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And so there's still definitely a part of me that realizes that, yeah, rationally, you can't just ignore the influence of Russian interference or the flaws in m

And so there's still definitely a part of me that realizes that, yeah, rationally, you can't just ignore the influence of Russian interference or the flaws in modern polling. Looking back, it's obvious that we underestimated how politically motivated working-class white voters could be. The thing about meme magic though is that there's so many spooky "synchronicities" woven throughout that I can't help but take it seriously.

BizarroLand 5y ago
A relatively new to me concept I've been running into is that of "memetic virus", intentionally constructed by human hands, that, if implanted at opportune times in the right minds would cause a conflagration of an irrational thought to spread around the world. Richard Dawkins mentioned something alike this in his "viruses of the mind" essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind but his discourse was limited to denigrating the religious and seemed to miss out on the bigger picture, that being, that if it were possible to ingrain a meme onto people's minds that one day, someone would use it as an instrument of mental war. I've read many anecdotes of people going off the deep end with political stuff over the last 6 years or so, people who refuse have a reasonable conversation about or seem to be unable to explain their convictions that bad thing was actually good thing even when shown evidence to the contrary. How did we go from relatively peaceful in the 90's to a maelstrom of insanity in less than 30 years? If it were one person or a certain group of people, it might make sense, but this memetic virus seems to have spread worldwide, infecting almost everyone, and since our frame of reference is also infected we can't see that we're infected with it. Is there a cure? I wouldn't know. Is there a defense against it? I don't know? Does it actually exist or is it a convenient cover story that I can blame all the woes of the world on? Once again, I don't know. I really don't know if this is true, but I suspect that if you brought a group of average people from 2000, 1990, 1980, & 1970, I feel like they would all agree that the world has gone mad and that there must be some reason for it.
- 3np 5y ago
  This is a major plot point of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
- dfxm12 5y ago
  How did we go from relatively peaceful in the 90's to a maelstrom of insanity in less than 30 years? It depends on your values for most of the words in this statement. For example, sure things ebb and flow, but I don't think we can say things were relatively peaceful in the 90s. So, for most values, the answer is likely that things haven't changed as much as you think; you're just more aware of everything now. You can life by the adage, "ignorance is bliss", or live a less blissful life aware of everything going on, or even try to take advantage of those who are living blissfully.
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    I feel that this kind of response isn't very helpful. "Oh, it's always been bad, you just didn't know any better" is the same thing that has always been said in response to emergent issues. America was not politically unstable in the 90's. It may have been rocky, but not unstable. Saying it was just as bad then as it is now is false. Only a fringe element would have cheered John Hinckley Jr's attempt to assassinate Reagan in 1981, but today an attempt whether successful or not on either the Democratic or Republican front runners would get a resounding cheer from a not-insignificant section of the population. I would hazard to say that, under the right circumstances, a single bullet could spark an internal American Conflict between the groups of people who can best be identified not by what they stand for but by what they stand against. Trying to say that the tensions the country are facing today are equal to the tensions of the past glosses over the amplification of the screaming masses thanks to technology, the financial whirlwind created by the internet, where unimaginable fortunes can be raised and erased faster than you can blink, the lancing of the pus-filled boil of human misery that education and awareness brings, the struggle of the lowest-paid and lowest earning members of society to simply survive when the financial ladder of arbitrage no longer reaches their grasp. Many of these things existed in some proto form in the 90's, yes, but they have grown since then and, like an abused child who becomes a sulking and angry teenager, may reach the point where they start to swing back. You can't treat the teenager like you treated the child, you're far more likely to get a black eye.
    - vharuck 5y ago
      >America was not politically unstable in the 90's. It may have been rocky, but not unstable. The 90's laid the groundwork for our current instability. Newt Gingrich showed that fiery and aggressive politics could win in an era of CSPAN and 24-hour news. >Only a fringe element would have cheered John Hinckley Jr's attempt to assassinate Reagan in 1981, but today an attempt whether successful or not on either the Democratic or Republican front runners would get a resounding cheer from a not-insignificant section of the population. I don't remember anyone noteworthy celebrating, even as a joke, the congressman shot during a baseball game in Washington. People may fantasize and joke about something happening, but stay solemn and respectful when that specific turd hits the fan. >amplification of the screaming masses thanks to technology The masses never needed amplification. They had large and loud crowds. Technology amplifies the screaming meagers, who sound like masses but still only have one vote each.
- vkou 5y ago
  > Is there a cure? I wouldn't know. Is there a defense against it? I don't know? Does it actually exist or is it a convenient cover story that I can blame all the woes of the world on? Once again, I don't know. I don't know about a cure, but a likely defense is the same damn thing as slows the spread of an actual virus - slow down the spread of information. Social media that promotes viral content is to a memetic virus what globalization, international travel, and high-density cities are to an actual virus.
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    So, social distance & vaccinate by exposing yourself to balanced information and knowledge so that you have a defense against crazy fringe thoughts? If it works in meatspace then it should be somewhat effective in the mental realm, right?
- mistermann 5y ago
  > How did we go from relatively peaceful in the 90's to a maelstrom of insanity in less than 30 years? I would speculate some combination of these (plus some things I'm missing): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual/ https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/heuristics https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/heuristics https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2022/02/is-reality-a-hallucination-the-neuroscientist-anil-seth-thinks-so https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2022/02/is-reality... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet > I've read many anecdotes of people going off the deep end with political stuff over the last 6 years or so, people who refuse have a reasonable conversation about or seem to be unable to explain their convictions that bad thing was actually good thing even when shown evidence to the contrary. And I've interacted with hundreds and observed tens/hundreds of thousands of "right thinking" people who suffer from the same inability to substantiate their "correct" beliefs, or the ability to address legitimate criticisms of their claims/logic without resorting to rhetorical wildcards like "that's pedantic". > Is there a cure? I wouldn't know. Is there a defense against it? I don't know? Does it actually exist or is it a convenient cover story that I can blame all the woes of the world on? Once again, I don't know. My intuition is that you just demonstrated a substantial portion of the cure: the ability to implement Unknown() - it is an amazingly rare ability these days. If you don't believe me, read internet discussions for one week deliberately looking for instances of people noting uncertainty in their beliefs, and the opposite: instances of people claiming to have knowledge of things that are unknowable (such as the contents of other people's minds, the future state of reality, etc), knowing the "correct" answer to subjective questions, and various other highly irrational behaviors that are typically excused as "you know what I meant" or "that's just people being people".

BizarroLand 5y ago

A relatively new to me concept I've been running into is that of "memetic virus", intentionally constructed by human hands, that, if implanted at opportune times in the right minds would cause a conflagration of an irrational thought to spread around the world. Richard Dawkins mentioned something alike this in his "viruses of the mind" essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind but his discourse was limited to denigrating the religious and seemed to miss out on the bigger picture, that being, that if it were possible to ingrain a meme onto people's minds that one day, someone would use it as an instrument of mental war. I've read many anecdotes of people going off the deep end with political stuff over the last 6 years or so, people who refuse have a reasonable conversation about or seem to be unable to explain their convictions that bad thing was actually good thing even when shown evidence to the contrary. How did we go from relatively peaceful in the 90's to a maelstrom of insanity in less than 30 years? If it were one person or a certain group of people, it might make sense, but this memetic virus seems to have spread worldwide, infecting almost everyone, and since our frame of reference is also infected we can't see that we're infected with it. Is there a cure? I wouldn't know. Is there a defense against it? I don't know? Does it actually exist or is it a convenient cover story that I can blame all the woes of the world on? Once again, I don't know. I really don't know if this is true, but I suspect that if you brought a group of average people from 2000, 1990, 1980, & 1970, I feel like they would all agree that the world has gone mad and that there must be some reason for it.

3np 5y ago
This is a major plot point of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
dfxm12 5y ago
How did we go from relatively peaceful in the 90's to a maelstrom of insanity in less than 30 years? It depends on your values for most of the words in this statement. For example, sure things ebb and flow, but I don't think we can say things were relatively peaceful in the 90s. So, for most values, the answer is likely that things haven't changed as much as you think; you're just more aware of everything now. You can life by the adage, "ignorance is bliss", or live a less blissful life aware of everything going on, or even try to take advantage of those who are living blissfully.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  I feel that this kind of response isn't very helpful. "Oh, it's always been bad, you just didn't know any better" is the same thing that has always been said in response to emergent issues. America was not politically unstable in the 90's. It may have been rocky, but not unstable. Saying it was just as bad then as it is now is false. Only a fringe element would have cheered John Hinckley Jr's attempt to assassinate Reagan in 1981, but today an attempt whether successful or not on either the Democratic or Republican front runners would get a resounding cheer from a not-insignificant section of the population. I would hazard to say that, under the right circumstances, a single bullet could spark an internal American Conflict between the groups of people who can best be identified not by what they stand for but by what they stand against. Trying to say that the tensions the country are facing today are equal to the tensions of the past glosses over the amplification of the screaming masses thanks to technology, the financial whirlwind created by the internet, where unimaginable fortunes can be raised and erased faster than you can blink, the lancing of the pus-filled boil of human misery that education and awareness brings, the struggle of the lowest-paid and lowest earning members of society to simply survive when the financial ladder of arbitrage no longer reaches their grasp. Many of these things existed in some proto form in the 90's, yes, but they have grown since then and, like an abused child who becomes a sulking and angry teenager, may reach the point where they start to swing back. You can't treat the teenager like you treated the child, you're far more likely to get a black eye.
  - vharuck 5y ago
    >America was not politically unstable in the 90's. It may have been rocky, but not unstable. The 90's laid the groundwork for our current instability. Newt Gingrich showed that fiery and aggressive politics could win in an era of CSPAN and 24-hour news. >Only a fringe element would have cheered John Hinckley Jr's attempt to assassinate Reagan in 1981, but today an attempt whether successful or not on either the Democratic or Republican front runners would get a resounding cheer from a not-insignificant section of the population. I don't remember anyone noteworthy celebrating, even as a joke, the congressman shot during a baseball game in Washington. People may fantasize and joke about something happening, but stay solemn and respectful when that specific turd hits the fan. >amplification of the screaming masses thanks to technology The masses never needed amplification. They had large and loud crowds. Technology amplifies the screaming meagers, who sound like masses but still only have one vote each.
vkou 5y ago
> Is there a cure? I wouldn't know. Is there a defense against it? I don't know? Does it actually exist or is it a convenient cover story that I can blame all the woes of the world on? Once again, I don't know. I don't know about a cure, but a likely defense is the same damn thing as slows the spread of an actual virus - slow down the spread of information. Social media that promotes viral content is to a memetic virus what globalization, international travel, and high-density cities are to an actual virus.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  So, social distance & vaccinate by exposing yourself to balanced information and knowledge so that you have a defense against crazy fringe thoughts? If it works in meatspace then it should be somewhat effective in the mental realm, right?
mistermann 5y ago
> How did we go from relatively peaceful in the 90's to a maelstrom of insanity in less than 30 years? I would speculate some combination of these (plus some things I'm missing): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual/ https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/heuristics https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/heuristics https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2022/02/is-reality-a-hallucination-the-neuroscientist-anil-seth-thinks-so https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2022/02/is-reality... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet > I've read many anecdotes of people going off the deep end with political stuff over the last 6 years or so, people who refuse have a reasonable conversation about or seem to be unable to explain their convictions that bad thing was actually good thing even when shown evidence to the contrary. And I've interacted with hundreds and observed tens/hundreds of thousands of "right thinking" people who suffer from the same inability to substantiate their "correct" beliefs, or the ability to address legitimate criticisms of their claims/logic without resorting to rhetorical wildcards like "that's pedantic". > Is there a cure? I wouldn't know. Is there a defense against it? I don't know? Does it actually exist or is it a convenient cover story that I can blame all the woes of the world on? Once again, I don't know. My intuition is that you just demonstrated a substantial portion of the cure: the ability to implement Unknown() - it is an amazingly rare ability these days. If you don't believe me, read internet discussions for one week deliberately looking for instances of people noting uncertainty in their beliefs, and the opposite: instances of people claiming to have knowledge of things that are unknowable (such as the contents of other people's minds, the future state of reality, etc), knowing the "correct" answer to subjective questions, and various other highly irrational behaviors that are typically excused as "you know what I meant" or "that's just people being people".