The Clothes Make the Monkey.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

2b. The Eternal Bad Luck. Related to the Damage Case, but not quite as singular. These people just seem to never be able to catch a break. This is one of the things that I really believe RAW was right about. The "quarter experiment" may not always (or significantly) work for positive thinking, but I've seen so much evidence in my life that it's an absolute killer for negative thinking. They blow up all the bad luck and accidental environmental mishaps and every time you see them they'll let you know about their latest episode of crapitudes. Suggested solutions will be met with dismissal. They are reluctant to take chances, and when they do they enter the situation with the assumption of failure. Any incidental success will be silently accepted, yet on the predicted outcome of failure this will be loudly broadcast and "I told you so"-d.

I like to believe that in some sense the Dutch may be culturally-memetically innoculated against the Eternal Bad Luck. We have three sayings, phrases, figures of speech that all mean the same thing: "'No' is what you have, 'Yes' is what you can get", "Not taking a shot is always a misser", and "Not to venture, not to win" (often translated as "No risk, no gain" but this phrasing, while not as snappy, IMO better conveys the slight difference in attitude between "taking a chance" and "taking a risk"--though I'm not a native speaker, but I hope you get the point). These synonymous phrases find a lot of day-to-day usage, and whether or not you agree that the way you place the emphasis affects your luck, at the very least having these phrases primes people to take chances more positively and not to "I told you so" (as much) on failure.

This is interesting and definitely worth a closer look. Not on a "Power of Positive Thinking/Law of Attraction" individual bullshit level, but the way common phrases affect whole regions and countries. Maybe people are generally more tolerant over there because they just feel better, they feel expansive, they don't get all outraged over things like poor people getting a $13.50 a month break on their phone bill. (This actually happened on facebook earlier. I posted a link in case anybody needed that and some guy shared it with his friends. It degenerated pretty fast into "THERE NEEDS TO BE MANDATORY STERILIZATION FOR PEOPLE ON WELFARE" )

Here, OTOH...well, see my last post.

[Junkenstein]

One point to pick up on quickly trip.

The idea of sustaining it through generations is pretty much my life's ambition. I've had a fascination with cloning and related concepts  since I was a kid. Pent's thread over on THYS pretty much solidified a few ideas for me. This is just round one. I'd already put in place several provisons to give "myself" a reasonable chance years ago. Hey, it's above 0% and that's good enough.

Chomsky is on my "to read eventually" list. I'll move him up a notch. If you care to evangelise more, or point me to where you have previously I'd be interested to know more.

I left the last line as "No problem right?" somewhat openly upon re-reading. I guess how you respond the question inherently gives you an idea of your own mindset and perhaps a view on your culture?


I don't fucking know I need sleep.

[Triple Zero]

Sorry I only have a vague notion Chomsky researched (among a great many other things) something along those lines. Maybe someone else can fill in, otherwise see if you can spot anything relevant from Wikipedia.

I do want to recomment Art of Memetics again if you haven't read it already. It's really quite good and also touches very directly on this subject. Did I mention it's a free PDF download? (and I assume other ebook formats as well, by now)

Not sure what you mean with the "no problem right" remark.

I also need sleep. That's why my previous post was really long and disjointed, normally I'd have edited it into a sensible structure, but instead I just dumped my thoughts into the postbox that I felt were relevant to share. I really do hope I manage to brain better tomorrow. I think I truly fucked up my sleep pattern over the weekend.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Maybe it's a loophole in our brain wiring that's been made more easily exploitable recently since it's a semi-religious pathway and most people aren't using actual "Religion" to program it.

Not exactly sure what you mean here but it sounds interesting, could you expand?

Yeah the idea is still a little clumsy in my own head so I'll see if I can get it nailed down a little better...

Everyone has a self-identity, the idea we go to when we're asked for an opinion or when we need to solve a problem that is personal to us. I'd guess the default behavior in that situation is to draw on experience, or, lacking experience, to go on either intuition or education. But some people have become so transfixed on their "uniform," or their stated purpose in life, that instead of drawing on anything as reliable as experience they go directly to an index of ideas they hold that define their uniform instead.

This method of self-identification is "religious," in that it defines your ideas about who you are by external definitions rather than by your own experience and expertise. For centuries people have thought this is natural, because it's exactly what Religion does. So social institutions and everything else grew around this reality, that people are told who they are and what they believe and how they should behave, rather than discovering it on their own. So our society already expects you to fill this definition of yourself using external sources - and Religion exists specifically to do this task. Recently, religion plays a diminishing and less important role in society but that doesn't mean that people aren't still expected to define themselves "religiously." So, people are still looking to be TOLD who they are and what they believe. I think this might play a part in our openness to suggestion.

Or, I'm full of shit. Either way, really.

I think it has less to do with being open to suggestion due to a decreasing prevalence of religiousness, and more to do with innate drives to defer judgment to higher status apes in our clique. What evidence do you have that this is not human's natural inclination?

Focusing only on these cultural pressures to conform mistakes the problem that we're trying to address, I think, which is that people have the desire to BE the uniform in the first place. All these uniforms exist not so much to control, though there is that component, but also because people WANT to fuse to their uniform. You could erase all the cultural systems that reinforce the will to become a loyal agent of x-group but the tribalistic urge would remain, and is the source of the cultural patterns of conformity in the first place.

An "Occupy" protester has a lot more in common with the people they are occupying than they often do not wish to examine or consider.

Do tell, as that rings quite false in my 8 months of interacting with Occupy protesters.

[Junkenstein]

Art of Memetics is on my list of shit to look up tomorrow.

The "No problem" thing, I was getting at the ambiguity of the phrase. There's been many legal cases built around the intonation of a set of words corresponding to its meaning. In this example the wording in your replies read as relatively positive. Whether this is intentional or not, or indicative of a possible wider cultural frame of mind, I have no idea.


The vast array that just 2 words in a stressful situation get later interpreted to a wide range of events is oddly compelling to me. I believe the last case of capital punishment was protested under such circumstance. Can't remember the exact phrase something like "let him have it". The defendants implication that he was to throw a firearm away. The police stance that the intention was less benign.

Execution ensued. It's just an example that seems relevant as a cultural mindset shift.While only temporary it did further the case here considerably against capital punishment. Words and phrases, with the right situation can change things considerably. Many do stick, even in the subconcious of a culture. Everytime I see a drunk waving V signs and swearing I can't help but wonder if he actually knows the origin of the gesture.


Over time I place the likely of getting that question right lower more frequently. I am unsure what this implicates. I am quite sure it is not good.

I've rambled enough, will try and make more sense tomorrow.
To bed!


Ah fuck. Net - I'm working off the premise that they are both human, eat, shit and breathe. To be fair I've only encountered a couple from the London side a while ago. Let's just say I found their zeal and lack of knowledge somewhat disturbing. We did not get on.  If you care for it I'll give my take on Occupy, but if your experience of the movement has been positive then I'd be interested in the perspective from someone closer.(Think there is an AI thread?)

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

The vast array that just 2 words in a stressful situation get later interpreted to a wide range of events is oddly compelling to me. I believe the last case of capital punishment was protested under such circumstance. Can't remember the exact phrase something like "let him have it". The defendants implication that he was to throw a firearm away. The police stance that the intention was less benign.

I never said he stole money.
I never said he stole money.
I never said he stole money.
I never said he stole money.
I never said he stole money.
I never said he stole money.

[00.dusk]

If I may add:

- The Repeat:
It doesn't matter in the least what it is, this person will latch on to something (a cause, an event, whatever) and stick to it for years and years and years. It's boring. Everyone around them knows their position. They haven't updated their opinions since they made them. And still, they talk about it until you want to put your cleated foot to their junk.

This also includes The Conspiracy Theorist, who is also half convert.

Repeats would be more tolerable if they expanded their repertoire. Then you could bump into them at the store every couple of months and not hear the same thing but once a year or so.

They only ever talk about one or two things IME, though.

"Hi, how are you? Me I'm not doing that good. Look how much this cereal cost. It's getting BAD. Guess how much my light bill was - "

Yeah, I know. But every time you see them? For TEN YEARS? I CAN'T FIX IT, CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE?

I think "Perpetual Complainer" is another uniform in its own right. The kind of person who always has a problem but Don't you dare offer a solution, God dammit. These people always need something to bitch and moan about, and they are not looking for a way out of their problems -- they're looking for someone to share them with. If you solve a Complainer's problem, they will never forgive you.

I used to be one of these. I imagine there's still some remnants, but I try my best to see them and scrape them off like a horrid fungal infection. I figure eventually I'll get rid of it all.

I DO have a lot of unsolvable problems which, if I had any reason to bitch about them that wasn't attention whoring, would still make me look like this. But they're first world problems and I don't have fucking time for first world problems these days. If one of these happens to come up in conversation and people start offering help (which has occurred recently), I get slightly upset.

"Well, why don't you..."

"Look motherfucker. I will deal with MY problems MY way on MY time. I'm not here for your pity. I'm here for the free fucking food. You're the one who tried to see what the hell was wrong with my life and took it upon yourself to fix my problems. I AM A FUCKING INDEPENDENT GODDAMN ADULT, I DO NOT NEED YOU TO WIPE MY ASS OR CHANGE MY CLOTHES OR FEED ME BREAKFAST!"

"Sorry, I was only trying to help."

"I DON'T NEED HELP! At least not the kind you can give, Mr. Fucking Minivan!"