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This 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

This 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 ago
If 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 ago
  Perhaps 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.
  - burnished 5y ago
    I think its just popping into your view a bit more right now, I'd attribute it to variance more than anything. I personally see more iron-manning of arguments here than facile "So you think XYZ, therefor ABC, checkmate atheists" sort of stuff.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Perhaps 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? No, there is nothing new about it, either in general or on HN.
    - WJW 5y ago
      Perhaps it's just my imagination then (or I noticed it once and now the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is causing me to see it everywhere).
  - soheil 5y ago
    You just did what you accused me of doing. I wasn't saying there is never any point in going with the flow. I was just highlighting that there is wisdom in not following the crowd all the time as long as you're both contrarian and right.
    - detaro 5y ago
      I think their accusation was fair: The comment you replied to wasn't arguing for "following the crowd all the time", so "So you want to be lemmings running off the cliff" was attacking something they didn't say.
      - soheil 5y ago
        That's assuming the worst possible interpretation of what I said.
        5y ago

wolverine876 5y ago

If 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 ago
Perhaps 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.
- burnished 5y ago
  I think its just popping into your view a bit more right now, I'd attribute it to variance more than anything. I personally see more iron-manning of arguments here than facile "So you think XYZ, therefor ABC, checkmate atheists" sort of stuff.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Perhaps 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? No, there is nothing new about it, either in general or on HN.
  - WJW 5y ago
    Perhaps it's just my imagination then (or I noticed it once and now the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is causing me to see it everywhere).
- soheil 5y ago
  You just did what you accused me of doing. I wasn't saying there is never any point in going with the flow. I was just highlighting that there is wisdom in not following the crowd all the time as long as you're both contrarian and right.
  - detaro 5y ago
    I think their accusation was fair: The comment you replied to wasn't arguing for "following the crowd all the time", so "So you want to be lemmings running off the cliff" was attacking something they didn't say.
    - soheil 5y ago
      That's assuming the worst possible interpretation of what I said.
      - 5y ago