3 ms·

The Frog That Couldn't Jump

49 points by lermontov 3y ago

thriftwy 3y ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZU2jhNE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZU2jhNE for the song referenced in the article.
thriftwy 3y ago
The obviously fun takeaway would be that if we put North Korea as a 9 on the Dear Leader scale, and USSR under Stalin at 8, then the USA will rate 4 its President cult, and that would be much higher than the rest of Western world. Is that a good thing? A bad one? Who knows.
- msla 3y ago
  > then the USA will rate 4 its President cult What? 4 or so would be the UK with their "Royal Family" (OMG! FERGIE!) worship.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    UK is a weird outlier, because the royals aren't really leaders. Their role is almost clerical, rather.
    - Gibbon1 3y ago
      Had thought recently their role is to squat on space that a would be fearless leader would try to exploit.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    The UK deal with the royals is really quite different. There may be an over-fascination but there isn't a huge amount of deference, and if the royals want to make things happen that are not popular, they have to use very twisty back door routes. The (public) relationship that even fervent royal supporters have towards the royals is nothing like the (public ) relationship with Stalin et al. Also, it's pretty easy in the UK to say that the royal family is stupid and they suck and they leech money from working people and nothing will happen.
  - jdietrich 3y ago
    That's the essential genius of constitutional monarchy - by investing the royal family with immense status but no actual power, we reduce the status of those who wield real power to mere public servants. The Prime Minister must ask the monarch's permission to form a government, in the knowledge that the monarch has no actual power to refuse. Those who hold public office swear an oath of loyalty to the monarch, in the knowledge that the monarch's power is wholly and irrevocably delegated to parliament and the judiciary. The monarch is in essence an empty vessel, symbolising whatever version of Britishness we happen to believe in. Regardless of the government of the day or the divisions that may arise in society, the crown endures. The man or woman responsible for running the country does so as a temporary custodian. Britain is dysfunctional in all sorts of ways, but the parts that function best are extremely Lindy. The monarchy, like our unelected upper house, is completely idiotic in theory but incredibly successful in practice.
    - marcinzm 3y ago
      But is what you describe a good thing? People seek status. By removing status from being Prime Minister you make being Prime Minister merely another step on the path to status. I'm not sure it's a good thing for someone to see being Prime Minister as a means of leverage to something else they want.
    - msla 3y ago
      The royals wield immense soft power, plus all of the power they have by virtue of the country's constitution. It's still a governmental role, and a political one, and anti-democratic.
- thrway63245 3y ago
  The USA managed to do something special: replace the cult of personality with the cult of the Party. There are two parties, but their followers are quite rabid and would probably kill for their party if told to. So if we expand the criteria for "dear leader" to include parties I think the US would be at a 7 or 8.
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    If this was the case there wouldn't be so much hagiography for any given president or presidential candidate. I also think a 7 or 8 rating is way too high for the US even on a party level. A 7 or 8, given the Kims are a 9 or 10, would probably be more along the lines of a Xi (observing that former heads of state of China have been unceremoniously retired, which shows that personality only goes so far even in an effectively single party structure).
    - thrway63245 3y ago
      There are people who won't talk to anyone from the political religion opposite to theirs. Both sides call each other Nazis. And they'll vote for a candidate from their party even if the candidate would have to rule without regaining consciousness before they'd consider the other party. I think that's a pretty extreme level of brainwashing.
      - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
        Yes, but you'll find rabid rabble rousers in spectator sports as well. While this may say something about the polarization of the parties, it says a bit more about individual and group psychology. And doesn't say much at all about the organization of power in the US.
- anaccountonda 3y ago
  [flagged]
patel011393 3y ago
He couldn't get it up :)
robocat 3y ago
Interesting reading about what confers status in NK. Instead of money, organisational proximity to the king seems to matter. And from article: Literary success means becoming a “professional revolutionary” with lots of perks: a three-month “creativity leave” every year, permission to travel freely around the country, and special housing privileges. Clearly chasing status is what matters, except in my world I'm used to the middle class game of chasing status by chasing money.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-cecilia-ridgeway.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas... "We build civilizations on status. But we barely understand it. The sociologist Cecilia Ridgeway explains how status shapes our world and our lives." Transcript: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-cecilia-ridgeway.html?showTranscript=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas... There's a nice moment in this where Klein talks about realizing that his own attempts to eschew status were just another form of status seeking.
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    I just want to do stuff with my life and have a nice home in a place I feel comfortable in. Why the heck do so many people in our societies work to yoke the pursuit of this sort of happiness to status games? I can guess why, rhetorical question.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
      You should probably listen to the show or read the transcript. In part because you're likely not as immune to "status games" as you perhaps like to think.
      - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
        There are universals, but it's a fact that people speaking about human behavior overgeneralize. I know I'm not immune to status. I like seeing that karma counter go up or replies because it says I'm not just writing into a void. It shows that I'm making some human connection. It's that I don't crave status in nearly the amounts some people do. I prioritize other things over status for its own sake, and so do many others. And given the status-oriented power structure our societies revolve around this means our lives and opportunities are limited beyond what our merits would otherwise indicate.
11thEarlOfMar 3y ago
"A frog with no legs is deaf."
15457345234 3y ago
The frog has jumped many times and no longer has anything to prove. Time for the other frog to put in some work.

49 points by lermontov 3y ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZU2jhNE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZU2jhNE for the song referenced in the article.

thriftwy 3y ago

The obviously fun takeaway would be that if we put North Korea as a 9 on the Dear Leader scale, and USSR under Stalin at 8, then the USA will rate 4 its President cult, and that would be much higher than the rest of Western world. Is that a good thing? A bad one? Who knows.

msla 3y ago
> then the USA will rate 4 its President cult What? 4 or so would be the UK with their "Royal Family" (OMG! FERGIE!) worship.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  UK is a weird outlier, because the royals aren't really leaders. Their role is almost clerical, rather.
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    Had thought recently their role is to squat on space that a would be fearless leader would try to exploit.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  The UK deal with the royals is really quite different. There may be an over-fascination but there isn't a huge amount of deference, and if the royals want to make things happen that are not popular, they have to use very twisty back door routes. The (public) relationship that even fervent royal supporters have towards the royals is nothing like the (public ) relationship with Stalin et al. Also, it's pretty easy in the UK to say that the royal family is stupid and they suck and they leech money from working people and nothing will happen.
- jdietrich 3y ago
  That's the essential genius of constitutional monarchy - by investing the royal family with immense status but no actual power, we reduce the status of those who wield real power to mere public servants. The Prime Minister must ask the monarch's permission to form a government, in the knowledge that the monarch has no actual power to refuse. Those who hold public office swear an oath of loyalty to the monarch, in the knowledge that the monarch's power is wholly and irrevocably delegated to parliament and the judiciary. The monarch is in essence an empty vessel, symbolising whatever version of Britishness we happen to believe in. Regardless of the government of the day or the divisions that may arise in society, the crown endures. The man or woman responsible for running the country does so as a temporary custodian. Britain is dysfunctional in all sorts of ways, but the parts that function best are extremely Lindy. The monarchy, like our unelected upper house, is completely idiotic in theory but incredibly successful in practice.
  - marcinzm 3y ago
    But is what you describe a good thing? People seek status. By removing status from being Prime Minister you make being Prime Minister merely another step on the path to status. I'm not sure it's a good thing for someone to see being Prime Minister as a means of leverage to something else they want.
  - msla 3y ago
    The royals wield immense soft power, plus all of the power they have by virtue of the country's constitution. It's still a governmental role, and a political one, and anti-democratic.
thrway63245 3y ago
The USA managed to do something special: replace the cult of personality with the cult of the Party. There are two parties, but their followers are quite rabid and would probably kill for their party if told to. So if we expand the criteria for "dear leader" to include parties I think the US would be at a 7 or 8.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  If this was the case there wouldn't be so much hagiography for any given president or presidential candidate. I also think a 7 or 8 rating is way too high for the US even on a party level. A 7 or 8, given the Kims are a 9 or 10, would probably be more along the lines of a Xi (observing that former heads of state of China have been unceremoniously retired, which shows that personality only goes so far even in an effectively single party structure).
  - thrway63245 3y ago
    There are people who won't talk to anyone from the political religion opposite to theirs. Both sides call each other Nazis. And they'll vote for a candidate from their party even if the candidate would have to rule without regaining consciousness before they'd consider the other party. I think that's a pretty extreme level of brainwashing.
    - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      Yes, but you'll find rabid rabble rousers in spectator sports as well. While this may say something about the polarization of the parties, it says a bit more about individual and group psychology. And doesn't say much at all about the organization of power in the US.
anaccountonda 3y ago
[flagged]

patel011393 3y ago

He couldn't get it up :)

robocat 3y ago

Interesting reading about what confers status in NK. Instead of money, organisational proximity to the king seems to matter. And from article: Literary success means becoming a “professional revolutionary” with lots of perks: a three-month “creativity leave” every year, permission to travel freely around the country, and special housing privileges. Clearly chasing status is what matters, except in my world I'm used to the middle class game of chasing status by chasing money.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-cecilia-ridgeway.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas... "We build civilizations on status. But we barely understand it. The sociologist Cecilia Ridgeway explains how status shapes our world and our lives." Transcript: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-cecilia-ridgeway.html?showTranscript=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas... There's a nice moment in this where Klein talks about realizing that his own attempts to eschew status were just another form of status seeking.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  I just want to do stuff with my life and have a nice home in a place I feel comfortable in. Why the heck do so many people in our societies work to yoke the pursuit of this sort of happiness to status games? I can guess why, rhetorical question.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    You should probably listen to the show or read the transcript. In part because you're likely not as immune to "status games" as you perhaps like to think.
    - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      There are universals, but it's a fact that people speaking about human behavior overgeneralize. I know I'm not immune to status. I like seeing that karma counter go up or replies because it says I'm not just writing into a void. It shows that I'm making some human connection. It's that I don't crave status in nearly the amounts some people do. I prioritize other things over status for its own sake, and so do many others. And given the status-oriented power structure our societies revolve around this means our lives and opportunities are limited beyond what our merits would otherwise indicate.

11thEarlOfMar 3y ago

"A frog with no legs is deaf."

15457345234 3y ago

The frog has jumped many times and no longer has anything to prove. Time for the other frog to put in some work.