Hacker News Reader

Comment by myWindoonn | Hacker News Reader

But, uh, any evidence that that's real? We should be careful with Gödel's results here; the Gödelian incompleteness of the human mind is that a human cannot consistently believe that everything they believe is true. It has nothing to do with sanity and perception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxastic_logic

View on HN

I think if you take these parables literally, there probably isn't a single input that will reliably cause the mind to self-destruct, but they are a cautionary warning. The internet gives plenty of evidence to support the theory that memetic hazards (1) exist, (2) are more transmissible than widely believed and (3) repeated exposure will cause cognitive malfunction.

What evidence are you referring to? Trying to search for this is impossible, keeps throwing SCP results.

To share specific examples here would be irresponsible. But qualitatively speaking, one could argue that viral media are mild forms of memetic hazard propelling irrational, conspiratorial, or even extremist behavior in the real world. While the internet has many positive effects on our society, regardless of your political orientation, I think most would agree that instant, unfettered access to information can also lead to dysfunctional side-effects.

The mere idea of basilisks was enough to make the rationalist community self-destruct.

How rational of them!

I'm not sure if this is entirely true but it does seem like the lesswrong community happened to peak around this time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com