_Gang
coldtea 5y ago
>If someone really prefers their subculture, which gives them mental ease and physical health, then what right do the rest have to interfere and drag them into the main culture? Sure, whatever works for you. But if you then stay awake at night crying "I'm so alone", are chronically depressed and demotivated, you swallow drugs like they're candy, and so on, you might want to revisit this "whatever new living fad became possible after 100s of thousands of year of evolution emphacizing human connection is equally valid".
- pieix 5y ago
  A subculture is more similar in scale to human societies during the majority of those 100s of thousands of years of evolution than to the mega/giga scale of modern society.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >A subculture is more similar in scale to human societies during the majority of those 100s of thousands of years of evolution than to the mega/giga scale of modern society. Yes. But the subculture in TFA is about people staying at home, and only/mostly human connection with the subculture online (and few/nobody else).
    - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
      Normies can't sacrifice facebook, can they? Rare people connect online because they are geographically separated. Can you run this site offline, at which location, and what will be the resulting engagement?
      - coldtea 5y ago
        All of the above is neither here, nor there though. This is not about "where to find info and others interested about a subculture" (sure, online will be easier). Or where to host gatherings for it (sure, online will be easier). It's about what else you do. "Normies" still have (or some have) the evolutionary human IRL connection (meetings in meetspace, touching, partners and friends they see face to face, etc). The subcultures as described in TFA (and what I'm saying might not be the best for them) is lacking that. That is, the subject is about persons shut-in, with no IRL contact, and connected through the web to some subculture(s). A hikikomori like existence. Not about some everyday person that is fan of medieval bard songs, and aside their regular meatspace partners, friends, spouses, acquaintainces, etc. also frequent some forums. Let's put it another way: "Rare people connect online because they are geographically separated" puts the cart before the horse. Connecting online is not the problem (as I see it). Not connecting offline as well is. And the idea of "a rare person", whose criterium for connecting to someone else is them being part of the same subculture is part of the issue.
rossdavidh 5y ago
Interesting and thought-provoking! But, similar to how he mentions that the predominance of monogamy in the modern world might be a result of cultural evolution, this line from the end raises a question: "Perhaps we should accept gracefully the inevitable sundering of ‘national’ cultures, and learn to operate within a truly multicultural world." Well, maybe...or maybe those few national cultures that persist, will find that they can steamroll over the fragmented once-were-nations that cannot muster the joint effort to resist them. There's a reason large states arose in the first place, to displace hunter-gatherer tribes, and it is precisely this. If you don't maintain a national culture, you're not going to have anyone willing to fight to defend it. Which, if every single nation has that happen, maybe that's fine. But if even one persists, it will find itself an elephant in a world of mice, who wonder why no one else is willing to defend them when they are trampled on.
- randomluck040 5y ago
  Isn’t the „Identity“ situation the reason why Afghanistan went back to the Taliban the moment the NATO left? I‘ve read[0] about it at least and apparently there was no real idea of a country called „Afghanistan“ among the citizens of the country. [0] https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/08/there-no-afghanistan-daniel-greenfield/#commento https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/08/there-no-afghanis...
- wolverine876 5y ago
  The data doesn't support that: The predominant, most prosperous, safest, most free societies have been the internationalist ones, in Europe, the US, Canada, Japan, S Korea, etc etc. There are strong hypotheses to back the data: Nationalism divides people at arbitrary borders, limiting their ability to travel, trade, and work together. Nationalists isolate themselves. We know well from economics that trade is best when it depends on economic merit, not on which artificial border you happen to live behind; it helps buyers and sellers - nobody will buy your goods if you don't buy theirs. Imagine science without internationalism. Imagine the IT industry - FOSS has contributors world-wide; the web was developed in Switzerland by a Brit, and shared by the world. Linux in Finland, etc. In terms of security, the nationalists have only themselves; the internationalists have each other, such as the most successful and powerful alliance in history, NATO. Imagine the Cold War without internationalism in Europe, as the USSR took one small country after another. The free world's enormous advantage in military competition with China is that they have each other, they have allies. Nationalism has a horrible track record, creating war and poverty, and the underlying curse, hate - arbitrarily, purposefully created - often by leaders using nationalism for their own power: 'be loyal to the nation, and I am the nation, I make the decisions'. Many, including Churchill, blamed nationalism for WWII (which is why the survivors built the UN and the predecessor of the EU). The internationalist world has produced freedom, security, and prosperity at orders of magnitude beyond what humanity ever experienced before. It seems bizarre to me to trade that in for the old nationalist ideologies.
md224 5y ago
> And if we were to take it even further? If we chose a subculture that was online, and we never went outside? Then all the stress would be gone; if one doesn’t walk down the street, one isn’t bothered by strangers in such close proximity. I'm not sure how to parse this: is this meant ironically or as a genuine endorsement of physical isolation as a way of life? IMHO, this aspect -- physical isolation -- is the biggest problem with the move towards digital subcultures, and I'm not sure how it can be solved.
- redisman 5y ago
  I think it’s just trying to show the thinking pattern of the person who finds it alluring
- Ginden 5y ago
  I never met right people in real life and I spent majority of my life in Internet subcultures, with physical isolation. Then I moved to capital city and "boom" - majority of my Internet friends live here and we meet on regular basis. For first time in almost 15 years, I'm not affected by dysthymia or depression.
  - the_only_law 5y ago
    Yeah, I’m just waiting to find the right place. I fear I’ll be much to old by the time I do though.
  - willjp 5y ago
    This is what I hope for. I expected that eventually the right job would expose me to a community with overlapping interests. So far I have been fairly unsuccessful.
MrLeap 5y ago
This read resonates with me strongly. Especially that David Foster Wallace quote, about the sacrifices to get very good at one particular thing. After my last job, I decided to go all in on the childhood dream as an indie game maker. I knew that most fail. I had reasons to believe that I wouldn't. Revulsion with company feudalism made it enough. I'm a year in. My tweets about my progress are in the top 10% among indie gamedevs on twitter.. Wishlist heuristics tell me that at release, I'll make about minimum wage(*). The price in hours to get here has been so high that the economic calculus screams that I should give up. The prices to self of the "right" way to survive still seem higher. Hikikomori seem like they jumped out of the boat. They want to live, passive in their dream until the tide pulls them under. I don't think you can live serenely in the dream without acceptance of the tide. I feel a certain kinship to that, the only difference is that I'm still swimming. How could the outcome ever be different though? The outcome will be different if I can cobble enough flotsam together to make my own boat. Then I can go sailing with an eye out for the swimmers.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  But money is just a tool to enable you to do what you want, so if you already can do what you want and earn enough money to get by, you win, in economic terms?
  - MrLeap 5y ago
    I think I can get by, until somebody gets sick. That means I probably can't get by yet. Still more to do.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      What is your game? I am curious. My hat is off to you, in any case. Especially with the highly competitive indie games markte. There are just so, so many competitors. I am afraid being successful also involves things that many game developers probably won't enjoy that much, like marketing. Overall it seems likely that you acquire a lot of skills while making the game, though. With the demand for Software Developers still being high, it seems to me the risk is low, as you could always find another job. Of course you can't make back the money you didn't earn. But perhaps you could find a better paid job than before to make up for it. For now, I wish you success with your game so that you don't have to go back to "standard employment".
jazzyjackson 5y ago
Wow the way this website opens links in a draggable, pinnable pop-over box is dope.
- saeranv 5y ago
  Yeah, it kind of blows my mind at how ergonomic it is. It's also recursive, if you hover over a link within a pop-over box, it'll open up another pop-over box, you can just keep going deeper into the rabbit-hole without ever leaving the main text.
- flyingfences 5y ago
  He also writes [1] in detail about building the website itself. [1] https://www.gwern.net/Design https://www.gwern.net/Design
rks404 5y ago
I love the concept of this entire site - writing about things and revisiting them and linking them. Lots of great stuff to read here and an inspiration to write more.
- nyolfen 5y ago
  gwern legitimately deserves a 'genius grant' more than anyone the macarthur foundation has awarded one to recently
a9h74j 5y ago
Great article. The author explores, among many things and in a sensitive way, finding a closer approach to Dunbar's number. One way to approach Dunbar's number which the author does not discuss is combining "special interest" with "local geography" as well. For example, you don't need to find a subculture of DIY telescope makers who only use brand X drive software and brand Y gearing; it used to be enough to be a DIY telescope maker within say a club of county scope -- e.g. DIY Telescope Makers of Ventura County. When that was the dominant approach, you weren't comparing your work to the best result to be found on Instagram in the last year.
akomtu 5y ago
If a society or community looks meaningless, it's often because meaning has been purposefully removed. Why? Because that meaning would have destabilised society.
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  That is rather conspiratorial in mindset - asserting there must be a single "entity" as an actor as the universal or driving force. Like the old freaked out monarchist conspiracy theory which blamed the Jews and the Illuminati for the French Revolution. The idea that people were simply too fed up, the relative balance of noble vs commoner in combat changed over time making the fight winnable unlike prior forgotten revolts, went against their world view and had to be psychologically denied at all costs. The charge of "destabilized society" is basically meaningless for a mutating ship of Theseus. Did it count as razing Constantinople when it was officially renamed to Istanbul? Even when the Saxons conquered the Anglos it did not destroy their society, it killed their ruling class and mutated it. Technically even the cultural group description is an anachronism with Feudalism dealing with subdivisions via bloodlines and allegiences. Collapse of an entity or entities in which there was widespread dependency has lead to a vacuum, at least briefly.
bencollier49 5y ago
This is a great read, but I'm not sure that it succeeds in making its case - there is a lot of weight put on the idea of a big fish in a little pond being happier, but realistically, does a culture flourish when it's composed of complacent masters of tiny points of subculture? Is a person more successful who masters a tiny area than someone who recognises something bigger and strives to master that instead? It's probably better that people realise their real place in society as far as material wellbeing is concerned, and fight to improve it.
Max_Ehrlich 5y ago
Bravo. This is why I read hacker news.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
This is annoying to read because it makes unfounded assertions and then builds on them, as if they were true, repeatedly. When given the chance to uncritically construct an entire manifesto, it is very easy to get lost in one's on own narrative. This happens many times: "The national identity fragments under the assault of burgeoning subcultures. At last, the critic beholds the natural endpoint of this process: the long nightmare of nationalism falls like a weight from the minds of the living, as the nation becomes some lines on a map, some laws you follow. No one particularly cares." This sounds grand, but it's flimsy because he just made it up with no evidence. Then after the hypothetic money example: "But what effect does this have on people? I can tell you: the average person is going to be miserable. If everyone genuinely buys into this culture, then they have to be. Their talents at piano playing, or cooking, or programming, or any form of artistry or scholarly pursuit are denigrated and count for naught. The world has become too big—it did not use to be so big, people so powerless12 of what is going on:" Again, total fallacy based on anecdote. Sure there are plenty of cliches about money and happiness, but extrapolating to everyone is a naive approach to a manifesto. I could go on, but this is just word salad masquerading as profundity. Nice HTML though.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bobthechef 5y ago
Subcultures are attempts at substitutes for ethnic identity especially in the absence of religion. People in countries like the US are particularly vulnerable. According to the triple melting pot theory, as members of ethnic communities intermarry, each successive generation sheds the previous generation's ethnic identities. Religion then becomes a substitute ethnic identity, especially when intermarriage is more likely between members of the same religion. Since "American" isn't really an ethnic identity and has little substance, and because traditional religions are losing ground in the US, the result is an identity crisis. Subcultures are one attempt to fill the void. Both white nationalism and "wokeness" are examples, as are Harley gangs and all the mushrooming "sexual identities".
uncomputation 5y ago
Such a beautiful piece. Gwern always manages to handle these niche topics with care and universality, the marks of a great writer. Also perhaps strangely apt considering the recent discussion around the metaverse/metaverses.
HONEST_ANNIE 5y ago
Liberal cosmopolitan cities can thrive as a subculture society. Not going against each other is the real meaning of tolerance–liking, approving, or supporting is not necessary. Geographic sorting between fractured and non-fractured is dangerous. One group of people believes there is still a nation-state. The urban-rural divide in political and nationalistic lines is clear in many countries. In countries with strong religious/conservative urban/modern populations like the US[1], Iran, Turkey it can become very problematic. Iran is probably closest to the civil war due to this fractionalization. [1] https://www.niskanencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Wilkinson-Density-Divide-Final.pdf https://www.niskanencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Wi...
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
>will be able to achieve little in his ‘hobby’ due to lack of time and a desire to not go overboard) Huh, no, you get 80% result for 20% effort. Diminishing returns are actually a big problem. Drawing may be not innate, but artistry is innate: even if I learn how to draw, I won't be able to draw anything, because I have no idea what to draw.
k__ 5y ago
" the Internet by uniting small groups will divide larger ones." Is this a bad thing? I think, only if we keep falling for collective narcissism. I love the idea that I can now choose people to hang out with via interests and not geographical location. That divided me from a pretty large group in my home town, but I'm happy about it, because my life got better in turn. The other side of the coin is, the more I'm split up from mainstream, the more I see the mainstreams transgressions. Stuff I wouldn't think about twice when I was still living in a village is now pushing me away from mainstream more.
wly_cdgr 5y ago
The chess stuff resonated with me. I was a top 10 U18 player back in the day in the US, but I never set much stock by that and quit chess when I went off to college, because I couldn't find a way to feel content with devoting my life to something so narrow, and because it felt very likely that I was only that high up the chess ladder because a very large number of smarter people weren't bothering with the game Pretty good article!
- wly_cdgr 5y ago
  Thinking about it more, there's something similar to leaving the Matrix I think about leaving a subculture you were deeply involved in. It becomes hard(er) to willingly submerge yourself in another one once you spend some time at the "surface" level. You have to keep working to sustain your suspension of disbelief or risk snapping out into a crushing awareness of the subculture's arbitrariness and insignificance. But the "main" culture (if it's even not just another subculture, anyway) is so goddamn ugly and bland
AccountToUse 5y ago
Articles like this are why I peruse HackerNews. Thank you OP.

251 points by 0des 5y ago

Discussed 8 years ago (53 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6585711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6585711

dusted 5y ago

I came back to HN just to say how brilliant and insightful a read this is.

Animats 5y ago

This is worth reading in its entirety. There's a fair amount of original thinking, including in the notes at the end. His big point about subcultures is about scale. Most other writers about subcultures focus on behavior or alienation or something like that. This author's key point is that subcultures form a way to get out of competing with the entire planet.

onecommentman 5y ago
The author’s absolutist dicta (“There is essentially no common ground…”, “ostracism means death”, ”People are absolutely obsessed with money”, “you can’t be truly successful in mainstream culture”) makes this essay sound foolish. Maybe Ayn Rand fans might like it. I couldn’t stop giggling. The analysis of “older people” is a hoot and a half. I imagine the author striding about in his/her father’s bathrobe and carrying a broomstick, intoning wisdom. Maybe the author should talk to one or two (or a thousand) before theorizing. The author’s world view seems to be centered around “success” as the primary motivation behind human behavior. I am also guessing that “success” means to the writer some degree of celebrity and money, and the more the better. The author should consider the possibility that such a world view is not deeply held by a large part of the population, or perhaps the grip that “success” holds does weaken with age. A trip to a hospice or assisted living center might be a worthwhile experience for the author. And the key point is hardly original. That’s why the phrase “big fish in a small pond” has been around for so many decades…that particular motivation for developing/joining subcultures has been a thing for a long, long time. There are many other motivations, never mentioned by the author. This imbalance is another problem with the essay.
- Animats 5y ago
  He asks some of the right questions, even if his answers seem a bit off. That's what's interesting. The "big fish in a small pond" comment is apt. What's new is that we now have improved small pond creation across distance.
- uncomputation 5y ago
  Some of the glossing over cultural differences did strike me as a bit naive (I maintain an American and Japanese anime fan are still very different), but the piece as a whole is poignant and very well written. I don’t think there’s a “key point,” rather than an explanation of one facet of modern society and some synthesis as to why these online subcultures have developed as they have. Astral Codex Ten (on Substack) has a piece in this vein: “Epistemically Minor Leagues.” If you’re not familiar, Gwern (OP) doesn’t so much “argue” a key point but rather explore ideas and document various internet cultural artifacts and ideas. It’s quite the rabbit hole. But yeah, this piece has quite a bit of insight still in my opinion, despite some minor - not flaws, but weirdness let’s say. It’s exploratory, not argumentative.
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  >The author should consider the possibility that such a world view is not deeply held by a large part of the population, or perhaps the grip that “success” holds does weaken with age. That part would oppose the mainstream culture.

dane-pgp 5y ago

I'm glad that the article does mention what the title is a reference to, namely "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya", but somewhat disappointed that it didn't go completely meta by talking about "The melancholy of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya subculture".

louloulou 5y ago
I wish he had mentioned Haruhi though (not the Haruhi subculture). That's the most extreme case of a single mind generating the entire world in which they exist, and having to keep itself distracted from that fact so it doesn't all come crashing down in meaninglessness.
- pjc50 5y ago
  Could someone explain what this means and what the difference is between "Haruhi" and "the Haruhi subculture"? The internet returns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruhi_Suzumiya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruhi_Suzumiya but that doesn't help.
  - flyingfences 5y ago
    "Haruhi" refers both to the show, which asks some existential questions in line with the article (there's one line quoted), and to the show's main character. "The subculture" in refers to the fandom, which is... you know how crazy fandoms can get, and this one got there.
- gwern 5y ago
  My own opinion of _Haruhi_ is that it is (or at least, should be) a more positive retelling of Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger", and Haruhi is an ordinary girl made special by her wish to be extraordinary: https://www.gwern.net/The-Melancholy-of-Kyon https://www.gwern.net/The-Melancholy-of-Kyon
  - louloulou 5y ago
    I haven't read the LNs, and have no opinion on whether it's Haruhi's mind or Kyon's. Either way, after watching it, I was left with a feeling of emptiness and the sense that life is meaningless if you're not able to interact with other minds that are independent of your own but can still understand you. If the world is wholly a product of your own mind, and there is no objective reality, you had better delude yourself in to believing that the other minds that populate it are independent. Otherwise you'll constantly be destroying and recreating the would in search of novelty because you've given up on meaning. The best way to convince yourself the world is real is if the other beings in it know things you don't know and can do things you can't do.

PaulHoule 5y ago

This book is an early (and fun) exposition of the "subcultures" theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pump_House_Gang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pump_House_Gang

coldtea 5y ago

>If someone really prefers their subculture, which gives them mental ease and physical health, then what right do the rest have to interfere and drag them into the main culture? Sure, whatever works for you. But if you then stay awake at night crying "I'm so alone", are chronically depressed and demotivated, you swallow drugs like they're candy, and so on, you might want to revisit this "whatever new living fad became possible after 100s of thousands of year of evolution emphacizing human connection is equally valid".

pieix 5y ago
A subculture is more similar in scale to human societies during the majority of those 100s of thousands of years of evolution than to the mega/giga scale of modern society.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >A subculture is more similar in scale to human societies during the majority of those 100s of thousands of years of evolution than to the mega/giga scale of modern society. Yes. But the subculture in TFA is about people staying at home, and only/mostly human connection with the subculture online (and few/nobody else).
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    Normies can't sacrifice facebook, can they? Rare people connect online because they are geographically separated. Can you run this site offline, at which location, and what will be the resulting engagement?
    - coldtea 5y ago
      All of the above is neither here, nor there though. This is not about "where to find info and others interested about a subculture" (sure, online will be easier). Or where to host gatherings for it (sure, online will be easier). It's about what else you do. "Normies" still have (or some have) the evolutionary human IRL connection (meetings in meetspace, touching, partners and friends they see face to face, etc). The subcultures as described in TFA (and what I'm saying might not be the best for them) is lacking that. That is, the subject is about persons shut-in, with no IRL contact, and connected through the web to some subculture(s). A hikikomori like existence. Not about some everyday person that is fan of medieval bard songs, and aside their regular meatspace partners, friends, spouses, acquaintainces, etc. also frequent some forums. Let's put it another way: "Rare people connect online because they are geographically separated" puts the cart before the horse. Connecting online is not the problem (as I see it). Not connecting offline as well is. And the idea of "a rare person", whose criterium for connecting to someone else is them being part of the same subculture is part of the issue.

rossdavidh 5y ago

Interesting and thought-provoking! But, similar to how he mentions that the predominance of monogamy in the modern world might be a result of cultural evolution, this line from the end raises a question: "Perhaps we should accept gracefully the inevitable sundering of ‘national’ cultures, and learn to operate within a truly multicultural world." Well, maybe...or maybe those few national cultures that persist, will find that they can steamroll over the fragmented once-were-nations that cannot muster the joint effort to resist them. There's a reason large states arose in the first place, to displace hunter-gatherer tribes, and it is precisely this. If you don't maintain a national culture, you're not going to have anyone willing to fight to defend it. Which, if every single nation has that happen, maybe that's fine. But if even one persists, it will find itself an elephant in a world of mice, who wonder why no one else is willing to defend them when they are trampled on.

randomluck040 5y ago
Isn’t the „Identity“ situation the reason why Afghanistan went back to the Taliban the moment the NATO left? I‘ve read[0] about it at least and apparently there was no real idea of a country called „Afghanistan“ among the citizens of the country. [0] https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/08/there-no-afghanistan-daniel-greenfield/#commento https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/08/there-no-afghanis...
wolverine876 5y ago
The data doesn't support that: The predominant, most prosperous, safest, most free societies have been the internationalist ones, in Europe, the US, Canada, Japan, S Korea, etc etc. There are strong hypotheses to back the data: Nationalism divides people at arbitrary borders, limiting their ability to travel, trade, and work together. Nationalists isolate themselves. We know well from economics that trade is best when it depends on economic merit, not on which artificial border you happen to live behind; it helps buyers and sellers - nobody will buy your goods if you don't buy theirs. Imagine science without internationalism. Imagine the IT industry - FOSS has contributors world-wide; the web was developed in Switzerland by a Brit, and shared by the world. Linux in Finland, etc. In terms of security, the nationalists have only themselves; the internationalists have each other, such as the most successful and powerful alliance in history, NATO. Imagine the Cold War without internationalism in Europe, as the USSR took one small country after another. The free world's enormous advantage in military competition with China is that they have each other, they have allies. Nationalism has a horrible track record, creating war and poverty, and the underlying curse, hate - arbitrarily, purposefully created - often by leaders using nationalism for their own power: 'be loyal to the nation, and I am the nation, I make the decisions'. Many, including Churchill, blamed nationalism for WWII (which is why the survivors built the UN and the predecessor of the EU). The internationalist world has produced freedom, security, and prosperity at orders of magnitude beyond what humanity ever experienced before. It seems bizarre to me to trade that in for the old nationalist ideologies.

md224 5y ago

> And if we were to take it even further? If we chose a subculture that was online, and we never went outside? Then all the stress would be gone; if one doesn’t walk down the street, one isn’t bothered by strangers in such close proximity. I'm not sure how to parse this: is this meant ironically or as a genuine endorsement of physical isolation as a way of life? IMHO, this aspect -- physical isolation -- is the biggest problem with the move towards digital subcultures, and I'm not sure how it can be solved.

redisman 5y ago
I think it’s just trying to show the thinking pattern of the person who finds it alluring
Ginden 5y ago
I never met right people in real life and I spent majority of my life in Internet subcultures, with physical isolation. Then I moved to capital city and "boom" - majority of my Internet friends live here and we meet on regular basis. For first time in almost 15 years, I'm not affected by dysthymia or depression.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  Yeah, I’m just waiting to find the right place. I fear I’ll be much to old by the time I do though.
- willjp 5y ago
  This is what I hope for. I expected that eventually the right job would expose me to a community with overlapping interests. So far I have been fairly unsuccessful.

MrLeap 5y ago

This read resonates with me strongly. Especially that David Foster Wallace quote, about the sacrifices to get very good at one particular thing. After my last job, I decided to go all in on the childhood dream as an indie game maker. I knew that most fail. I had reasons to believe that I wouldn't. Revulsion with company feudalism made it enough. I'm a year in. My tweets about my progress are in the top 10% among indie gamedevs on twitter.. Wishlist heuristics tell me that at release, I'll make about minimum wage(*). The price in hours to get here has been so high that the economic calculus screams that I should give up. The prices to self of the "right" way to survive still seem higher. Hikikomori seem like they jumped out of the boat. They want to live, passive in their dream until the tide pulls them under. I don't think you can live serenely in the dream without acceptance of the tide. I feel a certain kinship to that, the only difference is that I'm still swimming. How could the outcome ever be different though? The outcome will be different if I can cobble enough flotsam together to make my own boat. Then I can go sailing with an eye out for the swimmers.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
But money is just a tool to enable you to do what you want, so if you already can do what you want and earn enough money to get by, you win, in economic terms?
- MrLeap 5y ago
  I think I can get by, until somebody gets sick. That means I probably can't get by yet. Still more to do.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    What is your game? I am curious. My hat is off to you, in any case. Especially with the highly competitive indie games markte. There are just so, so many competitors. I am afraid being successful also involves things that many game developers probably won't enjoy that much, like marketing. Overall it seems likely that you acquire a lot of skills while making the game, though. With the demand for Software Developers still being high, it seems to me the risk is low, as you could always find another job. Of course you can't make back the money you didn't earn. But perhaps you could find a better paid job than before to make up for it. For now, I wish you success with your game so that you don't have to go back to "standard employment".

jazzyjackson 5y ago

Wow the way this website opens links in a draggable, pinnable pop-over box is dope.

saeranv 5y ago
Yeah, it kind of blows my mind at how ergonomic it is. It's also recursive, if you hover over a link within a pop-over box, it'll open up another pop-over box, you can just keep going deeper into the rabbit-hole without ever leaving the main text.
flyingfences 5y ago
He also writes [1] in detail about building the website itself. [1] https://www.gwern.net/Design https://www.gwern.net/Design

rks404 5y ago

I love the concept of this entire site - writing about things and revisiting them and linking them. Lots of great stuff to read here and an inspiration to write more.

nyolfen 5y ago
gwern legitimately deserves a 'genius grant' more than anyone the macarthur foundation has awarded one to recently

a9h74j 5y ago

Great article. The author explores, among many things and in a sensitive way, finding a closer approach to Dunbar's number. One way to approach Dunbar's number which the author does not discuss is combining "special interest" with "local geography" as well. For example, you don't need to find a subculture of DIY telescope makers who only use brand X drive software and brand Y gearing; it used to be enough to be a DIY telescope maker within say a club of county scope -- e.g. DIY Telescope Makers of Ventura County. When that was the dominant approach, you weren't comparing your work to the best result to be found on Instagram in the last year.

akomtu 5y ago

If a society or community looks meaningless, it's often because meaning has been purposefully removed. Why? Because that meaning would have destabilised society.

Nasrudith 5y ago
That is rather conspiratorial in mindset - asserting there must be a single "entity" as an actor as the universal or driving force. Like the old freaked out monarchist conspiracy theory which blamed the Jews and the Illuminati for the French Revolution. The idea that people were simply too fed up, the relative balance of noble vs commoner in combat changed over time making the fight winnable unlike prior forgotten revolts, went against their world view and had to be psychologically denied at all costs. The charge of "destabilized society" is basically meaningless for a mutating ship of Theseus. Did it count as razing Constantinople when it was officially renamed to Istanbul? Even when the Saxons conquered the Anglos it did not destroy their society, it killed their ruling class and mutated it. Technically even the cultural group description is an anachronism with Feudalism dealing with subdivisions via bloodlines and allegiences. Collapse of an entity or entities in which there was widespread dependency has lead to a vacuum, at least briefly.

bencollier49 5y ago

This is a great read, but I'm not sure that it succeeds in making its case - there is a lot of weight put on the idea of a big fish in a little pond being happier, but realistically, does a culture flourish when it's composed of complacent masters of tiny points of subculture? Is a person more successful who masters a tiny area than someone who recognises something bigger and strives to master that instead? It's probably better that people realise their real place in society as far as material wellbeing is concerned, and fight to improve it.

Max_Ehrlich 5y ago

Bravo. This is why I read hacker news.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

This is annoying to read because it makes unfounded assertions and then builds on them, as if they were true, repeatedly. When given the chance to uncritically construct an entire manifesto, it is very easy to get lost in one's on own narrative. This happens many times: "The national identity fragments under the assault of burgeoning subcultures. At last, the critic beholds the natural endpoint of this process: the long nightmare of nationalism falls like a weight from the minds of the living, as the nation becomes some lines on a map, some laws you follow. No one particularly cares." This sounds grand, but it's flimsy because he just made it up with no evidence. Then after the hypothetic money example: "But what effect does this have on people? I can tell you: the average person is going to be miserable. If everyone genuinely buys into this culture, then they have to be. Their talents at piano playing, or cooking, or programming, or any form of artistry or scholarly pursuit are denigrated and count for naught. The world has become too big—it did not use to be so big, people so powerless12 of what is going on:" Again, total fallacy based on anecdote. Sure there are plenty of cliches about money and happiness, but extrapolating to everyone is a naive approach to a manifesto. I could go on, but this is just word salad masquerading as profundity. Nice HTML though.

deleted 5y ago

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bobthechef 5y ago

Subcultures are attempts at substitutes for ethnic identity especially in the absence of religion. People in countries like the US are particularly vulnerable. According to the triple melting pot theory, as members of ethnic communities intermarry, each successive generation sheds the previous generation's ethnic identities. Religion then becomes a substitute ethnic identity, especially when intermarriage is more likely between members of the same religion. Since "American" isn't really an ethnic identity and has little substance, and because traditional religions are losing ground in the US, the result is an identity crisis. Subcultures are one attempt to fill the void. Both white nationalism and "wokeness" are examples, as are Harley gangs and all the mushrooming "sexual identities".

uncomputation 5y ago

Such a beautiful piece. Gwern always manages to handle these niche topics with care and universality, the marks of a great writer. Also perhaps strangely apt considering the recent discussion around the metaverse/metaverses.

HONEST_ANNIE 5y ago

Liberal cosmopolitan cities can thrive as a subculture society. Not going against each other is the real meaning of tolerance–liking, approving, or supporting is not necessary. Geographic sorting between fractured and non-fractured is dangerous. One group of people believes there is still a nation-state. The urban-rural divide in political and nationalistic lines is clear in many countries. In countries with strong religious/conservative urban/modern populations like the US[1], Iran, Turkey it can become very problematic. Iran is probably closest to the civil war due to this fractionalization. [1] https://www.niskanencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Wilkinson-Density-Divide-Final.pdf https://www.niskanencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Wi...

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

>will be able to achieve little in his ‘hobby’ due to lack of time and a desire to not go overboard) Huh, no, you get 80% result for 20% effort. Diminishing returns are actually a big problem. Drawing may be not innate, but artistry is innate: even if I learn how to draw, I won't be able to draw anything, because I have no idea what to draw.

k__ 5y ago

" the Internet by uniting small groups will divide larger ones." Is this a bad thing? I think, only if we keep falling for collective narcissism. I love the idea that I can now choose people to hang out with via interests and not geographical location. That divided me from a pretty large group in my home town, but I'm happy about it, because my life got better in turn. The other side of the coin is, the more I'm split up from mainstream, the more I see the mainstreams transgressions. Stuff I wouldn't think about twice when I was still living in a village is now pushing me away from mainstream more.

wly_cdgr 5y ago

The chess stuff resonated with me. I was a top 10 U18 player back in the day in the US, but I never set much stock by that and quit chess when I went off to college, because I couldn't find a way to feel content with devoting my life to something so narrow, and because it felt very likely that I was only that high up the chess ladder because a very large number of smarter people weren't bothering with the game Pretty good article!

wly_cdgr 5y ago
Thinking about it more, there's something similar to leaving the Matrix I think about leaving a subculture you were deeply involved in. It becomes hard(er) to willingly submerge yourself in another one once you spend some time at the "surface" level. You have to keep working to sustain your suspension of disbelief or risk snapping out into a crushing awareness of the subculture's arbitrariness and insignificance. But the "main" culture (if it's even not just another subculture, anyway) is so goddamn ugly and bland

AccountToUse 5y ago

Articles like this are why I peruse HackerNews. Thank you OP.