I've talked about uniforms a time or three before, but there's another thing I'd like to mention.
The real risk in wearing a uniform is that eventually, you can't take it off. Examples:
1. Disco Pickle. DP put on the Libertarian uniform, and was therefore relieved from the onerous task of thinking. Problem is, he argued the uniform so fanatically that he lost one of the qualifying traits required to be human...Compassion. I refer specifically to his comment that (paraphrased) "If you can't work 2 jobs and still homeschool your kids, then your kids deserve everything that happens to them". He dug in his heels so hard, he stopped being an actual person, instead turning into something vile.
2. The Damage Case. Everyone's met one. They put on a great show of being fucked up, slurring words and stammering, going all emo-tastic, etc, when there's nothing actually wrong with them. Pretty soon they realize that nobody's paying attention to them because nobody WANTS to pay attention to them, so they attempt to ramp it up in an effort to regain attention. Commence vicious circle.
3. The political partisan. EVERYONE knows one of these. Most people have BEEN this, at one time or another. My party is RIGHT and their party is WRONG. I am blind to the faults of MY party, and even the good things done by THEIR party are somehow horrible examples of Nazism, etc. If MY party did it, it was okay, but then if YOUR party does it too, it's suddenly a crime. It's still not LEGALLY okay to punch these people, but morally-speaking, you're on solid ground.
4. The Guy Who Did That AND a Bag of Chips. If you have a story, he's unimpressed, because he did something way cooler and far more dangerous just last week. If you served in the military, he was on Seal Team 6. If you went hiking, he's been up Mount Ranier. If you had sex, he was viciously raped by the Swedish Bikini Team. He MUST top every story, or his chances of breeding apparently go down.
5. The Convert. This can be to ANY cause. They have the zeal of a convert, and they're gonna tell you all about it, forever. No logic can sway them, because no matter what the subject is, it's their religion. Intellectual honesty must take a back seat to demonstrations of Loyalty to The Cause.
This list, of course, is by no means exclusive.
Or Kill Me. In the FACE.
I have a suspicion that uniform people are insecure as fuck because on some level they know it's bullshit, so they try to reinforce it by pushing it on everybody else. Maybe they're all converts.
Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on June 25, 2012, 07:42:23 PM
I have a suspicion that uniform people are insecure as fuck because on some level they know it's bullshit, so they try to reinforce it by pushing it on everybody else. Maybe they're all converts.
There's definitely some overlap...But they all have one thing in common, regardless. That is to say, they're all trying to be something other than who they are, because a uniform is easier than thinking.
The very definition of a Pink, in Subgenius terms.
Finding an identity is hard in the first place. Once you have one, the temptation to keep hold of it can overpower otherwise reasonable people. I've done my time in a number of uniforms and there are still a few of them I keep around, even though they're really sticky and hard to take off. I'm still trying to pry the last vestiges of Obama spackle off my back, and it's been 4 goddamn years.
Meh, some people wear shit on their sleeve, turn it into a big, shiny "look at me!" badge. I have no need for that. I'm different things for different people, because relationships aren't cookie-cutter. My wife married me for reasons that have nothing to do with what I do for work. My kids look up to me for another set of qualities. People in my field look at me from other lenses.... But at the heart, I am me. Certain people have the fortune to know me as an individual in more depth than others.
And that gets to the flip side of this coin. People ascribing uniforms to people they don't truly know. Trying to create order out of disorder. To need to categorize. I also have no need for that.
Quote from: The Bad Reverend What's-His-Name! on June 25, 2012, 08:07:47 PM
Meh, some people wear shit on their sleeve, turn it into a big, shiny "look at me!" badge. I have no need for that. I'm different things for different people, because relationships aren't cookie-cutter. My wife married me for reasons that have nothing to do with what I do for work. My kids look up to me for another set of qualities. People in my field look at me from other lenses.... But at the heart, I am me. Certain people have the fortune to know me as an individual in more depth than others.
And that gets to the flip side of this coin. People ascribing uniforms to people they don't truly know. Trying to create order out of disorder. To need to categorize. I also have no need for that.
Who the fuck was talking about you? Does EVERYTHING have to be about you? The ONE board member I was talking about, I referred to by name (Disco Pickle). If I was talking about you, I'd have SAID YOUR FUCKING NAME.
But EVERY FUCKING THREAD now has to be about RWHN's butthurt. Fuck this noise. This place has become a fucking toolbox.
I didn't say it was about me, I'm giving my take on the topic at hand. Chill out.
Quote from: The Bad Reverend What's-His-Name! on June 25, 2012, 08:10:59 PM
I didn't say it was about me, I'm giving my take on the topic at hand. Chill out.
Yeah. Fucking right. Hence the last paragraph in your fucking post.
NO CONTENT BY ROGER WILL BE ALLOWED TO PASS WITHOUT RWHN POOP ALL OVER IT.
You win. We can all just bump old threads from now on, or whatever.
You want to be mad Rog, so be mad. But I think it is a legitimate point. Sometimes it is the case that we legitimately observe someone stuck in a uniform. But it can also be true that the person seeing the uniform is working on limited information, making a judgement.
We can view someone in a certain light but it is always very possible we are missing a side that either provides us with a clearer view of the uniform, or, shows us that the uniform has different shades to it.
Quote4. The Guy Who Did That AND a Bag of Chips. If you have a story, he's unimpressed, because he did something way cooler and far more dangerous just last week. If you served in the military, he was on Seal Team 6. If you went hiking, he's been up Mount Ranier. If you had sex, he was viciously raped by the Swedish Bikini Team. He MUST top every story, or his chances of breeding apparently go down.
I know this guy. This guy is oh my god shut the fuck up you're creepy and annoying.
I mean, this guy that I immediately though of reading this, this is him down to the part where, when people bring up getting laid, he has to bring up how he got raped by his psycho girlfriend or something. Hyperbole this is not.
I hate hate hate this uniform, because they never tell these stories to show they have a reference point for what is being discussed and can empathize fully, it's so they can one-up you.
To death. I would not want to see this guy breed. He is both creepy in a squicky kind of way and looks like Ron Perlman, who at least is a talented actor, even if he is a pretty ugly mo'fucker.
Quote from: The Bad Reverend What's-His-Name! on June 25, 2012, 08:17:39 PM
You want to be mad Rog, so be mad. But I think it is a legitimate point. Sometimes it is the case that we legitimately observe someone stuck in a uniform. But it can also be true that the person seeing the uniform is working on limited information, making a judgement.
We can view someone in a certain light but it is always very possible we are missing a side that either provides us with a clearer view of the uniform, or, shows us that the uniform has different shades to it.
I was in most cases talking about people I know IRL, mostly because I wanted to AVOID this shit, and as you say, I am operating on limited information with people on PD. This is why the only PDer I was referring to was mentioned by name, who gave me enough information to make a call.
But this cannot be allowed to stand, because we can't let bygones be bygones here at PD, and therefore every thread must be made into a shot at someone.
I can't be bothered with it anymore. As such, I will forego posting any further content, because if I wanted a non-stop, never-ending pissing contest, I wouldn't bother putting the work into the OP. You'll need to bump old shit to get your poop-flinging fix.
Nuff said. You win. Be proud.
Jesus fucking christ Roger, I NEVER SAID WHAT YOU POSTED WAS ABOUT ME! I am simply joining the conversation and giving my thoughts on the topic, one which I think is a really good topic to discuss. YOU are the one turning it into an issue. And I am not talking about YOU. I am making general observations on the topic, not aimed at any specific person. Yeesh!
i caught a saturday night live skit some years ago with a lady that did Guy #4 that was pretty funny.
the people at the party started testing her by upping the claims until she was eventually claiming that her cat was an astronaut or some such.
at least these people could be amusing if you play their game back at them and they have to keep a straight face.
what happens if two of them come in proximity to each other? is it like scanners?
Quote from: The Bad Reverend What's-His-Name! on June 25, 2012, 08:31:33 PM
Jesus fucking christ Roger, I NEVER SAID WHAT YOU POSTED WAS ABOUT ME! I am simply joining the conversation and giving my thoughts on the topic, one which I think is a really good topic to discuss. YOU are the one turning it into an issue. And I am not talking about YOU. I am making general observations on the topic, not aimed at any specific person. Yeesh!
Oh, so what you're saying then is, "You cannot make judgements of any kind on someone you've known for years IRL, or you yourself are nothing but a uniform". We cannot discuss anything without being hypocrites. If it's one of TGRR's threads, anyway.
Gotcha.
Quote from: Elder Iptuous on June 25, 2012, 08:33:18 PM
i caught a saturday night live skit some years ago with a lady that did Guy #4 that was pretty funny.
the people at the party started testing her by upping the claims until she was eventually claiming that her cat was an astronaut or some such.
at least these people could be amusing if you play their game back at them and they have to keep a straight face.
what happens if two of them come in proximity to each other? is it like scanners?
What happens when scanners scan each other? Is it like that time Dok did SCIENCE! with a mirror and a scanner?
Also, "My cat is an astronaut." LOL. :lulz:
Well, no, obviously when it is someone you know well IRL your view of the uniform is going to be a lot better, though, when it comes to humans, you could still be missing things the person has buried and hidden from EVERYONE. But in the PD world, there could be a part of DP we are not able to see that might cause us to see his uniform differently. Or maybe he truly IS stuck, andmaybe there is more to his IRL world that would tell us why.
Quote from: Elder Iptuous on June 25, 2012, 08:33:18 PM
i caught a saturday night live skit some years ago with a lady that did Guy #4 that was pretty funny.
the people at the party started testing her by upping the claims until she was eventually claiming that her cat was an astronaut or some such.
at least these people could be amusing if you play their game back at them and they have to keep a straight face.
what happens if two of them come in proximity to each other? is it like scanners?
The rest of the party moves out onto the balcony. That might be a bit much to take.
Quote from: The Bad Reverend What's-His-Name! on June 25, 2012, 08:07:47 PM
Meh, some people wear shit on their sleeve, turn it into a big, shiny "look at me!" badge. I have no need for that. I'm different things for different people, because relationships aren't cookie-cutter. My wife married me for reasons that have nothing to do with what I do for work. My kids look up to me for another set of qualities. People in my field look at me from other lenses.... But at the heart, I am me. Certain people have the fortune to know me as an individual in more depth than others.
And that gets to the flip side of this coin. People ascribing uniforms to people they don't truly know. Trying to create order out of disorder. To need to categorize. I also have no need for that.
I don't think discussing uniforms is a way to "categorize." It's an observation of monkey behavior. It's analogous to the discussion about "masks" that has happened here, except there's less of a focus (if I'm getting it right) on how you portray yourself to others than on how you portray yourself to yourself. "I AM A DEMOCRAT" is a mantra millions of people repeat to themselves religiously, and when faced with a decision or an opportunity to voice their opinion, their first reference goes directly to their ideas about "what it means to be a Democrat," instead of to their own experiences and their actual identity.
This is a Pandora's Box I think, because this behavior opens a portal directly into someone's self-identity and is easily exploitable by media, advertisements, etc.
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.
[2. The Damage Case] All too familiar. I wouldn't flat-out dismiss the possibility that there is in fact actually something wrong or that they got some tough shit on their plate to deal with though. The big difference is that there's plenty other people dealing with the same tough shit without making a huge attention-whoring drama showcase out of it. I'm trying to think of anyone, but it seems I've successfully pruned all of these from my IRL life. Or they left on their own accord, a lot of my friends moved to the Utrecht and Amsterdam area after university cause there's more jobs there than up here in the North and because that's where all the age 25+ people go (which is a sad story for another thread). Now I'm talking about a friend who personifies the factory default setting dramaqueen archetype. Met him at a party a while back and within 10 minutes it became obvious he had not grown over it (which I really hoped for him), in his case it is not disease or disorder but perpetual drama in his relationships.
[3. The Political Partisan] I think I've been lucky in that both my parents were quite politically active quite far in the left part of the spectrum, but without becoming hippies. While I've always mostly agreed with that perspective, I'm not exactly sure what came first, the realization that the left-right dichotomy is a con, or when I noticed my father outright dismissing ideas if they came from the wrong rightwing political figure, no matter how reasonable
[1]. Since then I've been happily picking on flaws in left-wing ideology. Naivety is their biggest sin. Second is a lack of cunning. (though there are always exceptions)
[4. The Guy Who Did That AND a Bag of Chips] I wondered what Sweden would need a Bikini Team for, so I looked it up. Thanks :) Anyway I may have known a guy that fit this stereotype in some sense, but the thing is, most of my friends are similarly critically allergic to bullshit as the general PD-er, and our favourite method of dealing with this is by letting them talk and interestedly asking for details until they start contradicting themselves.
Reading back what got posted while I was writing this: that's pretty much what Ippy described. He asks "what happens if two of them come in proximity to each other? is it like scanners?". In my experience there were no interesting special fx like in
Scanners. Either they recognize and avoid eachother. Or one (temporarily) drops the uniform and joins the poking of the other, sometimes switching roles. On very rare occasions, an unstable equilibrium occurs, capping off the max level of "awesomer than thou" and they may actually start having a Good Time. Is very rare, I may have seen it just once.
[5. The Convert] Ugh. This one might in fact be the worst one to deal with. At least, when it's immediately apparent, you can start poking at them right away and neutralize or scare them away quite effectively. The absolute worst is when you don't realize it at first, and you develop a relationship with them, get to know them, and at some point you notice. And it all drops into place, all the little quirks that you let slip before. And now that you know, it is too late. They already firmly embedded their tendrils in your social circle. And from now on you know that everything this person says, you will consider in the light of their convictions, and it will disgust you because you cannot un-see the uniform.
[1] One funny moment was when Geert Wilders denounced Breivik and called him "a psychopath". In my dad's eyes, Wilders cannot say or do anything right, so even this (quite agreeable) statement had to be attacked, somehow. Needless to say, whatever my father's argument was (I forget), it didn't quite get off the ground. I told him that, a person that coldly spends 1.5 hour shooting 70 children on an island, is in fact quite probably a psychopath. As he should know, being a skilled neuro-psychologist. He reluctantly admitted :) My parents' partisanship is not so bad, in that sense :)Quote from: RogerThis list, of course, is by no means exclusive.
Indeed. Let me see if I can add to it.
4b. A variation on 4, is the Guy That Knows All About Everything. They usually get their information from "a documentary they saw" or "this Internet discussion/blog/site by people that really know those things". You won't get more details than that, because they only remember the interesting bits, which does not include naming sources, references or grasping the actual theories and principles behind whatever. Lacking most critical faculties, engaging in discussion with these folks is usually futile. It'll go around in circles, they won't define what they actually mean, and even if you're lucky they'll only admit "I don't know, but I really saw it and it was like that" implying that what they saw has authority over what you know. It's even worse when it's on a topic you don't know too much about, you strongly suspect bullshit, but cannot argue it because they won't give details or explanations and all you can say is "I'm having a hard time believing that, and I'd really like to read about it if that'd prove me wrong".
* The One That Just Got Real. You know him well, he is outgoing but obviously insecure inside. At some point he'll apply for an Important Job, or maybe he gets into a Serious Relationship, or perhaps simply decides it's Time to Grow Up. Off with the long ponytail hair. Out goes the lip-piercing. Baggy pants and longsleeves make place for slacks, shirts and suits. A change of uniform? You notice that in fact, nothing has changed at all. He believes it makes a World of Difference. It's usually not so bad, except for feeling a bit stupid for not quite seeing his former uniform for being a uniform.
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.
There are more. I might add them later, but I spent 2 hours typing the above, so that is enough for now :)
There are also some thoughts I have about
- "Be yourself, there's already enough others"
- how I used to wonder why people worry so much about being themselves, because really unless you got braindamage, how can you be anybody else? (stupid question I know, as I said I
used to wonder about this)
- and what (I currently believe) it
really means to be yourself
but that's also for later.
Quote from: v3x on June 25, 2012, 08:57:11 PMIt's analogous to the discussion about "masks" that has happened here, except there's less of a focus (if I'm getting it right) on how you portray yourself to others than on how you portray yourself to yourself.
Hey, nicely worded, I like that!
QuoteMaybe 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?
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.
- The High School Quarterback:
Similar to the Repeat. He's that guy who was the star quarterback. The kid who was a national champion in their forensics event their senior year in college. She's the gal who won whatever competitions it is highschool cheer has. Sure, that's cool, but it's been thirty years since and they haven't a) taken off the uniform and/or b) done anything worth while with their lives since.
And yet, they'll never let you forget their one and only accomplishment.
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 25, 2012, 10:19:28 PM
QuoteMaybe 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.
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
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.
- The High School Quarterback:
Similar to the Repeat. He's that guy who was the star quarterback. The kid who was a national champion in their forensics event their senior year in college. She's the gal who won whatever competitions it is highschool cheer has. Sure, that's cool, but it's been thirty years since and they haven't a) taken off the uniform and/or b) done anything worth while with their lives since.
And yet, they'll never let you forget their one and only accomplishment.
I have a friend like that. He's still eager to let you know he was a champion wrestler in high school. 30 years ago.
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
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.
As far as the OP -
A particular annoying uniform was identified by Nigel a while ago. One of the most horrible uniforms in the history of man - The Smartest Guy in the room.
It's such an obnoxious uniform partly for the ubiquity, and partly for the host of reasons mentioned in that thread. I would suggest that these ideological straight jackets are possibly only cured by death or a radical mindset shift. This seems to be recognised in society. I can think of many phrases along the idea of "Idiot/immature child/teen/person has wised up". "Maturity" in general tends to vary in meaning to each individual. The concept looks like it may be cross culture and we have many ways of expressing a change of clothes in an individual and possibly to a greater extent movements and nations. 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.
On another note some uniforms seem to leave a very heavy imprint. A police officer is " A Police Officer" all the time even when no longer in the job, regardless of circumstance. This set of clothes also shares similarities with many other Power holding officials that tend to interact with a variety of the public. To me Military officials, any civil or government representative, Bailiffs and the like, all have a way of thinking that seems to extend to the home life. Habits and behaviour can be influenced purely by the nature of your occupation. Not many accountants go bankrupt, rather few ex-police officers get robbed.
Posting without reading a bunch of new replies. If this is repetitive then that just shows the creativity of monkey thinking. And how many browser tabs I have open at once.
(And editing to alter some shit)
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 25, 2012, 10:17:40 PM
(Post that you should read right now.)
Picking up on the point at the end regarding Memetic Inoculation, this idea intrigues me. Planting a phrase to engender a certain mindset that slowly alters the shape of a culture could be an interesting excessive. There are multiple parallel phrases in English, one of the ones you named is almost literally the motto of the SAS or somesuch I believe. I know there's a few non-native english speakers on the boards, and I'd be interested to see how many similar phrases (Positive and negative) we commonly share.
From there I guess it would just be a matter of introducing a species altering phrase worldwide in multiple languages through several generations. No problem right?
Yes, it's interesting but don't get all overexcited :) First, it's just a theory I have, or not even that, it's just an idea.
It's also an idea that I like to tell, because I enjoy encouraging other people and conversely, constant negative attitudes get me down after a while.
I also really never considered if Dutch maybe also has a bunch of really pessimistic phrases. Maybe we do. Additionally, how's to say we use one kind more over the other? Well, you could do a phrase count on a large sampling of modern media, maybe ...
There's been a lot of research on the topic in what sense language and language-use actually influences thought. However, I am not at all sure what the conclusions of this research were. A lot of it is/was quite controversial, IIRC. Controversial in the sense that "it sounds reasonable but there is in fact no Scientific evidence at all". But there are also parts that do work. So you might start checking out what all that research turned up. I believe it had something to do with Chomsky and "General Semantics" (?)
Maybe the effect mostly works one way, and not the other. Correlation/causation thing. In fact, it makes a lot more sense that a culture that has a more positive attitude (for whatever reason) would tend to have more positive-sounding phrases and figures of speech. The reverse, what you are after, already sounds less likely, phrases in public consciousness affecting the cultural attitude. That doesn't mean it's not "innoculation" of some sort, I can totally see having such phrases would tend to reinforce and cement such an attitude.
I just think it'd be hard to do on purpose.
Finally, even assuming it would work to some extent, in order to actually DO what you suggest, you are going to need to work within a larger whole. Of course you weren't entirely serious saying purposefully introducing a new phrase that sticks around for several generations, but let's consider for a moment what it would roughly take to accomplish such a feat. Most importantly, it needs to stick around and because generations tend to take a while, you won't be around forever to reinforce that meme. In other words, you need to make it self-sustaining.
On a simple level, you can try and personally convince people to carry on your task (offspring are a good target people for this, since you have a whole childhood to convince them). Or maybe you manage to become rather wealthy and set aside a fund and write in your will that it is to be used to hire people to write the phrase on walls and internet forums, or whatever. Problem with these approaches is that, if that's the whole mechanism you put in place for continuity, it's going to run out after a while. And then you're back to square one, with the added disadvantage of no longer being alive to try again. The advantage of this approach is that it operates independently of what the phrase is. It could even be nonsense words.
A more solid way to do it (which still takes quite some resources and effort and cleverness, you are trying to change the whole world for future generations, no small feat), is to somehow manage to wrap the phrase into an idea that people *want* to propagate. How to do it is quite tricky, especially because you don't want the tasty idea to accidentally come loose from the important world-saving phrase idea. Part of the solution is to create all sorts of side ideas and rules and laws and environmental factors and you-name-it that are all conducive to the usefulness and the propagation of the phrase and the ideas and everything, so it forms a nice self-sustaining system, that hopefully doesn't warp and mutate too much over time (fat chance, also see: Christianity).
However, now take a step back and see what we have actually got. You (hypothetically) built this whole system, in order to sustain a positive phrase that somehow would affect the cultural mind, for several generations to come.
Newsflash: You don't actually need the phrase, or rather what you have now is the whole system that affects the culture. If the phrase supposedly does what we discussed above, and the system is a feedback loop that perpetuates this phrase and thus cause the desired effect, then you're not just working with a phrase and just language anymore, you've set up a culture or a society or a community or some sort of whatnot that causes the effect you desired, and this phrase that we started out is just a small cogwheel inside the whole system, not particularly more central than any other part.
And if you want to know more about how to build and affect cultural and social systems like that, read http://artofmemetics.com/ is a free PDF download and I can highly recommend. I believe one of the writers actually made a few posts on PD at some point (possibly at Cramulus' invitation)
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 25, 2012, 10:59:39 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
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?
Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on June 26, 2012, 12:40:00 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 25, 2012, 10:59:39 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
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.
Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on June 26, 2012, 12:40:00 AM
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?
Oh, same experience here, and I'll add that even when you openly ask them not to talk about their broken record, they do it anyway. My mother's that way. Her current and most annoying to date broken record is Sasquatches. Nothing I do makes her shut the fuck up about it.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 25, 2012, 10:59:39 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
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.
Yep. I have noticed this as well.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 25, 2012, 10:52:01 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
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.
- The High School Quarterback:
Similar to the Repeat. He's that guy who was the star quarterback. The kid who was a national champion in their forensics event their senior year in college. She's the gal who won whatever competitions it is highschool cheer has. Sure, that's cool, but it's been thirty years since and they haven't a) taken off the uniform and/or b) done anything worth while with their lives since.
And yet, they'll never let you forget their one and only accomplishment.
I have a friend like that. He's still eager to let you know he was a champion wrestler in high school. 30 years ago.
I hope he talks about other things sometimes.
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 25, 2012, 10:17:40 PM
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" :x )
Here, OTOH...well, see my last post.
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.
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.
Quote from: v3x on June 25, 2012, 10:40:39 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 25, 2012, 10:19:28 PM
QuoteMaybe 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.
Quote from: Junkenstein on June 25, 2012, 11:23:16 PM
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.
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?)
Quote from: Junkenstein on June 26, 2012, 02:23:46 AM
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.
Quote from: v3x on June 26, 2012, 12:44:34 AM
Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on June 26, 2012, 12:40:00 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 25, 2012, 10:59:39 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
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!"