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Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
- adamgordonbell 5y agoSlate star codex has a very fun and nerdy explanation of fashion cycles. Let’s explain fashion using cellular automata. This isn’t going to be cringe-inducingly nerdy at all! https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/
- ineptech 5y agoI also thought of this; this explanation is like a more complicated and nuanced, but probably less empirically testable, version of the "CDS" mechanism proposed by the study's authors. I scrolled to the bottom half-expecting to see Scott get an acknowledgement.
- reducesuffering 5y agoYep, this is an intuitive explanation for it.
- eightysixfour 5y agoI've been reading Graeber's final book, "The Dawn of Everything," and in it he makes/repeats the observation that many cultures in contact with each other end up defining themselves as "not-the-other-culture," which he called (and I think others call) cultural schismogenesis. I think you can genericize it a bit and say humans are bad at defining themselves and need a reference point, and they often take the opposite stance of that reference point. I think this model fits in with that pretty well - there are groups who want to be "not-the-elite" which, if successful, the elite adopt. Classic "hipsterism." It also fits in with a lot of local, national, and global politics, market differentiation, etc.
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- anm89 5y agovery interesting point. It seems to be a useful model for thinking about this stuff. I still think Bullshit Jobs was a terrible read but maybe I need to give some of his other stuff a shot.
- BoysenberryPi 5y agoOut of curiosity, what did you not like about Bullshit Jobs?
- martythemaniak 5y agoI thought "Debt" was absolutely fantastic and "Bullshit Jobs" was err.. complete bullshit. To best honest, the very premise of that view - that the only thing that matters is people's own opinions of their job - is one of the dumbest things I've ever read and it's probably downright harmful to people that adopt it. There are essential jobs that need doing regardless of the opinions of the workers who perform them. In fact, if people focused on the value their so-called "bullshit" jobs provide other people, rather than on their own assessment of how meaningful their job is, they would likely end up much happier. It's an incredibly condescending and self-centered way to look at the world.
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- t-3 5y agoIf the "bullshit" jobs were valuable to anyone, they wouldn't be bullshit, they would be highly coveted and celebrated positions.
- anm89 5y agoThe whole premise is broken to me so the more he tries to dig in it just feels like deeper and deeper bs to me. Jobs don't exist for the employee, wages exist for the employee. Jobs exist because the employer feels that the wage is a good trade for the person's time. The employee's perception of their contribution has essentially 0 importance in this interaction. A better definition of a bullshit job from the employee's perspective is one where the wage isn't worth it for the bullshit they have to put up with. In that case they should find a new one. If they can't, than putting up with that specific bullshit is still their best choice. If they keep showing up to work and taking that trade, apparently they don't think it's bullshit. And if the employer keeps thinking that the money is a good trade for their time, they apparently also don't think it's bullshit, otherwise they'd fire them. So if two people freely engage in the same trade of time for money everyday for years on end, then simply calling it bullshit isn't that profound. It starts to sound a lot like some way to intellectualize whining about not liking your job. So yeah, no amount of writing is going to save a totally broken premise.
- belugacat 5y agoOh wow, super fascinating reference, thank you for posting it! I’ll have to check it out, I’ve been prototyping game concepts with many thousands of agents who all do interesting things for the player to investigate (the key here is that they don’t have to be particularly complex or meaningful, they just have to overlap in enough thought provoking ways to keep the player engaged), and I’ve had a similar insight (“make agents identify a position and adopt the opposite stance”) that seems to yield interesting early results. (sorry, nothing concrete to share and likely won’t for a long time)
- crawfordcomeaux 5y agoI feel excitement over reading this. Would you be open to trying out some ideas to experiment with? I've been wondering if a framework for amplifying/accelerating evolution in bacterial cultures that's based in graph theory holds for culture in general. Also, trying to identify a sustainable model for a gift economy that can outperform debt economies.
- eightysixfour 5y agoIf you're looking for a playground for this kind of thing (and can code), check out https://hash.ai/ https://hash.ai/
- crawfordcomeaux 5y agoThanks! How's what you're doing different?
- eightysixfour 5y agoI'm not the gamedev above, just thought you may be interested.
- sdwr 5y agoSounds interesting! I see games in a similar way, as collections of simple mechanics that overlap/intersect/stack. I think one of the keys to a complementary bundle of mechanics is that they're distinct. Acting on different time scales, different reward structures that tug the brain around, creating choices that feel meaningful and don't ever repeat exactly.
- turdnagel 5y agoSee also Dr. Seuss' seminal "The Sneetches".
- throwaway894345 5y ago> I think you can genericize it a bit and say humans are bad at defining themselves and need a reference point I don't think the error is in defining ourselves by what sets us apart--it's fine and good to acknowledge our differences. I think the bad thing is leaning into those differences due to an aversion to the outgroup, which is the very essence of tribalism (or nearly so).
- eightysixfour 5y agoApologies, I was too soft at that point when I wrote it. He does not suggest we merely acknowledge our differences, he suggests we literally define ourselves as opposites of others. He also does not assign a property of good or bad to this observation, just that we do it.
- crucialfelix 5y agoAs a former hipster (and music subculture producer) I can attest that what drove us is not the desire to differentiate, but that the mainstream elite were lifeless bullshit and we wanted to express something new that only we could sense. We were being us, not "not them". Decades later, it's what the mainstream now sounds like. It always percolates up.
- eightysixfour 5y agoI won't suggest that you did not FEEL that way when you were doing it, but what you just wrote sounds exactly what I said in socially-coded language. > I can attest that what drove us is not the desire to differentiate, but that the mainstream elite were lifeless bullshit Here you state that the mainstream elite was "lifeless bullshit." > we wanted to express something new And you wanted to express NOT lifeless bullshit. > that only we could sense. We were being us This is what the mainstream elite couldn't see or make. It was NOT mainstream elite thought. > it's what the mainstream now sounds like The mainstream adopted it, and now there's a new generation of people who think that sound is mainstream lifeless bullshit and will create something that is NOT mainstream lifeless bullshit. This is not part of the Graeber thesis, but aligns well with the original post. I also want to be clear that I don't think this is supposed to be a conscious process - there are times when people are intentionally contrarian but there are also people and groups who are unconsciously contrarian simply by saying "I don't like this thing."
- crucialfelix 5y agoI agree, its a different framing of the same process. On further reflection there was a lot of deliberate removal of pop or mainstream rave signals. We were excluding their signals to create our own space. Minimal Techno is pretty much defined by it's rules of what isn't allowed. So that's conscious differentiation.
- oblak 5y agoExactly. OP is the poster child for lack of self awareness
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- kelseyfrog 5y agoIs that simply one aspect of cultural dialectics[1] or am I missing something? 1. https://textbooks.whatcom.edu/duttoncmst101/chapter/intercultural-communication/ https://textbooks.whatcom.edu/duttoncmst101/chapter/intercul...
- March_f6 5y agoMimetic theory, while not entirely complete, seems to cover the common impulse behind dominating trends. Whether it accounts for the initial spark of “anti” I guess is another question.
- optimalsolver 5y agoWorth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elite
- beebeepka 5y ago> Changes of regime, revolutions, and so on occur not when rulers are overthrown from below, but when one elite replaces another. The role of ordinary people in such transformation is not that of initiators or principal actors, but as followers and supporters of one elite or another. Easy to say duh to this in 2021 thanks to education, internet, and everything. Must've been a breakthrough a few hundred years ago. For various reasons
- wyager 5y agoA lot of people still have trouble with the fact that successful popular protest movements are usually just part of the legitimating process for some political shift which has already occurred, and not a significant causal factor in that shift occurring.
- beebeepka 5y agoAgreed. I think it's an ego problem. You know, the most common one with us humans
- shadowgovt 5y agoIt's an interesting idea but I'm seeing whispers of No True Scotsman fallacy. It's true, of course, that the end result will be a subset of the people leading and most not (which is an outgrowth of basic specialization theory: if everyone's in charge of coordination and leadership, nobody has time to do the work that needs coordination and leadership). But was the new elite always apart from the followers and supporters, or are the rulers overthrown and during that process some subset of the overthrowers become a new elite due to the needs of specialization? Or, to say it another way: would the "new elite" have ever been an elite if they hadn't won? George Washington was never commissioned in the British army. Fidel Castro was the bastard son of an immigrant. Had their revolutions not succeeded, would history remember them as elite?
- beebeepka 5y agoThis was a surprisingly good read, even if a bit long. Their observations align with my own - it's all about standing out. Me different because me better. Or vice versa. Same thing
- d883kd8 5y agoUgh they got j and k mixed up on page 3
- crawfordcomeaux 5y agoThis tracks with how I'm changing the art I embody/make. A driving intention I carry is to bring about a future where all people have the 0-payment option of living in a community where everyone's committed to meeting all needs while denying none, practicing a culture that's learned from and let go of cultural components of debt, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, preferentialism (a culture of catering to preferences), democracy, domination, violence, punishment/reward, racism, sexism, rape, adultism, ageism, and maybe all the other isms. Any government, including human beings who identify as nations, can signal they've shifted to practicing such a culture by adopting the following symbol and integrating it into their symbology: ∀ This is the mathematic notation for the phrase "for all." A government that's operating on a model to meet all needs while denying none can signal this by including this symbol in their art, like flags, seals, etc.
- germinalphrase 5y agoThere’s a lot of “not this” in your statement, but can you provide an example of your work that helps me understand what “this” remains?
- crawfordcomeaux 5y ago"Meet all needs while denying none" to me means we need to first identify all of our needs (not wants, strategies, or rights, except to use them as signs pointing to underlying needs). I suspect applied category theory and constructor theory are two recent developments that could be useful for proving the needs of the human system. "This" could be considered a culture of freely giving to meet people's needs, including the needs of the environments they live in. Satisfying All Needs Through A narchogiving (SANTA) I want a network of SANTA communities, offline and online, dedicated to meeting people's needs. The SANTANet. Another example: I'm helping my hair to mat into ∀. I've legally changed my name to Peacefully Revoking Consent To Be Governed For You And For All. My signature is "<peace sign> ∀" I'm also running for president on a platform of founding a new government to replace this one. The logo will include ∀ I'm nurturing a 3yo by empowering them to do whatever they want that won't kill them. This requires facing down and releasing old traumatic conditioning. I'm not perfect and need more people in my life to help them revolt against me when I slip into choosing from trauma mode. So a community where it's normal to run around naked in cold weather, regardless of age, is something I'm working toward.
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- shadowgovt 5y agoAs the old line goes, "Revolution is never justified... Unless you win."
- aszantu 5y agoas an artist I just always think: okay I like this style, and I want something like it, but I absolutely don't want to copy, so I change it so it can't be recognized as "theft" later.
- analog31 5y agoI wonder if another factor is that the artists themselves eventually get bored with their own stuff. I've read that this is a factor in the evolution of musical styles.
- j-bos 5y agoAt the risk of touching a nerve, this concept reminds me of the crypto/nft hostility.
- waingake 5y agoThis is Hegel’s Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis. Not a new idea! https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4020-8265-8_200183 https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1...
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