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Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life
- woodruffw 5y agoThis reads like a Buzzfeed listicle for people who hate Buzzfeed listicles. By all means, please do read more books, consume less frivolously, watch old "under-rated" films, &c. But do it because you want to do it, not because some weirdo on the internet told you that it'll make you "counter-cultural."
- crowbahr 5y agoInsisting that people should be more anti-mimetic and simultaneously calling humanity homo-religiouso (fundamentally religious), insisting that people don't read the Bible enough etc... Oh well. At least this goes into my pile of "read things you deeply disagree with".
- noduerme 5y agoIf you read enough of it to disagree with something you read too much of it. It belongs in the pile of things you read the first page of and go, oh shit, I just clicked on clickbait.
- decebalus1 5y ago> The Marriage of Anti-Mimetic and Anti-Fragility And that was when I realized the whole article was bullshit.
- emodendroket 5y ago> Read Foreign Newspapers Depends on which ones... gets a little dispiriting to realize I just labored through what was actually a Japanese translation of an article from Reuters originally written in English. In a wider sense, if you're actively trying to go against the grain of society, they've already got you, in a way.
- rashkov 5y agoEven more, foreign sources often lack context (and in some cases, language skills) to make proper sense of a story. That said it’s still a good practice to read an outside perspective.
- khazhoux 5y agoHere's an anti-mimetic idea: Stop chasing advice on how to better yourself. You won't find enlightenment in articles like this.
- musingsole 5y agoSounds pretty trite to me.
- programmarchy 5y agoThis comment has self-destructed.
- pigsforpeace 5y agoIf you want to live an anti-mimetic life, basically… be gay. Lol even the article has a pic of Oscar wilde. Gays have the secret and this whole form is way more homophobic than it likes to let on
- r3trohack3r 5y agoThe deep bookshelf rings true to me. I use https://audile.app https://audile.app for exactly this - but in music. A book version would be neat.
- Veen 5y agoThe Audile page suggested Jackie Gleason singing Christmas classics, which is certainly different to what I would normally listen to.
- r3trohack3r 5y agoKeep refreshing - you’ll get a different album each time!
- foobiekr 5y agoOn a whim I started listening to 1920s and 1930s music. It’s not at all my style but you know, after awhile, it’s kind of good. The feeling was very much like learning a new language.
- max1cc 5y agoApparently I've reached the maximum number of free articles despite never visiting this site before
- _0ffh 5y agoSame here. I used the 12 foot ladder, it works. https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.epsilontheory.com/25-anti-mimetic-tactics-for-living-a-counter-cultural-life https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.epsilontheory.com/25-ant...
- Veen 5y agoI just opened the article in a different tab. Something is amiss with their paywall implementation.
- kayodelycaon 5y agoThere’s a lot of good stuff in here, things I’ve used in my personal life to great effect. The really important thing here (that’s hinted at towards the end) is moderation. Do some of these things. A little at a time. Find what works and what doesn’t. Saying the truth no matter what the cost is extremely dangerous advice to follow literally. Pick battles you can win. Know when saying the truth matters and when it doesn’t. Know when your “truth” is just another opinion no one around you at that moment agrees with. As my dad always told me, “you can be dead right.” Life is too short to be miserable trying to obtain someone else’s goals. It is too short to optimize everything. Remember that happiness in the moment matters. (But not at the expense of the future.) You’ll never find me reading a book I don’t like or skipping using GPS, because things cause more stress than benefit. Having a car break down and having a magical moment because of it? Do the opposite. Actively seek those moments by finding people to help instead of waiting for the moment to happen. If I have any advice to add, it is be honest and be kind. Fight when you need to fight, make peace when you don’t. You don’t need to fix everything, just make the world better by being in it.
- duxup 5y ago> Saying the truth no matter what the cost is extremely dangerous advice to follow literally. And there’s the risk that you could be wrong… and / or just do more damage than good.
- retrocryptid 5y agoanother way to think about it is if you reach a point where telling the truth no matter the cost, then maybe the path you've followed is sub-optimal. but yes, this doesn't help you if you find yourself in that position.
- giantg2 5y agoOften times people don't want to hear the truth. A classic example in my own life was the gender wage gap in the late 2000s and early 2010s, especially with the Obama (forget the year) state of the union with the "all things equal" comment. A complete misunderstanding of the data by the majority of the population, and filled with highly charged emotions. Sometimes it's dangerous to be right.
- chiefalchemist 5y ago> "I read many books not because I think I’ll ‘like’ them but because I think that I won’t..." I won't necessarily intentionally look things I don't like but I will ask others what they're reading, what they suggest, and so on. It helps me escape confirmation bias. The other hack I use is to read books referenced in the book I'm reading. These are often the book that influenced the book I'm reading. Getting back to basics, back to the source, is often helpful.
- anonymoushn 5y agoThese are pretty mimetic ways to find books to read.
- chiefalchemist 5y agoNot really. Not relative to myself. If you're going to deviate from patterns, that starts with self.
- WFHRenaissance 5y agoI like this article, and I also like the Girardian theory/terminology, but I wish I could send this to my younger brother without him having to muck through the context of RG and mimetic theory. I know it would sort've just become a self-help article at that point. There's been a deluge of those lately, most of which are of s** quality and usually preaching the sort of "hustle hard bro" message Luke decries, but I just think this sort of stuff would _actually_ do well on TikTok with a smidge of substitution for the more core-RG terminology.
- hairofadog 5y agoWish I could send it to my younger self, but life lessons can only be learned by people who decide to learn them.
- rapht 5y agoRené Girard actually _is_ a must-read. No need to go through everything he has written -- though his works are a great gateway to our (Western) culture as they draw on everything from ancient mythologies (notably greek) to modern philosophy, with a focus on the sources on the Christian religion. Start with "I See Satan Fall Like Lightning", a very straightforward, almost romanesque read, and if interested, read "Violence and Religion" and "Things Hidden Since The Foundation Of The World". A great way to dive into Humanities.
- WFHRenaissance 5y agoI've read Girard, but I don't think everyone in my life has the attention span or interest to dive into him. I'm imagining what the conversation of me recommending THSTFOTW to my bro would be like LOL.
- rgrieselhuber 5y agoMimetic frenzy is the engine behind accusatory networks (as we see with cancel culture) and revolutionary movements that result in incredible amounts of bloodshed and destruction when left unchecked. Refusing to accuse in one’s personal life and instead focusing on measured reaction as a counter-mimetic approach to these movements is the way to remain human in the midst of it all.
- AstralStorm 5y agoOr it is the way to be milked and shaved to the skin while not saying no. Any act of opposition can land you on a blacklist or worse, even small one, even if you do not expect it.
- javajosh 5y agoThis is a path to more meaning and engagement, but at the cost of much more misery. Post-modernism is lame, but Lyotard's "tyranny of consensus" is real - the vast majority of people do NOT want to be challenged, and these days it feels like the ones that need to be challenged are on the edge of violence. At least in this time and place (2021 USA), keep your head down. At least for now.
- musingsole 5y ago> At least in this time and place (2021 USA), keep your head down. At least for now. No. Now is precisely the time when the insane need to be reminded that while outright sanity is impossible, we can, should and must be more sane than we are now. The tribes be damned.
- grassgreener 5y agoThese are fantastic advices to turn into an arrogant insufferable person. I used to be that person, it’s miserable. There is a lot of good in drinking the social kool aid and embracing our cultural quirks
- rglullis 5y agoThe difference between the medicine and the poison is in the dosage. TFA states quite in the beginning that the point is not about becoming a contrarian, even less being a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian. Seems like you are projecting quite a bit.
- arpa 5y agoBeing anti-mimetic and following lists is kind of... mimetic, ain't it?
- xwdv 5y agoAt first I thought this was about Antimemetic tactics which would be far more useful as a lot of time and potential for original thoughts is wasted through the absorption of memes these days. Memes tend to stay in my head far longer than what seems healthy and makes it harder to be truly creative and imagine novel ideas.
- scubbo 5y agoSame. Arguably there's strong crossover, though - mindful consumption would be both antimimetic and antimemetic.
- adfm 5y agoMemetic mimeticism? Is there a Dawkins/Girard intersection? Are “Anti-mimetic tactics” selfish? And does the mnemonic I before E except after C rule apply in this context? We might be close to a CRISPR for memes here. Memesplicing anyone?
- stareblinkstare 5y agoThis is yet another social signal. You've created a group D by harping about Groups A, B and C.
- whodidntante 5y agoThere is no antimemetics group
- jancsika 5y agoWhat's the criticism here? These are just truisms. E.g., suppose the defining trait of group D is: "always reads the entire article before posting a response to it." If Groups A, B, and C do not possess that trait (and judging by HN, they may not) then the benefit of group D even becoming a supermajority by harping on A, B, and C far outweighs any contradiction in their counter-culture identity. On the other hand, if the reason for group D existing is to simply reject any position held by a majority of citizens, growth of group D could be detrimental to democracy. In the first case, group D harped its way to a better society. In the latter case, group D harped its way to a worse society. In conclusion, your truisms don't say anything meaningful about the potential creation of another social signal.
- eat_veggies 5y agoIt's hilarious that this is standard self-help advice designed to make you a better worker, packaged up as something subversive or "anti-mimetic." I am reminded of Mark Fisher: "Witness, for instance, the establishment of settled 'alternative' or 'independent' cultural zones, which endlessly repeat older gestures of rebellion and contestation as if for the first time. 'Alternative' and 'independent' don't designate something outside mainstream culture; rather, they are styles, in fact the dominant styles, within the mainstream."
- jameshart 5y agoYes, surely the main ‘anti-mimetic’ strategy to adopt is not adopting lifestyle affectations from a blog post that claims that that will make you a better person.
- noduerme 5y agoThat's exactly what they want you to say. Now you can level up and understand this advice is just for the weak-minded. For a few thousand bucks you can go to a special seminar.. etc WHY the fuck did this rank on HN?
- qkls 5y agoThis is exactly the kind of post that ranks on HN. It seems intelligent but is not very challenging.
- AutumnCurtain 5y agoHad exactly this thought reading it. Here's a list of platitudes to make you a subversive independent thinker!
- throwanem 5y agoI'm surprised they haven't yet sold them as NFTs.
- champagnois 5y agoFor someone who talks so much of loathing social media, they seemingly do very little to avoid it. Acknowledging the technology is basically poison at scale, maybe remove it from your life so you do not suffer the same brainrot as the masses. The great Naval once wrote: Be wary of anything that uses the word "social". Social Media is conditioning people to discuss moral crusades, launch moral crusades, and dwell on moral crusades. Humans are being conditioned to write and say things that inspire anger towards the opposition, because that is the best approach to getting likes, upvotes, and subscribes. Poison for your mind.
- gerikson 5y ago> The great Naval once wrote: Be weary of anything that uses the word "social". I was not aware of this quote, so I googled, and it turns out it's a Twitter account https://twitter.com/naval/status/1383520778361065474 https://twitter.com/naval/status/1383520778361065474
- FooBarBizBazz 5y agoI would guess this is Naval Ravikant? I'll also point out that Naval correctly used the word "wary", but I do weary of these things too.
- gerikson 5y agoIt does seem to be Naval Ravikant, someone I was not familiar with. Considering his background, the tweet might as well be investment advice as opposed to life advice.
- exotree 5y agoMost of his pontifications and influence are only distributed to people at scale because of Twitter. I’m not sure he’s great or particularly good example to follow.
- champagnois 5y ago
- mym1990 5y agoI am surprised the word 'listen' was used only once in the entire article. There is so much to be gained by simply perking up those little ears of ours, and I would certainly say it is becoming anti-mimetic. Also, being flexible. You don't have to avoid using GPS all the time. But sometimes I find a fun challenge in seeing if my brain can figure out A to B on its own, etc...
- im3w1l 5y agoI don't think it's a good idea to make deviance an end-goal. It should rather follow naturally from your other goals and needs.
- hutzlibu 5y agoThere are interesting ideas, but despite even speaking down on hipsters who do things just because they are not mainstream - the whole concept reminds me still of it. Being anticultural for the sake of it. "Being anti-mimetic is the power to live in freedom" I mean do that, if that is your thing. But rather just do what you really want. Whether your local culture supports it, or not. This I call freedom. Just note of course, going against the mainstream is a lot harder. And there are cultures that are very repressive against even small sidetracking from the norm. And they will try to make your life hell, for bringing chaos into their stable order of things. Because this is how they might perceive you, for not adopting to their standard.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoLiked most of this except #1 > Discovering and living out a sense of calling — a personal vocation, or something you are uniquely meant to do — is the ultimate way to cut through the mimetic noise of the world and begin to shape both a moral and a vocational compass. There are on the order of 7 billion human beings on earth. We don't all have a personal vocation or something we are uniquely meant to do. One of the keys to leading a happy and fulfilled life is being able to be content to live within the bounds that most of us operate in. Most of us are not uniquely gifted, not particularly special, not here to do one thing in this world. But we can be kind, be helpful, try to do as little damage to other people and the world as we can, to find value in things that last and do not cost the world very much, to enjoy our lives regardless of what we do for a living, not because of it. It may be a gift from the Renaissance to believe in individuality in the way that #1 clearly does, but it's a gift that doesn't scale to huge populations (it may not even have been right with much smaller ones). It's wonderful to live in a society that allows for individual self-discovery and self-expression, but we should not blind us to the reality that almost all of us are not on a unique, singular mission.
- itronitron 5y agoBut think about all of your past classmates and coworkers and whether any two of them were exactly alike. Even within a specialized class or career the people there will have wildly different backgrounds and life experiences. Hence their sense of calling from a personal standpoint will be unique..
- rfrey 5y agoBelieving something is the best past for an individual does not mean believing it to be "scalable" or that it would be good for society (or even possible in a society) for everyone to adopt that path. Socrates was executed for corrupting youth. He never denied it.
- BeFlatXIII 5y agoThat’s why I have contempt for people who ask the rhetorical question of “what is everyone followed that path?” and then act surprised when I’m not wowed by their common-sense wisdom. I didn’t ask whether the plan was good social policy or not: I asked whether those actions were reasonable for me to do.
- pjbeam 5y agoI'm reminded of broken mirror guy from Black Mirror who starts a YouTube (whatever it actually was) channel at the end.
- giantg2 5y agoJust remember, society will have an implict bias against anyone is is not like them. I happen to fit many of the suggestions in the list and it has gotten me nowhere.
- SyzygistSix 5y agoIt's gotten me nowhere as well but it has allowed me to be me, which is quite alright. I wasn't trying to get anywhere necessarily. But I was always comfortable with that.
- giantg2 5y agoIt's a painful existence to be oneself and see the negative consequences/treatment by society because of it.
- em-bee 5y agoi don't want to pry, but if you don't mind, what kind of negative consequences are you experiencing? i too experience negative consequences, but these are owed to finding it difficult to make friends. however, i do not believe that this difficulty comes from doing what is suggested in the article but rather the reverse, the difficulty to make friends is something i grew up with, any behavioral quirks developed later as a consequence of not having friends. so in other words, the negative things you experience maybe don't come from being yourself but because you may be missing something else, something that may have had a hand in shaping who you are now.
- quesera 5y agoIt's also a painful existence to be someone else, and live an unfulfilled life. And it's a rewarding experience to be oneself and eventually find the set/setting/companion/environment that correlates to you in a fulfilling way. Sometimes that's very difficult or impossible. It is never the easiest choice, but worthwhile things rarely are.
- giantg2 5y ago
- prog_1 5y agomoderation is the key combine and synthesize the best of antifragility, postmodernism, dao te ching, science and what have you this article made step #2 of thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
- ianbutler 5y agoI read this and while I view some of the points as good advice, like others have pointed out -- being counter cultural for the sake of it is a path to misery. Articles like this miss one crucial overarching point and that is, what ever you do in life, do it intentionally. Go with the flow, don't go with the flow -- whatever as long as every once in a while you have a think and ask yourself "is this really what I want out of life" if it is great keep on keeping on but if it's not then think about what you have to do to change your life to get to where you want to be, doing what you want to do. Don't be merely an observer in your own life.
- AstralStorm 5y agoThe problem with most of the advice is that hindsight is 20/20 and some decisions or circumstances are extra hard to invert or redirect. People change, we do not have infinite time and over time actually making lasting acquaintances takes ever more energy. And if you change, so may your circles of friends, or even family. Few people make themselves available later on, everyone is busy or sapped, either by work or other obligations. A decision to change and go against the flow can easily become a lonely one.
- ianbutler 5y agoI've always been told life is lonely anyway, by the time you're in your mid thirties I think the average American for instance has like two close friends and dwindling family. In my case every time I've tried to go with the flow I wind up resenting myself more than I like the people I'm keeping company with and always go back to marching to my own drum and shedding whatever social circle I've cobbled together. I find that I enjoy my own time doing what I want and doing what I find stimulating more than I dislike the loneliness. Very much to each their own though, it's obviously very personal and my way is definitely not the best for everyone, heck some of the time I'm not even sure it has been the best for me.
- Danborg 5y agoThis article is full of dumb advice that will cause nothing but grief if you follow it. This is an anti-mimetic comment. ;-)
- SyzygistSix 5y agoSome interesting ideas here. I still found it funny that he talks about avoiding frictionless consumption yet links book titles to the Amazon store.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoThis section is particularly important and worth re-reading: > Being “anti-mimetic” does not mean being a ‘contrarian’ or refusing to imitate one’s peers. That’s what every hipster thinks he’s doing, too. “Everyone leaves the beaten path only to fall into the same ditch,” wrote the social theorist René Girard, the father of mimetic theory. This kind of naive rejection of the culture is not what we’re talking about here. This mindset runs deep in tech communities, where some people seem to think they can build a personality around doing everything differently than others. It’s the person who can’t resist the urge to remind everyone that they don’t use a popular text editor, programming language, or operating system. I’m actually all for exploring the less popular path and trying different things. It becomes a problem, however, when someone can only view every choice as a false dichotomy in which only one option can be chosen. And of course, they’ll find a way to casually mention how they chose the less popular of the two options every time it comes up. They need everyone to know they are different (which they believe is equivalent to being better).
- wolverine876 5y agoIf you always choose the anti- path, the mimetic is controlling your behavior just as much as if you always choose the mimentic path; it determines what you do. The point is to make decisions on other values, disregarding the mimetic (except when you choose to regard it). Analogously, in decision theory, someone is equally reliable and predictable if they are always right or always wrong.
- soheil 5y ago
- WJW 5y agoPerhaps offtopic, but this argumentation style of "So you think XYZ", where XYZ is a complete strawman of what the original post was arguing, is that some new fashion? I don't recall ever seeing it even just a year ago, but these days it seems to be in every other thread on HN.
- 5y ago
- raldi 5y ago> Simple heuristic: ask yourself what price you would pay at the moment you are using a digital product to be doing the real thing. Take running on a treadmill through a digital forest on a 10” screen. If the answer is $10, then do the math: I bet that’s more than what you pay for a daily gym membership. That means that there is more value for you to unlock if you find a way to make that desire a reality. I don't understand this. What is he proposing you do with the $10? Why would this advice change if your declared value was less than a daily gym membership?
- lolc 5y agoThe way I read it: The argument starts with the reader being in a gym. So having paid the gym is given and we assume that the gym must provide some sort of value. At some higher fee, the value would be negative and the reader would not have gone to the gym. Rationally. Now the article argues that since the reader would pay more to be in the forest than the gym, they should evaluate their options to run in the forest. Because that could provide more absolute value. Even if it meant travelling further. The only way it makes sense to argue this way is when you're trying to convince a consumer of a non-consumer option that is better. Because, it presumes, only when a consumer evaluates the forest as a product, they will see its value.
- em-bee 5y agoi didn't get that either, but then maybe that's because i would never even consider using a treadmill when i can go for a walk. most other digital things like watching videos or listening to audio books don't have practical analog equivalents, or have no benefits. (i really don't see the benefit of playing vinyls. in the end i still get sound made through electricity. for the real analog experience i actually play an analog music instrument myself.)
- Stevvo 5y agoMisread the title as 'antiemetic'. Went in expecting strategies for keeping food in your stomach when consuming 'counter-cultural' substances.
- jancsika 5y agoSuppose I wanted to use the namespace clash here with "anti-meme" posts on reddit/etc. in order to boost the concept of "anti-meme" posts, with the goal to eventually take over the name in the popular consciousness. E.g., the way that Uber ate "ride sharing," Bitcoin/blockchain is attempting to eat "crypto," or how current Ripple literally paid to take over the name from the old Ripple. How much money would that cost me? I guess the easiest starting place is-- how much would current Ripple have paid the original Ripple guy to buy the name?
- bckr 5y ago> How much money would that cost me? Weird thought experiment, love it. I'd first ask the question "how could this be accomplished"
- yakshaving_jgt 5y ago> I have always had disdain for the show Shark Tank and all of its many derivatives. Shark Tank is itself a derivative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons%27_Den https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons%27_Den
- retrocryptid 5y agoI'm not going to dis the OP's hypothesis, but he missed much of Girard's point. It's not that children mimic the desires of their parents or individuals mimic the desire of society writ large, it's that desire is embedded in the perceptions of reality transmitted to children and reinforced by society. That being said, I like the article and maybe the author was just side-stepping complications by presenting Girardian desire as being consciously culpable. But that is a complication in and of itself: desire is often unconscious and accessible only to the hidden self of the subconscious. That the desire the author describes may be a meta- (or pata-) desire is worth noting when reading the text. Or at least that's my 2 bit commentary.
- mawise 5y ago> How many people can honestly and explicitly articulate their purpose, or mission, on social media? Is it to gain followers? Sell books? Build a Substack list? What? This line resonated a lot with me and some of my goals and anti-goals when I started working on Haven[1]. I don't want to support any sort of commercial or brand-building goals on Haven and I explicitly send those people to Wordpress on the features page. [1]: https://havenweb.org https://havenweb.org
- 95014_refugee 5y ago> "I think that a massive deficiency in religious literacy is causing confusion." In an article about selective anti-mimeticism, worship at the altar of self-oppressive mimicry. Too serious to be a joke, but the irony...
- programmarchy 5y agoReligious literacy is different than religion. In a Girardian sense, Christianity can be seen as an antidote to the mimetic sparagmos because it puts forth the scapegoat to end all scapegoats.
- anthk 5y agoReligion is the opposite of Enlighenment. In the 21th Century, any religious thinking will be threated as a childish, inmature reasoning.
- xrd 5y agoIsn't hacker news, for all the excitement about mimetics, just another form of Instagram? Aren't we all just here for all the things listed in that article? Isn't the internet itself, as a giant copy machine, the opposite of the goals of a mimetic life? Maybe this says a lot more about how I approach HN than anyone else. I truly love this community and the ideas put forth by Girard are so interesting. But, it makes me wonder if by pursuing them I'm just following the herd anyway. I also would love to hear someone write about being anti-mimetic with kids and with another parent. There is an entire industry trying to make you spend money that's so mimetic.
- indigochill 5y agoProbably. The article itself had a comments CTA in point #25, a newsletter subscription CTA in #15, and then I stopped reading because it seemed like a hypocritical list in that it was on course to hit all the typical content marketing milestones. Struck me a bit like Thoreau praising the wilderness from the comfort of civilization. Which is not to say it's all nonsense. I think the front matter sums it up nicely. Life is about what you focus on. Your personal focus is what will separate you from the "dead fish". Focus is dividing what matters from what doesn't and that's unique to each person. People do this focus calculus all the time when deciding whether and who to marry, how many kids to have if any, what school subject to study and how hard to study, and so on. The "dead fish" in the article's analogy aren't really dead, but they're acting on subconscious, pseudo-instinctive drives (usually some form of search for social validation) whereas we can at least attempt to be more conscious of what we want our life to be about (social validation maybe doesn't matter as much as we often feel it does, at least relative to other things). This can sometimes mean abandoning, at least in part, the principles of those around us because they don't lead where we want to go (a common experience between parents and their children). Or at least being able to better negotiate compromises when someone knows what they actually want rather than just trying to get along.
- dpweb 5y agoAlso the importance of intuition, but going against the crowd can be a lonely road, not for everybody. I'm reminded of warning not to read too much. "When we read, another person thinks for us, we merely repeat his mental process" - Schopenhauer
- zerobits 5y agoThis is one of the best articles I’ve read in awhile - thank you!
- paganel 5y agoAs other HN-ers have mentioned this is a really good article over all, just wanted to add something extra related to this part: > Not all who wander are lost. And sometimes, I like to drive with absolutely no destination at all. more exactly a link to la Dérive [1]: > The dérive is a revolutionary strategy originally put forward in the "Theory of the Dérive" (1956) by Guy Debord, (...) It is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, in which participants drop their everyday relations and "let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9rive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9rive
- frontman1988 5y agoMost important in these times is to not get influenced by ubiquitous advertisement. Be that radio ads, youtube recommendations or highway billboards. One needs to be really careful to not let their subconscious get influenced. I personally make a list of most of the ads I see and don't buy stuff from those brands unless there is no alternative.
- kazinator 5y ago> Speak the truth in accord with your conscience no matter what the cost. My conscience keeps saying that vaccines are a depopulation scheme. Now what? I say, don't be just another member of a set of people who follow bullshit articles on how to be anti-mimetic.
- bananamerica 5y agoBeing autistic mean I don't really need to make an effort for that. Silver lining, maybe?
- webdoodle 5y agoFantastic list, and was quite happy to see, I'm already doing most of these, many for most of my adult life. The big ones for me were I threw away my phone a couple years ago, and have essentially stopped using all social media. I also made an effort to go completely analog when hiking, something I do daily, for instance barometric altimeter and contour maps vs gps/google maps. There are 2 that I weren't on my radar at all though, and will take them to heart and work them into my lifestyle: "Return Anger with Kindness" and "Forgive Someone. Repeat.". These are really hard in today's divisive world, but someone has to take the first step. Thanks for putting together a wonderful list.
- steelstraw 5y agoThis is perhaps the most important point right now in our increasingly polarizing society: “The time has come for us to forgive one another. If we wait any longer there will not be time enough.” He understood that the only way that we wouldn’t be ‘battling to the end’ in a never-ending mimetic escalation is through an anti-mimetic movement away from violence and retribution and toward reconciliation and peace.
- xwolfi 5y agoBit off topic but there's something I never got quite right in american linguo: do they say people do 9am - 5pm workdays ? Cause in France where I worked 3 years and Hong Kong 7, it's more 8:30-7. Someone leaving at 5 is almost reason for a riot in a team in both countries, how is it so common in the US?
- jackyinger 5y agoHere’s a few little tricks I use. These may seem trivial and silly, but given that mimetic behavior is rooted in a very basic level of existence, I believe these counter mimetic attitude exercises are useful in maintaining the foundation of a anti-mimetic Maslow’s hierarchy. When I know I’m going to be exposed to a video advertisement I summon all of the rage and contempt I can to make my mental state as unlikely to retain the ad’s message as possible. I take perverse pleasure in letting my devices alarms/notifications ring without rushing to attend to them. Similarly I talk back to the maps directions voice.
- cryptica 5y ago> 20. Read Foreign Newspapers As someone who has lived in many different countries around the world. I can strongly relate to this point. Media in different countries cover mostly the same information but the angle is different. Watching the media of two different countries which are opposed to each other politically gives you a better general idea of what's going on. When you do that, you can easily see the spin/deception and you train yourself to spot it. There is always spin in the media. It's a bit like cross-examining two people in an argument; of course each individual will try to subtly twist the facts in their own favor. Nation states are no different; if anything, they're more consistent.
- krnsll 5y agoAh yes, learning (imitating?) how not to imitate from a listicle that itself cites advice from a compendium of books and sources. Sorry, couldn't help myself.
- durpleDrank 5y agoWhen the RIAA (and by extension music streaming services) went after youtube-dl I decided to orchestrate my media consumption a lot differently. I started to collect tapes and cds again. Same goes for movies. My rational is that David Bowie isn't collecting those streaming royalties anyway and his estate is getting 0.0005 cents per play so isn't it better to own a physical copy and not line the pockets of lawyers who think they can go around dictating FOSS projects? Honestly it's kind of fun too. Ripping your collection to FLAC and setting up a samba share is a nice Sunday afternoon project. The writing is on the wall, this will only get worse.
- noodleman 5y agoHow do people actually read this and take it seriously? It's listicle level non-conformist hogwash, ran through a thesaurus. By all means, watch more old movies and read more books. But don't pretend it makes you anything other than pretentiously edgy.
- bluishgreen 5y agoFor an anti-mimetic article it could have used something other than a reverse sorted listicle format.
- FourthProtocol 5y ago#13. Social Media with a Purpose made me pause - I have two Instagram accounts, and a Facebook account. Instagram 1 is for family and friends. It's snapshots of daily life for family and friends all over the world. Instagram 2 is for others that like me enjoy making radio-controlled replica cars and trucks from flat sheets of styrene. Facebook is to let people who know me find me. Why would one NOT have a reason for social media? Anything as mundane as keeping up with distant friends and family is reason enough, no? And of course that's going to forever remain mimetic unless you're a business. That's why there's the word "social" in social media, or did I miss the boat? TikTok for entertainment. Twitter to be heard... I can't believe one would have any kind of social media account without a purpose. Even if it's showing off your wealth, or pretending to be something you're not - they're all reasons, no?
- nulbyte 5y ago> If you have a vague answer, dial it in immediately. I think this covers most people's use of social media. Many at best have a vague notion of why they are on social media, or at worst have not even considered the possibility of not participating. "With a purpose" to me suggests forethought: Think about why you are on social media before participating (or before your next interaction), if you haven't thought much of it before. This is very different from coming up reasons after the fact, which I think is far more common.
- FourthProtocol 5y agoNot sure it needs to be dialled in for social media. If you want to achieve a result like monetisation then yes, but then it's no longer social, it's just become an income-related activity (job!!) and is no longer social media -- it's now a tool to achieve a non-social media goal. A counter case -- for sure as a consultant at McKinsey, umlaut or Accenture you'll write out a communications plan in which you detail and map project stakeholders, places/times of project news and briefings, publicity, dealing with external inquiries and so on. That's a very, very specific and detailed set of requirements for what boils down to social media at corporate level. Way over the top for Jane and Joe Average. For whom "keep in touch with friends and family" is specific. For many the notion of not participating is unthinkable - becuase THAT's where all their family and friends are. And so it requires no additional pontification, I'd think. What might an example of a loftier, more dialled-in purpose be?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- technotarek 5y agoThis was one of my favorite recent reads. The most tangible tech related thing it made me think about is Google News. There are reasons to dislike the service (or the beast behind it), but at the end of the day, it’s a great way to help break your own personal political ethos bubble. Read the headlines of CNN right next to FOX. Consider the angles. On that point, I’d love to find a non-FAANG alternative that does the aggregation as well as Google. Anyone have suggestions? Separately, I will quibble with this: “ I’ve never understood why the debate our education has focused so heavily on the type of school (private, public, parochial, charter, etc.). Shouldn’t we be more concerned about the quality of education?” He’s grossly glossing over the socio-economic subtleties. Those ARE ultimately meant to be debates about quality — and about how quality education can be delivered at mass, fairly and justly.
- chernevik 5y agoThe debates over the type of schools are about school governance, and what sorts of school governance are best suited for "quality education".
- technotarek 5y agoComing from a public policy perspective and background, I don’t see it that way. Rather that’s simply how some have chosen to frame it (and some like yourself have come to accept it).
- podgaj 5y agoYawn... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592786
- edna314 5y agoI think he didn't quite understand the depth of Girard's thought. It's not like that you can really fight mimetic desire, especially not by following any kind of tactics. Reproducing behavior in a certain way is nothing but mimesis.
- tiagod 5y agoThis is one of the most pretentious and ironic pieces of writing I've ever seen on HN front-page. Maybe only surpassed by pg's "How to think for yourself" being #1.
- draw_down 5y ago
- tomlockwood 5y agoIdk the highly upvoted pg article about "orthodox privilege" is also up there for me.
- smk_ 5y agoIronically reading and engaging in commentary on the article is a girardian desire
- beardedman 5y agoMy personal philosophy on this is to not live life by tactics like "anti-mimetic" or "counter cultural". Like what you like, be present & don't treat life like a to-do list. There's room to be well read alcoholic with a good heart & a love for 90's hip hop. EDIT: And for god's sake be kind to someone who doesn't share your worldview, even if that worldview is offensive in some way.
- programmarchy 5y agoTo tie this into tech a bit, Peter Thiel is a Girardian. There’s at least one interview out there of him expanding on his views about Girardian mimetics.
- kayo_20211030 5y agoThis chap needs a decent editor. The tone is dissonant. Maybe, there's some decent stuff in here, but who'd know? In the same sentence we encounter "Nobody wants to be the disagreeable, anti-mimetic guy" and then, "grab a beer or a bite to eat". I don't know for sure, but the person with whom I want to "grab a beer" doesn't know wtf an "anti-mimetic guy" is. Write it up, or write it down, but FFS, just write it for the reader you're trying to reach. Don't try to fit in so many buzzwords (mimicry?). It's rare that ideas are new, so you're better off just trying to express them more clearly, and move on from there.
- DoreenMichele 5y agoEh. Some of these are dangerous and misguided. A commitment to truth has value. A commitment to speak it always and essentially pick fights and cut your own throat is not really a dedication to the truth. It's some kind of misguided puritan guilt or something like that. Forgiveness is a gift. Trust is earned. People hold grudges when they know no means to have compassion for another while still protecting themselves. Telling people to run around randomly forgiving others is an unnuanced idea that advocates for encouraging bad behavior and a professional victim position. If you can help them move on, cool. Wonderful. If you can't, it's bad advice that amounts to saying "The nice thing is to cut your own throat and actively encourage others to keep cutting throats without consequence."
- jonstewart 5y agoI was thinking, jeez, there’s a whole lot of Christian mysticism in this article, and so it’s not surprising —- indeed, downright mimetic —- to read the author’s at Catholic University.
- datameta 5y agoIt took me until the following passage to realize this: > As my regular readers will by now, I think that a massive deficiency in religious literacy is causing confusion. We have an inability to make sense of new developments like Bitcoin because our fundamental nature as religious beings — homo religiosus — is being denied. If we recognized and embraced it, who knows what Renaissance of reason and innovation we might see?
- mrVentures 5y agoThey focus so much on disobeying the crowd that they still let it dictate their decisions.
- phosphophyllite 5y ago
- TameAntelope 5y agoI absolutely hate the content of this article, mostly because it's the exact set of things that you won't be able to do if you need to read about them on Hacker News. The people who read this article and attempt to make these changes are the people who will talk about this stuff incessantly, and push it onto every single other person they meet. It's legitimately repulsive in its phoniness, because I work hard to be authentic, and if I were to take this article seriously, it'd be a huge step backwards in authenticity.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- einarvollset 5y agoBen. Can you unsubscribe me from your email list? I used to be a subscriber, but after you decided to publish on Twitter some PMs that were meant as peace offerings, I’d like to not get your self serving crap in my inbox. I hit unsubscribe, but that seems to not work.
- einarvollset 5y ago
- pkdpic 5y agoJust agreeing with most comments here, love this!
- civilized 5y agoI don't know, man. Why is living a counter-cultural life considered desirable? It's because there was this thing called the counter-culture in the 1960s and now it's considered cool. Seems like just another form of imitation to me. For me this sort of discourse always comes back to the same basic truth: if you want to live an authentic and worthwhile life, you need to decide what you value and not just what you are rebelling against. This is the only ticket out of eternal adolescence.
- r3trohack3r 5y agoDid you read the article? It sounds like you’re in agreement with the author. > Below are some of the ways that we might cultivate some ‘anti-mimetic’ habits so that we’re not constantly struggling to keep up in the hamster wheel of desire that most of the people around us are running on—and reinforcing the wheel for one another. I hope some of these tactics will help you step off and chart your own course a bit more easily. > As nice as it is to ‘fit in’, there are other times when it’s necessary to exercise self-possession, freedom, and intentionality to choose a course of action that isn’t quite so mimetic — that is not primarily the product of social imitation but the product of our innermost sanctum: our conscience, our understanding of our vocation, our deliberate and fully ‘owned’ choice of what we believe to be true, good, and beautiful. It is through these kind of intentional acts that we become who we are. > Being “anti-mimetic” does not mean being a ‘contrarian’ or refusing to imitate one’s peers. That’s what every hipster thinks he’s doing, too. “Everyone leaves the beaten path only to fall into the same ditch,” wrote the social theorist René Girard, the father of mimetic theory. This kind of naive rejection of the culture is not what we’re talking about here. > Being anti-mimetic means have the personal freedom to counteract negative forms of mimetic desire — like the kind that leads to polarized politics, unhealthy obsessions, envy, hustle-porn, and never-satisfied striving for things that won’t ultimately matter to impress people who don’t love us.
- civilized 5y agoI do in some ways! And yet... the overall tone of anti-this, anti-that, only dead fish go with the flow... it looks like somebody pulling furiously at the Chinese finger trap. You need to relax, you need quiet and calm to hear the voice inside that will tell you the way beyond whatever ugly game you're stuck in today. Maybe it's for different ears than mine. I think the message there is basically good. My take is a little different - people should go beyond fighting the flow and just let the flow be irrelevant to them. Let it pass around and through you and feel nothing. Find something different in that quiet.
- azusachino 5y agoMy thought about this one was, to obtain your own understanding of this world or everything, then make your own choices. It doesn't matter if you are mimetic or not, you are still living your own world, from the beginning to the end, isn't it?
- mycall 5y agoWow, this resonated so much with me that I could have wrote this. Amazing to know I'm not alone. Cheers!
- noduerme 5y agoI am the guy that throws a wrench into my friends' plans for where to have a drink, or where to go for dinner. This guy should take a break and write some self-help garbage for nonconformists who want to be a little more socially chill. But I guess that's not where the money is. This kind of pedantic talking-like-a-successful-guy to weak-minded-people shit nauseates me. Mark Manson made a great career out of it. It's Joe Rogan's bread and butter. Dress it up in all the pseudo-historical philosophy you want, it reads exactly the same way. The best take-down ever of this is the rather forced performance given by Tom Cruise's character in "Magnolia". The writing and direction of that piece of social commentary was one of the things that made me think PT Anderson was almost as good as JD Salinger at deconstructing the mind of conformist-wannabe-rebels.
- rootsudo 5y agoMany of the things here I used daily, and thought I was original for thinking it up. Never thought it'd be considered "anti-mimetic" or such. How curious - really the article is 1:1 to how I do things, just because I felt like it.
- throwaway984393 5y agoThey used the word "mimetic" 77 times
- tonymet 5y agoLiving well isn't a checklist.
- ismail 5y agosurreal to read this. I had never heard of memetic theory. A year ago , I was struggling to describe an experience and needed a word to describe it while journaling. I called it “Wantingness” at the time! Going to go back and review my journal entries.
- salvioqt 5y agoVery solid arguments in the liquid post-truth media trending. Thanks @lukeburgis.
- saargrin 5y agothis all sounds great in principle but the fact is most of whats advised is only accessible to the exceptionally privileged "avoid typical crowded hours and go to restaurants and museums at 1400 on a workday" sure id like to but...
- anthk 5y ago>Homo religious Quit that bullshit.
- turbojerry 5y agoFrom his book blurb "According to Girard, humans don’t desire anything independently. Human desire is mimetic―we imitate what other people want.", he just described NPCs. I'm not an NPC, and would be surprised if there are any here.
- mot3 5y agoEvery human being needs to read this article.