Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life (2021)

epsilontheory.com

87 pointsBrajeshwar58 comments

i've heard ben hunt (epsilon theory) talk on various podcasts and he can spend literally 2 hours talking about something that can be said in one sentence.

i'm sure he's very smart but all of his material is such a slog i don't even bother anymore.

a lot of these ex-hedge fund podcast guys just love to hear themselves talk for hours on end. especially about how bad the current finance industry is, and of course when they did it, it was different, they were good, don't you see?

finance is 99% bullshit artistry until you get to stochastic calculus and linear algebra. i recommend everyone just sit down and learn all the jargon. it's extremely complex language talking about extremely simple shit.

For this article in particular the author could have cut the entire intro down to two sentences and then each of the 25 tips could be one or two sentences each. Nothing of value would have been lost, indeed, that's all I read of it.

There's good ideas in here, but no one reads shit that isn't in dot points.

I read the whole thing, but yes, he doesn't have much to say that isn't obvious.

And how is "deep silence" different from regular silence? I've been in an anechoic chamber, and find it peaceful, but I don't think that's what he meant.

Useful wisdom that you don't hear much:

- Spend less than you earn, and life will be good to you. (Franklin).

- Do one less thing than you can do.

- Minimize your therbligs until it becomes automatic. (Heinlein)

- Clean as you go.

Read "The Maxims of Francois de La Rochefoucauld", which is cynically useful.

By deep silence he probably means "having nothing to do and doing nothing", a rare luxury

I feel like the mask is coming off these tech/hedge fund guys. It was ZIRP the whole time. They're smart but they're not god damned geniuses.

> The sooner you kill this beast within yourself, the sooner you can get to the real work of creating something that the market itself will validate

Highly anti-mimetic then, so long as you're committed to entrepreneuring and being validated by the market. Wait, what?

To be fair there was an “–or not” at the end of that quote, and I assume that the dash was for emphasis. Not clear what was meant by it though

It is meant to hedge against anyone mistakenly interpreting the sentence as having any meaning.

well put! "hedge against" ... will incorporate that in my vocabulary

I read it as you need to stop consuming and start creating _something_ if you’re ever going to get noticed (we all need to be noticed, humans die when they are alone).

But creating something doesn’t guarantee you’ll succeed. A “You’ve got to be in it to have a chance at winning it” kind of message.

I interpreted the "-or not" to mean the market might not validate your hypothesis, which still has the same problem of emphasizing market success

> "the sooner you can get to the real work of creating something that the market itself will validate — or not."

I think the "or not" (that you've skipped) is crucial. In my reading, it emphasizes the irony that market validation might be just another flavor of social validation.

I read the paragraph as saying "the market is what you should want to validate you - or not (it might reject you) instead of the 'theater' of seeking publicity." It seems dreadfully sincere about "market validation" still being good while "publicity validation" is "bad." Despite "do something the market values" is basically foundational western capitalistic culture.

Look at the rest of the list too: It's all about being "socially" "counter-cultural" to pursue extremely traditional cultural things (market validated company! classic films! be grounded in the real! go analog! etc).

well, the context is within entrepreneurship: it's under "don't participate in Shark-Tankification of worth." basically dont be a wantrepreneur seeking vanity metrics.

i do agree the essay is very capitalist centric, but maybe that's the best point: society is tracking 1:1 with commercialism these days?

> Each of us has the power, though, to make our experiences a bit less stressful and more enjoyable if we take advantage of the off-peak times when we have the freedom to do things on our own time. Some of my favorites include: going to the bar of a restaurant between 2–5pm when I’m the only person in the place and knocking out some work over an appetizer; going to museums (I live in DC, so there are a ton of great ones) during weekday mornings; and golfing at twilight where the rates are cheaper and there are 80% less people on the course (I also happen to think it’s the most beautiful time of the day to golf, anyway.

Doing work at a restaurant over appetizers at 3pm, very anti-mimetic. Apparently one of the keys of being anti-memetic is being 'already rich'.

Yeah. This article feels just a step away from saying "To live a happier life, just tell your parents to increase your allowance to 10k a week.".

The average white collar worker can afford to pay for an appetizer at a restaurant for lunch.

DC museums are free.

Public golf courses aren't a luxury item.

Even better is "Filter feedback the way you filter calories: take only what you need. Take the rest with a grain of salt."

It takes a special kind of person to write that and not even look like they workout at all.

As a Girard fan that is trying to read the Golden Bough, I hate this guy so much.

Most restaurants with bars are closed between 3 and 7, finished with lunch and busy prepping for dinner.

flippant comment that's provably false. id say more restaurants have happy hour exactly to create value during this slow time, than are closed.

I have never, in my 40+ years of life, been to a restaurant with "happy hour", ymmv.

This is strongly regional, some do but most restaurants in more urban-ish US areas don't close between lunch and dinner in my experience. Had some culture shock in Europe when there's zero prepared food available for purchase in a whole town at 2pm.

Since when is eating an appetizer from a restaurant for the "rich"?

I love this checklist of behaviors that I can follow to ensure that I’m not following any trends.

Number 9 will shock you! Don't forget to smash that subscribe button and share with your friends.

This list is a bit outdated, there are some newer better versions trending.

Is there a newsletter that provides updates on this? It’s disconcerting that I may be conforming unwittingly.

Of all the things humans participate in to try and forget we eventually die, rejecting the one thing that makes humans special (our society, culture) seems to be to be among the most myopic viewpoints to take.

Mostly because it's so self-defeating. Counter-culture is a culture, just a different one. All of the stuff you hated about human culture and want to eschew also exists in the "counter" culture!

Maybe off topic to what you meant but I find the "to forget we will die" an unfortunate frame.

I find some of the best people are motivated by the knowledge that they will die and therefore try to make good and impactful use of their limited time here.

I recently had a thought : I know a rabbi who has 11 children. If all of his children follow suit, he will get to meet 121 of his grandchildren in the next 20-30 years.

Now imagine you are on your deathbed and you are surrounded by your 11 children and 121 grandchildren and they are all good and strong people. Do you really lament your own death or do you have a feeling of 'I will be continued.'

A new thought for me...

I think my feeling would be “The planet cannot possibly stand having 100 grandchildren for every current person. What have I done!?!?”

The "good news" (though I don't think it's good) is that an average person is having zero children.

I suspect a generation out, we will be super grateful for those who had many, not those who had none.

Or more like, we'll probably completely forget about those who had none - as history has with those who've made that decision in the past.

Indeed. We are experiencing a demographic catastrophe. Malthusian hysteria seems impervious to reason.

> I suspect a generation out, we will be super grateful for those who had many, not those who had none.

By definition! An understatement. Exactly zero members of the future population will be descendants of those who had no children, and it is difficult to imagine anyone of sound mind shaking his fist at his ancestors for having bred.

But we still should have more. Even many of the ruling class who have among their highest priorities the goal of shifting the blame and burden for climate change onto the commoners believe that birth rates are so low that even immigration is needed to increase populations in the most highly polluting per-capita countries. So if climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity, the population crisis must be even greater.

> Do you really lament your own death or do you have a feeling of 'I will be continued.'

The rabbi is very blessed and I am happy for him, but it is important to note that this line involves an equivocation of two meanings of "continuation", using the figurative meaning (in the sense of "legacy") to suggest the literal meaning (immortality). Legacy is all fine and good, but it is no substitute for immortality. Furthermore, legacy without immortality merely passes the buck: those children and grandchildren, too, will die. The human species and the universe will probably be extinguished. So even the value of legacy really presupposes the immortality of the human person. To wit, a true materialist, trapped, as he is, in bad metaphysics, cannot take comfort in legacy on his death bed. His life, and the lives of everyone else, are reducible to nothing but meaningless atoms bouncing around aimlessly in a void, temporary arrangements that briefly coagulate and then dissolve. Nothing lasts, nothing progresses, nothing makes any difference, all is senseless flux. Perhaps the materialist simply won't care about his passing, as it will be as meaningless as the rest of his brief existence.

I agree intellectually, of course. But there’s something strange about watching my kid grow. They are so much like me. Sometimes it’s as if I can read their mind.

Self defeating? Au contrair, it’s self perpetuating! Subcultures continuously spin off, develop new interesting features that the mainstream is too chickenshit to fuck with, only for those features to inevitably be absorbed back into the primary culture. Every weirdo has something to offer!

Since this is so longwinded, here’s a language-model-generated summary from kagi.com:

- Being anti-mimetic means having the freedom to counteract negative forms of mimetic desire that lead to unhealthy obsessions and never-satisfied striving.

- Anti-mimetic actions are a sign of contradiction to a culture that likes to float downstream.

- Scheduling activities at off-peak times can make experiences less stressful and more enjoyable.

- Reading books that challenge your views can broaden your perspective.

- Filtering feedback and only taking what you need helps you move forward, not live in the past.

- Investing in deep silence can help people embrace their purpose and reduce chasing bad ideas.

- Setting up an environment away from mimetically popular locations can help escape negative forces of mimesis.

- Speaking the truth, even when inconvenient, is foundational to living an anti-mimetic life.

- Developing the skill of de-escalation is important but rarely possessed.

- Discovering and living out your personal calling helps you navigate the mimetic noise of the world.

Looking over the points, it almost feels like the source material might have been generated by a language model in the first place. It’s a bunch of buzzwords and typical listicle-style advice tied to “anti-memisis” :/

True, and notably, the LLM couldn't seem to break down the meaning of "deep silence".

Counter Culture is not valuable in and itself. Sometimes your government is doing the right thing. Sometimes corporations create new things that have immense value for society and the individual. Being opposite of the main narrative doesn't mean you are closer to the truth.

Tell that to Q-anon or anyone whose sense of self-worth is derived from being able to see 'The Truth'.

I will happily tell any q-anon devotee that their opposition to the 'main narrative' is not not valuable and they are not closer to the truth for it. It may be a mentality from which they derive a sense of self-worth, but that does not make it a net positive influence on their own lives or society generally. Delusion is perhaps the worst way to derive a sense of self-worth.

I woke up this morning still angry about a “discussion” I had with an denialist nutbag and this was my first thought when I read that comment.

Discussed at the time:

Anti-mimetic tactics for living a counter-cultural life - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29692848 - Dec 2021 (267 comments)

Anti-Mimetic Tactics for Living a Counter-Cultural Life - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29592786 - Dec 2021 (5 comments)

There is no anti-memetics division

(this is in reference to the amazing novel/series by qntm: https://qntm.org/scp)

Yes, I misread the title as anti-memetic, but it is anti-mimetic which is very different.

Hm, I had thought it was two different spellings of the same word. It does seem the ideas were created independently but are quite similar (I'm reading https://marketingmemetics.com/essays/mimetics-vs-memetics )

Great ideas but a huge shit-mess. IIRC it’s a lightly-edited compilation of his SCP writings? I enjoyed Ra and Fine Structure much more.

Yeah. Here's the review I wrote when I read it: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3687038034

Haven't read any of his other stuff, thanks for the recommendation.

Isn't the entire point of it to be a mess, and to be hard to parse, because the topic is hard? I found it to be one of the most deeply engaging things I've read for ages, precisely because I had to put it down after each chapter and process it.

Bit ironic the anti-mimetic counter cultural artcle is written in full longform buzzfeed clickbate style.

i would prefer not to

bartleby is the only antimimetic character, fictional or otherwise, who has ever been contrived

I don't know how valuable the advice : "Hey, become an autodidact!" is.

To become an autodidact, first, teach yourself to be an autodidact.

This is a great article, it's nice to have someone else come to the same conclusions about life and ways to live.

I never considered it would be "counter-cultural life" but I agree with that phrase now that I read all this and it lets me be confused into thinking - am I just supposed to mirror what other people want? e.g. the American dream, the car in the driveway, the wife and 2.5 kids stereotype.

So it's nice.

I like how invested this guy is in not following the crowd but he references Rene girard and whoever NNT is so much I think he's just following them instead.

"Yes, we're all individuals!"

"I'm not."

"Nothing can satisfy, but what confounds; Nothing, but what astonishes, is true." Edward Young, Night Thoughts

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