Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
No bio...
User ID: 102
Academia vs. racist memes
A new paper in Evolutionary Human Sciences has been making rounds.
Memeing Scientific Racism: The Digital Reframing of Racialist Ideologies – “examines how racialised memes circulating on X revive scientific racism”.
The most intriguing feature of the paper is the way its subject of study is presented. Though the aim is to dissect bigoted memes online with Science, the author deemed it inappropriate to grant her readers direct access to the offending material. The four case-study memes are “presented exclusively through schematic reconstructions created using standard image-editing tools, including limited AI-assisted transformations”, bringing to mind some SCP Foundation containment protocol for high-caliber memetic hazards.
I’m certain that the author believes she is doing genuine research investigating a pressing problem, so that’s the angle I'll consider it from. As far as its scientific value goes, my feelings are mixed. Though the author clearly did a lot of legwork collecting nearly 70 memes, and namedrops things from the Dark Enlightenment and human biodiversity to effective altruism, and genuinely attempts to figure out what makes memes compelling and facilitates their spread, the analysis of the memes seems incomplete.
One of the case studies, a meme that was circulating since 2018, originally features a crude outline of a man drawn in soyjack tradition saying:
“I'm sorry your daughter was raped by a retarded cannibal, but we need him for the football team”
The rhetorical thrust, as I see it, is to contrast some of the more shallow sounding supposed benefits of mass migration with its most lurid observed effects.
(In February this year a big account, owned by an actual left winger with real-life clout and bearing a striking resemblance to the meme character made this post:
“The migration policies of Reform and Restore Britain would destroy football throughout the UK. Have those planning to vote for them thought about that?”
Which is an interesting case of prophetic hyperstition)
" Ethically modified" version of the meme in the paper turns the man into a simpler, more friendly looking figure changing the text to:
“I'm sorry
[text removed]
but we need him for the football team”
And here's what the author has to say about it:
“The soyjak example in Figure 2 (M60)...addresses a father whose daughter has been “raped by a retarded cannibal,” yet insists that the perpetrator must be protected for the sake of a football team.”
“The soyjak stands in for a caricatured progressive whose commitments conflict with self-preservation”
“…racial typology of the hypersexual, predatory, uncontrollable Black male”
Though this goes in the right direction, nothing reflects comprehension of the joke, of what the meme tries to convey.
Refraining from including the original memes is a serious self-imposed limitation. She could talk about how the slovenly scribbled caricature (edit: come to think of it, the visual style of these kinds of memes might well merit actual artistic investigation) serves to dehumanize open border supporters, and a grotesque crime is juxtaposed to a relatively marginal example of benefits of mass migration (which are, of course, countless) as a tool of propaganda.
Though the image of the author frowning and making notes as she browses racist jokes on Twitter brings me joy, this paper appears methodologically limited, and more research into the threat of racist memes online is likely required.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
6d ago
We should encourage Israelis to forget about their ancestral homeland and resettle in Florida
I floated even more ambitious plan couple years back:
https://www.themotte.org/post/705/israelgaza-megathread-1/147305?context=8#context
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
10d ago
My own experience with McCarthy was brief and memorable, though not in a good way.
I made a point of finishing the first chapter of Blood Meridian, but I was nearly immediately overwhelmed with the urge to grab the pen, typewriter, keyboard or whatever it was he produced this with and whack him over the head with it.
Simply atrocious.
It is a curious area to explore. What would be the distinctive features of these beings? Intelligence, beauty, longevity is just something I'd want for myself, or at least my descendants.
Where this really gets interesting is specialization. Reaction speed and sheer strength that would be impractical in daily life. Or pushing certain cognitive architectures beyond their natural frontiers. A mind with zero interest in navel-gazing, no need for openness, no cognition detached from practical applications. Turbo-autism.
A thing that finds satisfaction in the execution of its function, that experiences the completion of a task as its own reward.
Whatever the intended role, you don't want to give this type of creature too much ambition or imagination.
If you insist on creation of what is essentially your peer, more thought is needed for alignment.
The best bet is to have these satellite species love us the way we love cats or dogs.
As a side-effect, this could limit evolutionary drift of the human species (at least in appearance) that would otherwise get supercharged after genetic engineering reaches maturity because you don't want to stray too far from what these helpers would recognize as "human", and lose the mandate of heaven.
Though I'm not sure if this would solve it for good. Assume you secured their loyalty, but what would this be expressed as? Human love and affection for a dog often ends up with an appointment to cut his balls off.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
4mo ago
talked with Chomsky about racial intelligence differences
Now this is slightly interesting. "at least some of them know what they're doing and are just lying" is a thought that doesn't normally cross my mind not because it's not true, but because it's pointless to speculate about. I just provisionally assume that any given 'anti-racist' is a true believer in universal humanity. But of course they aren't. The "lore" after all, is fairly accessible for someone reasonably intelligent and curious.
I wonder how this looks from inside their own heads. Brave holders of esoteric truths vigilantly guarding the demos from dangerous knowledge?
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
6mo ago
I appreciate this idea on some level, but must speak out against because
- People without "divine spark" just invisibly existing around me is kind of horrifying
- Confusion and just bad reasoning is a better explanation (I mean, look at OP's other takes in the same post)
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
11mo ago
I'm not sure I understand what would it mean exactly for qualia to be physical. Isn't it like...obviously something fundamentally distinct?
Mainstream secular stance of "conscious states trace material configurations" feels more like soft-dualism where the mind part plays the junior role, but it's still there
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
I won't comment on whether or not he ignored compatibilism, but it sure deserves to be ignored no matter the context. Insisting on materialism yet weaseling out of biting the bullet on lack of free will is just sad.
Don’t like the conclusion of your premises? Just molest the definition of some key terms until it goes away.
Troll_face_problem.jpg
I can appreciate some ruthless will to power edgelord kino myself, but I know how badly translations from distant languages work, especially fan translations, especially of web novels that rarely have good prose to begin with, so I will probably pass.
In any event, I just hope that the author had the wisdom to finish his story and attach the file to a dead man switch
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
First of all: It's fun
Motte takes every possible step to be more grownup, but even this place can't escape the ultimate nature of political forums and maybe even human interaction in general - conflict, polemics, trying to appear clever, one upping each other, play.
This place is a bit of an outlier, but internet forums are mostly for enjoying speechcraft skills of others, and exercise my own when (I'm under impression that) I have something witty to say.
I find it inherently rewarding, if you don't, well, too bad.
I don't know what I think until I write it down
Another reason why is to polish your own thoughts.
Writing is inherently more rigorous than just letting thoughts float inside your head and things that feel vaguely sound may turn out to be less so when properly formulated, so you get a lot of the value even before pressing "post"
Yet there's only so much you can think of on your own. Bouncing your thoughts against others helps in ways that are hard to really quantify.
An entirely different human being can say things you'd never think of, bite back with retorts that help you understand your own values and beliefs better even if you ultimately don't change your mind.
Talking to others can force you into creative exercises like "explain this thought as if you're speaking to someone mentally challenged and/or separated from you by great inferential distance" which is also illuminating.
I sympathize with your sense of alienation. People can be vastly different, and can often feel insane and incomprehensible. Overall, most of them are relatively stupid, so their words can be explained away by them being hopelessly confused.
That said, I'm convinced that there exist divides between human mental architectures that are more profound than just political disagreements, and language more often serves to conceal the true depth of that gulf than to bridge it.
Next time you argue with someone saying what is seemingly just stupid and offensive, consider the possibility that if you somehow truly understood him you would recoil, and inherent limitations of language, as well as your mind's reflexive attempts to parse inputs as something you think is reasonable both do you a favor.
Overall, just treat people, especially faceless strangers on the internet less seriously, they don't deserve it.
Let others sink or swim on their own merit.
If you feel irritated by the absurd remarks of two people whose conversation you happen to overhear, you should imagine that you are listening to the dialogue of two fools in a comedy
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
I endorse the rest of this take, but libertarianism has no problem with joint ownership, and countries can be conceptualized as intergenerational, publicly owned enterprise, so the doors are opened if you ever feel like coming back
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Agree on LGBT, but for mental illness, it might be too lax, actually
We can't easily filter for "a total bitch who will drive you insane if you will have the misfortune to put a ring on her", so the next best thing is diagnosed mental illness. These categories heavily overlap, but the bitch category is almost certainly larger.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Speaking of the legal force. Maybe you will have better luck on YouTube, or failing that just use VPN.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Ye, better known as Kanye West has released a song titled "Heil Hitler"
I have to admit, it's quite catchy, especially the unlikely refrain "nigger, Heil Hitler", which definitely has an intriguing ring to it.
Whether Kanye is a truly great artist or not, he's nothing if not a skilled craftsman.
I've long since lost the ability to treat anything on the internet seriously and my reaction was limited to squeezing my eyes shut and suppressing a chuckle, but I suspect that the wider audience is also outraged only in a performative, inertial way. I doubt it will end up making any real impact on anything and waves in the social media will likely fizzle out in no more than a few weeks.
I wonder if we're seeing the first signs of postmodern corrosion eating away at the last grand unifying narrative of our age: WW2 mythos, with Adolf Hitler at its center not as mere historical figure, but as the archetypal villain and the secular devil. In many countries the taboo is backed by legal force, but legislation doesn't truly govern things of this nature. The law may end up hollowed out and irrelevant long before someone cares to remove it from the books
Maybe I will live to tell my incredulous grandkids about how we were all expected to perceive one specific 20th century dictator through a prism of quasi-superstitious dread.
Should this really happen, good riddance. Though on the other hand, we might end up remembering having this kind of culture spanning, unifying narrative as kind of comfy compared to total balkanization
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Rest assured, morality is not a factor in what I'm talking about here
Politicians say lots of things all of the time, it's practically their job.
I'm certain there are numerous records of Western and Russian leaders saying things that totally support any given picture, including this one. It just seems like painting targets centered around a bullet hole in the wall after the fact. "Talking a lot and lying, contradicting, exaggerating routinely" applies to Putin at least as much as to any other big politician.
Are Putin's decisions sound, practical? maximizing interests of his own country, roughly based on reality as it can be observed?
It sure seems like many faulty premises were involved based on what actually happened. Perhaps the inherent unpredictability and dependence on whims of a lone, seemingly unaccountable man should be included in the equation, but it's far from easy, and at this point we are straying from what you were saying.
Ukraine was pragmatically unwise to pursue rapprochement with the West
Based on Russian rhetoric and expecting from them self-interested actions, you might well argue that moving westward was actually more sound of strategy after 2014 than before.
Threats from NATO? Leaving aside the existence of ICMBs, NATO members having veto right about new admissions, NATO states that are already on Russian border...surely that problem was solved already by the festering wound Russia inflicted on the country.
Protection of Russians in Donbass from oppression? Given that war has cooled down substantially and annual civilian casualties reached nearly 0 by 2021, things are looking good. Worst they can be expected to do is what, properly annexxing it?
Maybe Russia wants to have Ukraine in its cultural sphere, advance their language and political influence? Surely they must realize they burned those bridges back in 2014. And it's not like attacking harder will make things better.
Basically, I think there's this 'noble savage' view of Russia/Putin in the sense that there are supposed to be totally sound, realistic, predicable motivations in the driver's seat, they're just not easy to grasp for a Westerner, but I don't believe any of it holds up or amounts to more than wishful attempts to force orderly models on a messy world.
There seems to be a motte/bailey dynamic here. You put it more mildly, so maybe you will disagree somewhat with the bailey, but it's common enough that I hope you indulge me.
Motte: It's reasonable for states to care about their international influence, more so when their neighbors are concerned. When a highly culturally and linguistically related people and a former colony attempts to steer away, expect attempts to prevent this.
Bailey: It was predictable all along that these attempts include abrupt abandonment of other options in favor of an all out war, with all of the inevitable costs that would ensue in the best case scenario. It also includes doubling down for years when the best case scenario did not materialize.
Just tragic geopolitical dominos falling and rulers forced into ugly decisions, nothing to do with a septuagenarian autocrat gradually detaching from the real world, ending up spending fortunes and immolating hundreds of thousands of both his enemy's and his own citizens on sacrificial pyre of boomer retardation
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
"To have an opportunity to talk with actual people" sounds like a really low bar to clear for an internet forum. Even if your AI slop tasted exactly like the real thing, it would just be good manners to refrain from clogging our airwaves with that.
Knowing that you're talking with something sapient has an inherent value, and this value might very well go up in the coming years. I can't say I even understand why'd you think anyone would find AI outputs interesting to read.
or maybe just ban me, I'm too old now to just nod and play along with gingerly preserved, increasingly obsolete traditions of some authoritarian Reddit circus. Anyway, I like that post and that's all I care about.
Bizarre reaction. But I like a sincere, organically produced tantrum better than simulation of one, so I'd rank this post as higher than the one above!
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
I will note that there's quite a bit of daylight between "the country would not survive" and "abolishing these programs would be a net negative".
Ha, my bad, unnecessary rhetorical flair. Of course, this is a complex topic and big spending can be broken down and justified in any number of ways. I just had strong impression that you're from the team that says "no, it's okay to bulldoze over this fence, you just watch!", not the other one, so seeing you, in the context of this discussion, attempting to wield this weapon left me briefly disoriented.
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Speaking of fences - do you have any guesses how did the US survive with government spending per capita dramatically lower than now for the first couple hundred years of its history?
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
On the object level: yes, probably on average the Chinese are indeed less "creative" even with optimal incentives, and this has obvious implications at the tails
Started arguing, seemingly about Chinese HBD, leaned into some tangential points at best, non-sequiturs at worst, gave some half-baked takes about why white people suck, then unceremoniously conceded the argument. Scratching my temple wondering what was your game here
My guess is you had something pent up that might have been interesting had it been properly developed and formatted as a top level post
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Okay, now I see you were joking, good thing I decided to check before sperging out with a serious rebuttal
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Mid by what metric, pray tell?
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
He wants us to wonder.
If you would, during the next prayer, do use your psychic link to relay to God that Exotic_cetacean from the motte dot org is having a rather bad time with the wondering!
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
1yr ago
Take a hard Look into evolution and realise that natural selection is not enough to explain how we (humans) came to be in our current form. I'm curious. Do you have specific problems, questions in mind?
The full paper is in open access. Direct link to the PDF
Excerpt towards the end, page 22:
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