4 ms·

> it implies that at least every business that builds something that can move information around must be knowledgeable about tianenman square Everyone's he

> it implies that at least every business that builds something that can move information around must be knowledgeable about tianenman square Everyone's heard of the "Streisand effect", but there's layers of subtlety. A quite famous paper in attachment psychology by John Bowlby "On knowing what you are not supposed to know and feeling what you are not supposed to feel" is worth considering. Constructive ignorance (literally ignoring certain things) is a survival mechanism. Yes, everyone in China knows about Tianamen, specifically because the government want to censor it. Much of how we navigate the social world is watching for the things people don't talk about, seeing where their fears lie.

pizza 2y ago
It's the kind of thing that, the less you (China) deny, the better the ridiculousness of the censorship meme in foreign countries (ie USA this week) and actually becomes its own self-sustaining meme. Like an antimimetic meme, that actually looks like a meme (that nobody knows about it in China) if you didn't know any better (in the USA).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Terr_ 2y ago
> Constructive ignorance See also: "Doublethink" in 1984. > To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.
HPsquared 2y ago
It's not so different to our situation here, the specific "topics to avoid" are just different.
DonHopkins 2y ago
Jokes and the Logic of the Cognitive Unconscious Marvin Minsky, Published 1 November 1980 Freud’s theory of jokes explains how they overcome the mental “censors” that make it hard for us to think “forbidden” thoughts. But his theory did not work so well for humorous nonsense as for other comical subjects. In this essay I argue that the different forms of humor can be seen as much more similar, once we recognize the importance of knowledge about knowledge and, particularly, aspects of thinking concerned with recognizing and suppressing bugs — ineffective or destructive thought processes. When seen in this light, much humor that at first seems pointless, or mysterious, becomes more understandable. http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/mit/ai/aim/AIM-603.pdf http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/mit/ai/aim/...
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  Nice read, thanks for great share. I'd forgotten Minsky was such a good writer. And oddly reminded of an episode of Blake's 7 where Villa the hacker destroys a malevolent mind holding the ship captive, by telling it jokes until it explodes.
- 47282847 2y ago
  This is why no repressive government or ruler can allow comedy and sarcasm.

pizza 2y ago

It's the kind of thing that, the less you (China) deny, the better the ridiculousness of the censorship meme in foreign countries (ie USA this week) and actually becomes its own self-sustaining meme. Like an antimimetic meme, that actually looks like a meme (that nobody knows about it in China) if you didn't know any better (in the USA).

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Terr_ 2y ago

> Constructive ignorance See also: "Doublethink" in 1984. > To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.

HPsquared 2y ago

It's not so different to our situation here, the specific "topics to avoid" are just different.

DonHopkins 2y ago

Jokes and the Logic of the Cognitive Unconscious Marvin Minsky, Published 1 November 1980 Freud’s theory of jokes explains how they overcome the mental “censors” that make it hard for us to think “forbidden” thoughts. But his theory did not work so well for humorous nonsense as for other comical subjects. In this essay I argue that the different forms of humor can be seen as much more similar, once we recognize the importance of knowledge about knowledge and, particularly, aspects of thinking concerned with recognizing and suppressing bugs — ineffective or destructive thought processes. When seen in this light, much humor that at first seems pointless, or mysterious, becomes more understandable. http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/mit/ai/aim/AIM-603.pdf http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/mit/ai/aim/...

nonrandomstring 2y ago
Nice read, thanks for great share. I'd forgotten Minsky was such a good writer. And oddly reminded of an episode of Blake's 7 where Villa the hacker destroys a malevolent mind holding the ship captive, by telling it jokes until it explodes.
47282847 2y ago
This is why no repressive government or ruler can allow comedy and sarcasm.