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Comment by idclip | Hacker News Reader

Familiarity breeds contempt.

One thing to understand, from a meditative pov, society and its industry is unconscious Ego dynamics. Its full of projection, and mostly people playing out unresolved trauma.

The unconscious Ego is mostly good at choose(Like, Dislike) and has very little regard for the human underneath, since, especially in form of an Institution/Company, it cant see its own humanity.

This is why people sound authentic in person, but start to act out draconian aggression fantasies as a collective, which starts with the creeping disenchantment - Alot like many and most young human relationship.

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> Familiarity breeds contempt.

This is actually encoded into a common expression in Nothern Sotho. In the infinitive go tlwaela the meaning is to get use to or to grow accustomed to something. But when you say O a ntlwaela, as in: "You are getting used to me," you are actually telling the person that they are being contemptuous.

In fact, this principle is so well developed in the Northern Sotho language that you can even use the phrase for someone that is not in fact accustomed to you. For example, I was at the recycling site the other day and this guy came up to me and was pissed that I came in and didn't do what he wanted me to do (which could have been a fair objection) but he also as a side remark called me racist. To which I responded, "O a ntlwaela." In context, what I am really saying would be that he is stereotyping me. His response, realising he made a mistake, was to just deny it without substantiation, as in "Ke go tlwaela bjang?" Essentially he was saying: "How am I being familiar with you?"

The answer was of course that he was calling me racist because I reminded him of someone else; i.e., a steriotype he was used to. In any case, I did not point this out any further and just left.

Me and my partner are working on actually hacking this to increase love, respeft abd compassion in our relationship.

I am discovering that i can only love her as deeply as i can love myself - what you said about the “getting used to” - i will Forward to her. In a way, we must never get used to each other. And that’s deep work ...

Sorry you also were victim of projection .. its tge mechanism that holds us hostage as a species - and threatens us with war even. My ex called me sexist and racist as well - i knew she was a good person, and i know i wasnt those things, and i even understood her father trauma which made her say those things, but it still hurts. Its our job to contain all this .. it really helps growth. Did you consider reading books about children upbringing psychology? Its very helpful!

> children upbringing psychology

Is this psychology that focuses on when you were a child and how you were raised (as opposed to child psychology)?

Mhmm, im not a complete expert. Just a dude who reads books.

I understand child paychology i in the “playing and imagination” - attachment theory model -

What i actually meant is a rott parenting book, something such as the informed parent perhaps! A friend sweats by NLP, but i find it dubios myself.

> One thing to understand, from a meditative pov, society and its industry is unconscious Ego dynamics. Its full of projection, and mostly people playing out unresolved trauma.

Not sure about meditative pov's, sounds rather like psychoanalysis, but this simple model has a lot of truth behind it. However we should note not everyone is trapped in an immature emotional state. There's plenty of grown-ups and cooler heads out there too. Academia is a rather solitary field, people can avoid talking to each other most of the time if they want. So the immature can still thrive. And of course if they can keep it together till they get tenured, we're stuck with them. Industry is often different. If someone can't work well with others there is mounting pressure to get rid of them.

I don't know that a collective of engineers and software developers would behave quite so primitively. Defense lawyers, for example, try to keep them off juries because they are often impossible to sway out of their analytical opinions using emotional appeals.

I think your industrial experience is a bit different than mine - but i must say even in mine, i think the toxicity was the result of high yearly % growth (50%+) and the new guys made the older guys nervous.

HR seems to me to be uniformally draconian-leaning. Ironically, our HR manager tells us of her nightmare job at IBM. EA well known either, and niether are the IT fabs, though its not exatly IT.

I think youre right though, and the evidence to that is that we still sort of function, as opposed to be burning this thing down. Though it sometimes seems it might happen. Heh!

> Familiarity breeds contempt.

And it goes both ways. It is quite common to start a new gig being energetic and enthusiastic. Even chores feel not that bad and even interesting. Fast forward 6 months and the enthusiasm wanes, everything starts looking quotidian and boring. I guess humans are just fond of shiny new stuff.

"Familiarity breeds contempt."

Maybe if you are aware of it, you can control it?

"Nobody is a prophet in their own land", is another thing that comes to mind.

Why did we evolve this way? I can't think of obvious reasons. I understand the phenomenon and I've seen it in close families (people that are capable of respecting others, are not respectful to their own blood family members).

Yes, this is what i have learned. Doing this with my partner. We both are aware, and trying hard. I joke and call it ego hacking. In my professional life i developed a very unique approach, i try to remain authentic, and show alot of understanding when people mess up. Sort of leading by example. Some friends say i let things go, that they would sue over.

And well, from my underatanding? Its the result of sentience - every sensing organ we have is connected to that big brain, and the systems compete for decision making. Negative tends to win since it proved protective thus far.

And addendum, we also evolved the ability to see pur own bullshit, but are sort of struggling with mastering it (called it religion, we allow it to get corrupted by power, etc) - but i can say for sure that meditation works.

There are lots of counterexamples: we are familiar with plenty that we do not regard with contempt.

For instance, ice cream, the fresh blue sky and panda bears.

I would revise that as "gradual discovery of the full extent of the contemptible traits of something is predictably associated with a rise in contempt".

This is worth a separate post, as there's a lot to unpack here.

I think the key is just:

> Familiarity breeds contempt.

This alone explains the "honeymoon period" without introducing unconscious aggregate Egos of companies or societies.

Or as Ivan Karamasov said, 'One can only love strangers'

How do I go about resolving this trauma?

Id recommend a vipassana with a compassionate teacher.

Our traumas want to be experienced and looked at. But we learned the art of unconscious repression so we can “function” - no one tells you the price is being unknowingly sent to a near literal hell.

Climbing out on Jacob’s ladder is always an open option. Dune’s Qum J’bbar is real, and a vipassana is a good place to start.

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