somethingsomething
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User ID: 1123
somethingsomething
1mo ago
I think this essay fails as a defense of hip hop. You can't just go through a list of how cool this sample was or this lyric, or this genre fusion. I've listened to a lot of hip hop and explored the history, and there's a lot of complexity under the surface level "coolness" that is pretty compromising. There are plenty of intolerant or less informed ways to dismiss it, but the kind of over the top glorification you see here just doesn't move me.
There is talent in the genre, and it compares favorably in a lot of ways to the braindead pop today. But if you're talking about "black" music, it doesn't hold a candle to what black artists were doing in jazz, just nowhere close. And on the other hand I feel like the "blackness" of hip hop has been artificially maintained over time, whereas jazz was explicitly multi-cultural and that is one of its many better values as a genre.
somethingsomething
7mo ago
I think the hidden logic for these types of claims look like this:
- Traditional values are unfair to women and morally wrong
- Progressive values are fair to women and men and morally correct
- Problems in the world are caused by moral failings relating to the "category" of the problem
- Therefore the cause of a problem in the "category" of gender must be the result of the strength of immoral values regarding gender in the world.
- Because traditional values are in recession and things are getting worse, there must be a secret conspiratorial strength to the traditionalist values, and this is the patriarchy.
This is why patriarchy is hard to define. It can't just be the traditionalist trappings that have managed to remain, because it is something that needs to be in power right now manipulating society.
So I'd argue that rather agreeing with that the patriarchy exists, instead argue that it is a tool used to avoid the reality that traditionalist values can't possibly be the engine causing the problems of the western world today because it is just too weak.
It's so strange reading this because when I was in school (in the US) there was never any hint of a compulsory nature to these kinds of thing, which happened often enough (and I often partook).
There was always respect towards people's autonomy and personal feelings, and I never sensed or felt any judgement towards either decision people made.
I'd wear a different shirt for the sole reason of making kids who chose not to feel comfortable. It doesn't even matter what the cause is or how credible. A socially enforce uniform to determine "good person" status is basically an illiberal environment.
I feel like people used to understand this.
somethingsomething
11mo ago
I would be curious if rationalists are even less "social conformity" biased. I'd guess the average rationalist grew up an outcast who became (often irrationally) suspicious of the ingroup, and gravitated to outgroups to fulfill their social needs and went on to justify their continual social exclusion via their own intelligence whether they were or not.
They are just as influenced by social conformity, but through an inverted/rejection/wound/resentment model that leaves them able to see through the blind spots of the normies, but just as biased when it comes to the particular outgroups they identify with. Which is still valuable to have, but the self congratulations are probably unwarranted.
somethingsomething
9mo ago
I have not had a depressive episode in 2 months after dealing with high-functioning depression for about 10 years. Obviously that's not long enough to know I've really beat it, but I feel like I've had a real mental shift as a result of interrogating just about all of my beliefs in the past 3 years.
I'd like to document my thoughts in writing here in the wellness threads to organize them and spread the word of what I've learned, if others find it useful. These should be assumed to apply to healthy brains exhibiting unhealthy behaviors. Obviously the brain can have all sorts of conditions that are more deeply rooted or physically problematic that this won't apply for. These thoughts describe how a healthy person might become unhealthily unhappy through their upbringing, learned behaviors, and genetic predispositions, but nothing beyond that.
I'm going to start with just an outline that describes what I think are the essential qualities of depression. I hope to post more detail in a future wellness thread.
A depressive episode is a self-reinforcing dialogue involving shame and self-pity, where the self-pity is repeatedly justified to a skeptical observer.
Depression is less a state of being or description of action, but rather an analysis of actions over time. Rather than saying "I am depressed", it can be useful to say "I am pitying myself, and I am justifying why I have the right to pity myself, over and over again," because that better describes the actions in the moment.
If the pity must continually justified, the question is to whom? I think there is some inner skeptic that we are justifying it to, that remains unfooled, and I think that it's a really interesting avenue to explore why this is and what the results are.
There's also the question of why we pity ourselves. I think it's used as a coping mechanism for anxiety, and I think every depressive episode starts with an intense anxiety trigger. People who feel anxiety more intensely (neurotics) are more in need of coping mechanisms.
I think there are several large forces today promoting self-pity: progressive ideology, certain corners social media, the liberal internet more broadly, and aspects of the psychology establishment. A big part of my growth was understanding how my progressive worldview was deeply toxic to my self-esteem, and how I had fallen for a kind of internet-mediated social contagion. Along these lines, I see self-pity as a sister to ressentiment.
The quick answer on how to reduce depressive episodes is to (1) become less sensitive to anxiety and (2) when you pity yourself, and the skeptical observer asks you to justify it, admit that you can't, that the self-pity was foolish, and that you will manage your anxiety more productively instead. I will try to elaborate on strategies for this in future posts.
This requires understanding thinking-as-dialogue, which I think is how the brain synthesizes different points of view into a cohesive worldview. I think that most people probably do this without realizing it, and some may not want to admit it because it might sound like you are hearing voices or something. But I think that a healthy brain thinks in dialogue while smoothing it into a single "voice" that one identifies with. If you have issues with identity or have more serious mental issues with voices, etc. then that goes beyond what I'm describing.
somethingsomething
8mo ago
I think they would see it as either that, or avoiding providing ammunition to already abusive parents. But from that point of view they might as well keep grades secret because abusive parents can be triggered by those too.
I think that mode lines up more with the common cultural meme which is to basically assume abuse until proven otherwise along certain power differentials. The "raised by narcissists" worldview that looks at this on the parent-child angle hasn't really gone mainstream but I think is guiding a lot of the left-wing agenda around kids under the surface.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
The piece of evidence in favor of this theory that I think is the clearest smoking gun is the classic Hillary Clinton quote that surely was shaped by the brightest minds in the Democrat establishment who were working on her campaign:
“If we broke up the big banks tomorrow….would that end racism? Would that end sexism?”
Now was the purpose of this to stop real progress, or just a cynical way to undercut a political opponent? Most practically it's the latter but if you look at what the campaigns represent it does kind of fit the theory. You could argue on the merits why breaking up the banks is unwise... but instead the play was an appeal to identity politics.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
I don't see how you can ask who were the sensitive sexless moralizers of the past without at least mentioning the priest class, which has always existed. And this would clarify your view of the enlightenment which was clearly a secular movement away from this force. If anyone lost power in the enlightenment it was the moralizers.
somethingsomething
2mo ago
That wasn't Gladwell's idea, the very beginning of his essay attributes it to Gregory Trevorton. As someone who identifies strongly with your caricature of a midwit, I have to say this is what annoys me most about Gladwell fans, that they think he came up with anything original.
somethingsomething
7mo ago
Isolationist right goes way back and has been vying for power internally. Trump capitalized on the failures on the neocons and the hawkishness of Hillary Clinton to get the first electoral win for this faction in a long time, and with his substantial influence, convinced a lot of voters on the right that this was the way to go.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
In the situation of literary outliers it doesn't matter if most men are insensitive, because the highly sensitive and talented male outlier can succeed and many have as psychological, emotional, sensitive writers (while other male authors have gone the way you describe as idea-focused etc.)
I think it's more of a question of there being space in the culture and market to draw those people into successful writers who understand their own gifts, have something to communicate clearly, and see rewards from it. I think that what culture that would support that has deeply degraded, to the point where the output of men and women authors are suffering.
Firstly I think sensitive men have become deeply confused by the culture/political war. Male gaze is bad, Fellini's male psychodrama is offensive etc. Sensitive men are so steeped in shame they are afraid of creating sensitive works with honesty.
Secondly, the sensitive male is outcompeted by the sensitive female. When women writers didn't exist, there is much less competition in the niche. It's like when men played the female roles in theatre, when women aren't competing it releases pressure on male gender expression.
Thirdly, the literary culture is less interested in reading the "sensitive man". What people see today as the "sensitive man" is basically an invented personality that has rough edges sanded off. Real sensitivity from men is distasteful in certain ways, so people only feel comfortable engaging with it when it at least was made in the 1970s when you can excuse that kind of thing.
I think that the idea that critical theory is an activist philosophy is self-contradictory and that those who practice critical theory to change the world in some way, or motivate action, are basically destined to have an incomplete, irreconcilable worldview.
(edit for clarity: Modern critical theory obviously is often activist, and believing that is not self-contradictory. But believing that critical theory at its core is activist, and should be practiced as a kind of means-to-an-end to affect social change, as many critical theorists believe, I think contradicts with the actual core of critical theory philosophy)
I started coming to this idea watching the Foucault/Chomsky debate, where Foucault is suspicious of Chomksy's Anarcho-syndicalism as a way to bring out a kind of ideal human nature, because he thinks the formulations we make about an ideal human nature, or society without political violence, are informed by the society we live in, which makes violence and non-ideality kind of unavoidable.
This argument is interesting in terms of the political spectrum because on one hand, it "out-criticals" the critical activist, but it also echoes the basic conservative reaction to leftist societal transformation projects.
There's no reason to me that a critical theory couldn't exist critical of social justice projects, BLM, modern Marxism, etc. The modern leftist capture of critical theory appears arbitrary.
But the Foucault debate led me to think, that conservatives, or just anti-progressives, could be a lot more bold in using their own critical theory against them in a way. I think it would be a field worth studying as a way to deconstruct leftist idealism and activism in a way that, like Chomsky, would leave them looking kind of pathetic in debate.
Doing that would kind of require doing the Nietzschian thing of acknowledging power, political violence, etc. and working with it in the debate, which I feel like is probably a step too far for most politicians. But I think specifically that rather than debate competing visions, there's room for a thinker to basically just deconstruct modern "critical theory" on its own terms, argue that it is self-contradictory and unlikely to do anything but breed new forms of political violence and power imbalance.
To tie it back to Nietzsche, it seems his works have an irony to them, even a self-aware irony, and that is what makes his calls for action "work" in some sense. It seems to me that a modern critical theory text that calls for action with no sense of irony is not thorough, and has a huge blind spot by basically not applying self-criticism.
I've been kind of working this idea out on my own, not sure if this is well trodden ground elsewhere, apologies for the half-baked quality.
somethingsomething
7mo ago
This just reads to me as generically how people act. Self reflection is rare across the board. Getting all of your experiences validated and listened to is rare too. All of us go through life trying to open up to people, even those we are close to, and often being disappointed with the results. Those that get super upset by this are usually codependent and can't hold their own beliefs steadily without others validating them.
It goes to show that with the arrival of therapy culture and BLM, the white progressive is no better than they were 10 years ago. Validation only goes so far, and too much demand for it breeds codependency.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
Who could possibly be trusted to actually act as oversight? The conversation has long been poisoned by far out doomsday scenarios that it makes any selection process fraught. It's like having a thousand Greta Thunbergs clamoring for environmental oversight. I agree, but I don't want anyone like her making decisions regarding that.
This reads to me like we should pause development so we can hand out a bunch of grant money that goes into nothing projects and proposals that go nowhere. No one is going to listen to the "luddite" faction. Just like every internet technology it's going to go out of control and we're just going to have to deal with it.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
My point isn't whether you or anyone else advocates for relationships like that, it's just my observation that they happen with a high frequency. The reason everyone talks about "red flags" is because we are so blinded by flattery and the glow of an early relationship that we often miss when the other person actually doesn't respect us. We may not want to date someone like this, but we are certainly willing to trick ourselves that we aren't when we actually are.
Does the disrespectful attitude actually work out to be a majority of successful men? Well, maybe not. But a more defendable position is that every man has the experience of knowing some real assholes who have no problem picking up women, and I think plenty of women have seen the equivalent on their side as well. And many of these kinds of people are perfectly willing to gaslight their target into thinking that it's really "them" who is the one being selfish immature liar. And a toxic relationship can run on those fumes for a very long time.
This should all be common liberal understanding (and I am very liberal myself, full disclosure), and yet when a frustrated young man is resentful, suddenly the liberals become stoic. Surely it's something wrong with the frustrated young man that is preventing him from finding a partner? If a man were to so much as vent, surely that would be evidence of his own insufficiency? But because it's so hard to argue this in the liberal framework, arguments like yours have to be totally tortured to assume that most women, or most anyone, can sniff out good men from bad, and are immune to toxic disrespect.
It's much simpler, and more harmonious for the liberal worldview, to just admit that some men get screwed over by the way women judge attractiveness and by the way society teaches men to date, and that they should get to vent harmlessly if they so desire. And they should eventually let go of the resentment! But they shouldn't have their venting be held against them.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
It doesn't follow that those who aren't moralists are amoral. A moralist does not have to consistent, honest, effective, intelligent, or correct, and their actions, or the actions they desire others to take, do not have to make the world a better place. All a moralist needs is to think they will.
A moral non-moralist however, merely needs to think that not evangelizing or exemplifying is sufficient, and they may be right.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
What's happening now and in the near future is the dark humor "Coen Brothers" version, where the AI isn't nearly as sentient or convincing as in Her, but people are falling in love with it anyway.
I see it more in the frame of decades than weeks, if I'm understanding your turn of phrase there. Siri is a good example of a lot of hype that didn't really go anywhere. In fact, I believe all of the Siri-likes got noticeably worse at some point after some zenith point after their launch. I personally used "Ok Google" for a while until I just didn't anymore. Is that a question of will, technology, or expense that we saw that degradation? It seems plausible that whatever challenge was there will continue to dog future versions, and then you add the layer of uncertainty with AI just randomly choosing tokens and I have some skepticism we're really that close to it working as a business model.
As for the specific tech portrayed in Her, you need to move past the "wide as an ocean, deep as a stream" effect of current chatbots, and I think that problem is severely, severely underrated in the AI discourse. That feeling you get with ChatGPT where it suddenly feels paper thin, where it starts feeling like a mode of Quora-summary? That never happens in Her, and you don't even feel like it could happen. And the question is how fundamental or persistent will that shortcoming be to the model of ChatGPT, and I find it very plausible that it remains that way for a long time.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
I can buy that, and like I mentioned in my reply to @justawoman, calling it a majority may have gone too far. It's more that we all understand toxic relationships to exist, and we all know that disrespect is often not disqualifying, not just due to recent dating developments but throughout human history. I don't think that it's the best dating strategy to "become an asshole", but at the same time, a fear of being an asshole can hold you back, because it's often exaggerated, so in that sense "respecting women" is not necessarily the first piece of advice I'd give to someone in a bad spot. And I feel like there are a lot of depressed young men who think they are respecting women but are actually just fearing them, which etymology-wise isn't that different.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
Just regarding your win/lose takeaway: I think you could argue fundamentals were always "midterms with a unpopular president." What happened during the campaign never made Dem victory a wholly expected outcome that they could then lose. Against the core fundamentals, Dems were always underdogs, and it seems hard to me to see this as a Dem loss.
somethingsomething
1mo ago
Well in a sense I agree you used too much detail, but I think a more succinct defense of hip hop that covers more ground is possible. Mostly I think the essay would be more convincing if it didn't read as such an apologetic and more directly addressed the issues conservatives have. I also find it annoying because I feel like I've seen hip hop described in this way to the point of cliche, it just seems to be the way hip hop fans speak about it as a kind of collective unconscious (and I implicate my former self in this as a once big hip hop fan).
If I were to summarize the analysis of the "dancing" tweet you posted, I'd say "hip-hop is decadent and conservatives don't like that." Then the response would either be hip-hop isn't so decadent or that actually decadence is okay, and you appear to argue the former.
One issue I have is that I see most modern music as decadent, and so arguing that hip hop influenced modern music doesn't move me. But I lean more towards decadence is fine, and it's just a kind of natural part of culture, and you basically need to navigate it for yourself with a measure of stoicism. But also, as a multi-culturalist liberal, I think a lot of the "Black" construction around hip-hop and in general is unhelpful when it's bought into by the right or the left. Anyone I meet who has "Blackness" as a sticking point, either way, is someone I would hope that introducing Jazz to would help loosen that and help one move towards common humanistic values.
I would recommend listening to A Love Supreme and reading the liner notes if you haven't. It's something to really think about, and I think could alter your view towards what the components of a song are/can be.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
My main complaint is that it slows my reading speed to a crawl. I think partly because space is used inefficiently, and it also just makes it slower/harder to parse text when you dont have paragraph structure.
somethingsomething
9mo ago
I think the "tiktokification of text" is a pretty major downside. Twitter has the capability of being used in a highbrow manner. Instagram was the same way, until they almost destroyed it, and now it's in an uneasy middle-state.
I think ultimately serious, normal adults are not interested in wading through a mixture of adolescent snark and not-subtle, vapid, hail-corporate-adjacent self promotion to actually exchange ideas. I feel like there is still a huge opportunity for substack notes to be "hey we are the serious place" but their app sucks.
Maybe gen z just takes the whole internet and destroys everything good about it. Not sure at this point.
somethingsomething
10mo ago
I think this is what's missing from the modern gender debate with the supposedly traditionalist right wing view (that I am sympathetic to). Traditionally if there was a profession, men were almost exclusively doing it, and so we can realistically expect men to have a pretty broad palette of expressiveness.
I basically see it as male security -> women enter workforce -> male anxiety -> men undermining and sniping at each other, enforcing too restrictive gender roles. The result is broader male expression gets twisted into shame-coated "queer" outlets rather than being healthily expressed, and traditionalists are confused into not realizing the anxiety itself (part of) the problem.
somethingsomething
1yr ago
Before this, both maleness and presumably some horrible mental health issue were both necessary conditions for school shootings. It seems very telling that in this case when we finally see a woman do it, it's one who saw themselves as a man, and was possibly treated with male sex hormones.
So whether it's "more" about maleness or mental illness doesn't really matter, because empirically you need to have both.
It's also a pretty absurd trope. I'd be surprised if anyone really believes that the successful men in the dating market are always or even mostly those who "respect women". It's an interesting inconsistency so many liberals have where they simultaneously see all of these issues in gender relations and yet so often the dating scene is "working as intended" when they want to use it as a cudgel.
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