The internet didn’t kill counterculture, it's just not on Instagram (2021)
documentjournal.com
documentjournal.com
Interesting enough quote, maybe obvious but maybe a nice reminder too.
> Search Google Images for ‘counterculture’ and it overwhelmingly returns black-and-white photos of young people all now over 60.
I just love the idea of some social media addicted teenager trying to break free and google image searching "counterculture"... I'm sure that was me c.2005
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counterculture (n.)
also counter-culture, "way of life or collective values deliberately at variance with the prevailing norms of a time and place," 1968, from counter- + culture (n.).
Popularized by, and perhaps coined in, the book "The Making of a Counter Culture" by U.S. academic Theodore Roszak. As an adjective by 1972.
And because even if it was nominally a generic term, its use to describe the generic phenomenon faded with the aging of the particular youth counterculture movement it was coined for; “punk” and later movements which might fairly be described as countercultural were never as popularly labeled with the term “counterculture” as the hippies were, and now it's a term groups overtly focused on exaggerating traditional elements of mainstream culture claim as a means of clout chasing.
I'm too old to know what the current counter culture is. I think when I was young it was the emo crowd making melancholy ok (not emo so guessing).
Its old people from the establishment culture that elevate particular countercultural movements to the status of “the counterculture” of the time.
In a world where virtually everything is either designed to completely waste your time or fail and not be repairable, it's a highly radical act to stop consuming like the 95%, preferring to spend time with other humans in reality doing something that isn't technological. In spite of the popular world pushing the message that you will be fulfilled living in virtual reality and consuming soy/insect products, the radical sets their phone to "do not disturb" and plays frisbee-golf or pub trivia.
During Covid lockdowns I joined a powerlifting gym that was a startup in an old dry cleaners, had to “try out” to get in (make sure I wasn’t a narc), was the only gym in a city of 5+ million that was open and they had papered over the windows so prying eyes couldn’t observe the no-masks inside. I had the fewest tats in the place, you only wear black, there will never be any TVs and the heaviest lifter in there at the time gets to control the Spotify station which is always metal.
They have both a pro-2A plaque and a trans flag on the wall. One of the co-owners is gay and films onlyfans in the gym at night.
Fast forward years later and I get my coffee beans from a startup local roaster who hosts an Elvis impersonator, for the motorcycle meetup, I learned where the tats get done, I support a local microbrewery, there is a cafe where I get lunch, I got my black t shirts from a designer…every single business owner I just mentioned goes to the same gym.
It’s a neat little community. And I’ve NEVER seen one of these people pull out a phone around others (unless they were filming a PR for their trainer)
I inferred it was lockdown/facemask or otherwise Corona related. I knew a couple of underground bars/restaurants that operated in a similar "speakeasy" fashion back in the 'rona times.
So you consume/buy products that are most likely pricier, but sell you the idea of being 'more valueable' because they are organic, local this, that. And this is your idea of counter-culture and non-participation? You buy things and consume products that Walmart doesn't sell? This seems like a pretty generic, consumerist way to to distinguish yourself from the rabbles and appears to me like a typical 2010s hipster lifestyle you are portaying. But the so-called counter-culture crowd you found doesn't pull out their smartphones when being around others, therefore they renounce the modern tech world?
I really can't say if your post was meant to be sarcastic or if I am just not getting the joke or you are being serious.
>They have both a pro-2A plaque and a trans flag on the wall. One of the co-owners is gay and films onlyfans in the gym at night
heh, that's good though. the oppressed are the ones that should worry about armaments the most -- stonewall riots and such. Previously Haymarket.
A large group of individuals who live their life very differently from the mainstream (countercultures do not have to be opt-in), who have completely different goals/morals/motivations than the mainstream, and are fully and violently rejected by the mainstream.
I think the 1960’s mythology confused a lot of people into thinking that counterculture is what young white people choose to do to seem cool, but homeless people are actually probably the most prominent counterculture America has ever had.
In practice, it’s hard to think of something more core to American culture than private property ownership and we have an increasing large group of people who are not participants in that.
Yes, it does, and it has to have aspirational elements, distinct from those of the mainstrram it is defined against. Otherwise, while it is a a distinct (possibly sub-)culture, it isn’t a counterculture.
When you have to alter the widely understood meaning of a term to argue everyone else is overlooking an example, its a pretty good clue that its not an example.
> I think the 1960’s mythology confused a lot of people into thinking that counterculture is what young white people choose to do to seem cool,
Well, yes, “counterculture” was largely a label of the 1960s version of the boomer/millenial fight, but for “Greatest" vs Boomers, and without the adoption of marketing generational terms, and then as now it mainly applied to whites, because if it wasn’t intergenerational cultural conflict within White America, it got other labels.
I agree homeless people aren’t a political movement that’s trying to abolish homes, but they are completely rejecting mainstream culture (by choice or not).
> Countercultures are often described as radical groups of people who reject established social values and practices and who embrace a mode of life opposed to the mainstream. Countercultures emerge in the wake of dramatic economic and social developments. They are reactions to social dislocation and alienation from society. Countercultures share many similarities with subcultures, but rather than modifying dominant values and norms, they seek to reconstruct an alternative social order that rejects or subverts those values and norms.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/counter...
Choice is fundamental to rejection, and rejection is fundamental to counter culture.
The Roma are an interesting example, but not all homeless are Roma, so you can't generalize the idea. It's also interesting to question if Roma constitute a counterculture, and if so what culture they are in juxtaposition with given the fact that Roma culture predates contemporary culture
Most Westerners 'reject' Marxism, but that's not because we choose not to live in Marxist societies, it's because none exist that would take a Westerner in.
"Choice" is very often an expression of circumstance, and I would again argue the emphasis on wealthy white people choosing to become hippies in the 1960s has really skewed peoples idea of what a counterculture is.
Re Marxism, Most people reject Marxism by not desiring it or desiring to implement it. They have the choice to advocate for it or vote for Marxists, but in general do not. However, some do choose it and there is a small US communist party.
They live in cultures completely counter to Marxism. In practice they reject Marxism because they do not live its principles.
If there is more in your power to do and you choose not to, then that is rejection.
This comes back to rejection being a matter of choice.
Does a slave reject freedom, because they dont have it and cant obtain it? Is a cancer patient who cant afford treatment rejecting treatment? Of course we wouldnt say these things because rejection implies option and choice.
If that's not a counter-culture, then what is a counterculture exactly?
Romas are having their own lifestyle and values. If they are counterculture, every minority is counterculture. Would you say that Asians or orthodox Jews are counterculture?
Oh, this is such an excellent point. I talk with a lot of homeless people regularly, and they've even begun to adopt a more overt tone of counterculture: I've been increasingly hearing fantasies from them about a "homeless uprising/revolution".
I don't think homelessness is a counterculture, unless it's been adopted as a conscious choice/preference. My understanding is the vast majority of homeless are such because of involuntary mental health/substance abuse issues or poverty. It might be a subculture, but not all subcultures are countercultures.
That's irrelevant. IMHO, making the conscious choice to rebel against mainstream culture is the defining characteristic of a counterculture. Not all cultural affiliations typically have so much "choice" but countercultures do.
A counterculture doesn't have to be a thing for commoners. It can be limited to the upper classes.
The most famous example is probably the Socrates and his academy. Athenians saw him as a dangerous sophist that corrupted the youth, a common trope with regards to counter-cultural leaders. Eventually he was executed for that very reason.
Of course, by the time the man was executed, young aristocrats who had been under Socrates' tutelage had killed about 5% of the citizens in an attempt to abolish democracy and establish a proto-totalitarian regime in the Spartan model, which may or may not prove the Athenians right.
A bit off-topic, but I'm curious if you have any advice for finding seasonal jobs? It feels a bit ironic to be working in tech, making twice what I actually need to live off of, but with no real option to just work half as much.
I have recently been surprised to learn how robust both the stamp collecting and model railroading hobbies are these days.
Living in the HN bubble, I just assumed they were both dead. They're not. Not by a long shot. I wonder what other "old timey" hobbies are still popular.
It's pretty cool seeing the older train hobbyists training new folks on how to create trees, little homes, automated circuits, etc.
What's even more cool is them interacting with the community and sharing their knowledge to wide-eyed little kids. Warms the heart seeing people of all ages bonding over a shared interest.
But you won't find any of these online.
I'm confident railroads will continue to be a thing though, its ajacent to wargaming which I know is going strong from my own participation :)
I believe amateur/ham radio is experiencing a similar aging out of interest as well.
This was one of my two outlets for social participation until about 10+ years ago, but this pursuit has been ruined by phones. Participants cheat without a second thought and the emcees refuse to enforce rules.
Wanting a well-balanced life isn't being a "luddite". Also, the term "luddite" as an insult is in fashion these days and is tossed around so often that it's become mostly meaningless anyway. It does tell you something interesting about the people who use it, though.
Kinda ironic that it’s more often than not the techie folks who are unplugging more often so to speak.
I’ve specifically thought about how stupid the loop is of building stuff at the computer and then turning around and consume all the same stuff I build for work (so to speak). Every time I’m on Reddit I hate myself. I also hate that that I can’t install an easy DNS blocking tool that isn’t likely selling my traffic and also works always (ie mobile and Wi-Fi, so PiHole is only half of this).
It’s like being too far past the abstraction to see the tech product galaxy as a “worthwhile activity” and I try to keep it out of my life now.
Just did a quick search in my iPhone settings and it seems like I can’t actually set up DNS myself. I do know I can configure a VPN, point it at your home network, at that point the PiHole can do its thing again.
I wish sometimes someone could offer up a solution where if I opted in, then reddit and the rest of my known offender websites that suck my time and attention abilities away get blocked for life. The issue, in my mind, is essentially mass auto-opting in to tech consumer patterns and it being very hard to “opt out” without data sales/privacy or DIY FOSS blocking.
I wish I had better willpower to stop my internet patterns organically, and I have axed out big chunks over the years (social media is only hackernews and LI for me). Or, I could probably reach out for an ADHD diagnosis. I’m fairly certain I don’t have it unless it’s some internet-induced version, but I know the RXs work for focus. I don’t want to get locked into a RX dependency just for 101 life functionality in the face of the internet though. Tough times.
* $5/month VPS running Wireguard and pihole
* Use iOS/Android Wireguard app to route all traffic through VPS with local VPS pihole as your Wireguard DNS server.
If me and the homies get together weekly for bible study and fried crickets does that not fit into what you're describing?
Even if it was a baseless conspiracy theory, it doesn't detract from the value of the rest of the comment.
But the likely motivation for the "insects as edible protein" stories always struck me as investor-focused PR for insect farming companies and not real consumer market positioning. For one thing, practically no products were mentioned that are on shelves, except for "cricket powder", but the real money is not in selling ingredients. In reality, insects are still expensive, and the protein quality is disappointing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCAAS#Example_values
^ has caterpillars at 0.77 and crickets at 0.69, comparing unfavorably with legumes, cashews, quinoa etc. Silkworm pupae score very well, but silkworms have been cultivated since forever and remain expensive.
For convincing the greater fool that you can generate returns with a cricket farming security, though, a few NPR articles about insect food need not be specific or correct.
Lots of conspiracy theories are plausible. With the sheer number of them, some of them will have strong elements of truth, even.
Conspiracy theory isn't an epistemological designation, it's a political and rhetorical one. [ETA: To clarify, by political, I mean "within political science" not "for political ends". That also happens, of course, it's just not what I refer to here.] A conspiracy theory purports to explain something, but actually serves to justify an ideology by stealth.
Lots of anti-LGBTQ ideology disguises itself as concern about transhumanism ("they want to turn us into soy boy sheep plugged into virtual reality" sort of rhetoric).
But nowadays, "conspiracy theory" is mostly used to discredit legitimate opinions or ideologies just because the powers being don't like them.
ETA: I think I understand better the miscommunication here, I didn't mean "for political ends," I meant more, "within the context of political science." Like you might say, "it's a physical phenomenon as opposed to a chemical one."
Believing the Earth is flat isn't a conspiracy theory; believing that a secret organisation is suppressing this knowledge in favour of a false globe model is a conspiracy theory.
Believing that certain social structures/institutions disadvantage the poor isn't a conspiracy theory; believing that these are consciously perpetuated by the richest, through media control, political influence, etc. is a conspiracy theory.
There's also "conspiratorial thinking", which is distinct from any individual theory. This is a form of incorrect/irrational reasoning, whose chains of argument tend to produce conspiracy theories. A common example is getting logical implications the wrong way round, i.e. treating Theory -> Observation ("if atmospheric CO2 spontaneously condensed into dirty clothes, it would explain why my laundry basket keeps filling up") as if it were Observation -> Theory ("since my laundry basket does keep filling up, that means CO2 does condense into dirty clothes!").
Conspiratorial thinking is dangerous, since it allows any observations to be used as "proof" of basically any statement; including mutually-inconsistent ideas. Incorporating more and more of these into a single worldview requires adding epicycles and exceptions; more extraordinary, convoluted coincidences; requiring a state of affairs that is incredibly unlikely to occur by chance. The fixed-point of such reasoning is that it's not chance, but is instead engineered by someone. This is a stable solution, since any evidence to the contrary is just "proof" that it's a wider conspiracy; or involves more powerful people; or advanced secret technology; or aliens; or divine intervention; etc.
PS: Whilst implications don't logically imply their inverse; they do provide statistical evidence of their inverse. In other words, a full laundry basket isn't proof of CO2 condensation, but it is evidence. The conspiratorial mistake is to avoid normalising this evidence by the theory's prior probability. Specifically, my belief in CO2 condensation after seeing a full laundry basket should be the probability that CO2 condensation would cause it (~100%), divided by the probability of seeing a full laundry basket regardless of cause (~90%), multiplied by my previous belief that CO2 condenses into dirty clothes (~0%). Whilst the division by 90% will slightly boost my belief, that final multiplication will dominate; ensuring it stays near zero.
PPS: The conspiracy theory that the rich maintain societal systems that disadvantage the poor doesn't require conspiratorial reasoning; e.g. we can look at how much is donated to progressives/conservatives and their respective policies, etc. In contrast, maintaining a belief that the Earth is flat, despite all of the clear evidence to the contrary, requires some form of irrationality, such as conspiratorial thinking.
I disagree with the part where you say "merely," a conspiracy theory plays a particular role within political discourse.
Conspiracy theories are intimately connected with power relations and ideology. They are also syncretic (or at least, the ones that fail to be perish) - they can incorporate any idea and even contradictory ideas and accommodate them, and the contradictions only serve to reinforce the theory rather than weaken it. That's very different than other kinds of "theory".
I suppose the best we can hope for is to try and remain grounded in empiricism; call out incorrect arguments when we notice them (even for causes we agree with; we should prefer alternative, better arguments); and always allow for the possibility that we're wrong ;)
(I'd propose "memetic evolution" or "memetic Darwinism" to avoid the association with like social darwinism and race "science" though.)
That’s not a good indicator of “what is a conspiracy theory”.
All movements for social change are positively brimming with “rhetoric that serves to promote an agenda”, and isn’t trying to “explain a phenomenon that we didn’t understand previously”-it is a persuasive discourse not an explanatory one. On the contrary, activists often resist complex explanations for phenomena relevant to their cause, because many of them see nuance and complexity as a distraction from persuading the masses to support them, and simple messages do that best. None of that makes such movements a conspiracy theory - conspiracy theories exist in such movements too, but most of their leaders are smart enough to view those theories as baggage holding the movement back, and hence discourage them rather than encourage them.
Conspiracy theories are found all over the political spectrum-both on the far left and the far right, and everywhere in-between. They can serve any political agenda-including agendas you or I support. The problem with defending your agenda using a conspiracy theory, is that even if your agenda is correct, arguing for it on the basis of an unfalsifiable theory is almost always irrational, and it is irrational to defend even a correct agenda using an irrational argument.
Then it doesn't meet my criteria and I have no problem with it? I don't think we disagree.
I'm not trying to say every argument for an ideology is a conspiracy theory. I don't have a problem with ideology (though I have problems with particular ideologies), and I don't have a problem with making a case for an ideology. I have a problem with "justifying ideology by stealth" as I called it, deceptive framing which seeks not to argue by presupposing your conclusions in your unstated assumptions. (The same goes for related concepts like "agenda".)
I guess I neglected to include the requirement, "...and it is represented as theory to understand a phenomenon, rather than a set of normative ideas."
If I could have expressed myself in a less confusing way, I'm open to suggestions. Based on the responses I didn't explain myself that well.
That's a different issue from conspiracy theories.
For example, a traditional conspiracy theory in left-wing Australian politics, is that the centre-right Australian government intentionally timed the April 1954 defection of KGB agent Vladimir Petrov (based at the Soviet Embassy in Canberra), to maximise the political damage to the centre-left opposition in the next month's election. It wasn't until 30 years later that the release of secret government records proved the conspiracy theory false (although who knows, maybe there are some left-wing diehards out there who still believe in it: how can we be sure those secret records weren't faked or tampered with prior to their release?). That was a conspiracy theory, but it had nothing to do with "justifying ideology by stealth".
> I guess I neglected to include the requirement, "...and it is represented as theory to understand a phenomenon, rather than a set of normative ideas."
In practice almost all normative disputes sooner or later become factual disputes as well. An ideal model of human rationality might suggest "we are never going to agree on values, but at least we can agree on facts", but in practice humans rarely work that way. Everybody does it, at least to some degree, nobody is entirely innocent of the temptation to read the data in the way which best supports their normative biases.
- Flat Earth conspiracism is about an anti-intellectual pan-Christian traditionalist ideology
- QAnon is about a similar pan-Christian ideology, and a sort of radical personal responsibility
- Antisemitic conspiracy theories are about an ideology of white supremacy, and of mythic struggle among "races". It's an ideology of strict good and evil, defined not by actions or outcomes but by alignment in a sort of cosmic conflict.
Factual and normative disputes are both fine, I'm arguing against a form of bad faith.
May I ask if you've ever had an extended conversation with a conspiracy theorist?
Are you familiar with UFO conspiracy theories such as Area 51/Roswell/etc? What is their ideology? How about JFK assassination conspiracy theories, what ideology are they? What is the ideology of the moon landing hoax theory? Or the conspiracy theory (which a taxi driver once tried to convince me of) that the passengers on MH370 were abducted by the CIA? [0]
> - Flat Earth conspiracism is about an anti-intellectual pan-Christian traditionalist ideology
Wikipedia [1] says:
> Research on the arguments that flat Earthers wield shows three distinct factions, each one subscribing to its own set of beliefs. The first faction subscribes to a faith-based conflict in which atheists use science to suppress the Christian faith... The second faction believes in an overarching conspiracy for knowledge suppression... The third faction believes that knowledge is personal and experiential. They are dismissive of knowledge that comes from authoritative sources, especially book knowledge
So, contrary to what you say, it says only one branch of Flat Earthers have a Christian ideology. Also, it isn’t “pan-Christian”: almost all Christian Flat Earthers are non-traditional Protestants (such as “independent Fundamentalists”); very few Christian Flat Earthers are Catholics or Orthodox or traditional Protestants (Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists, etc). At the time of Christianity’s founding, most educated people believed the Earth was round, and the vast majority of Christian leaders accepted that societal consensus; it is only in modern times that a tiny fringe has emerged to question it. The idea that belief in a Flat Earth was ever widespread in the history of Christianity is actually a myth that was invented by polemicists in order to defame Christians (especially Catholics) [2]
> - Antisemitic conspiracy theories are about an ideology of white supremacy, and of mythic struggle among "races".
Antisemitic conspiracy theories are extremely popular in the Arab and Muslim worlds, but in that context have nothing to do with white supremacy. To quote Wikipedia’s article on the infamous antisemitic hoax “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” [3]
> Neither governments nor political leaders in most parts of the world have referred to the Protocols since World War II. The exception to this is the Middle East, where a large number of Arab and Muslim regimes and leaders have endorsed them as authentic, including endorsements from Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, President Abdul Salam Arif of Iraq, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya. A translation made by an Arab Christian appeared in Cairo in 1927 or 1928, this time as a book. The first translation by an Arab Muslim was also published in Cairo, but only in 1951. The 1988 charter of Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group, stated that the Protocols embodies the plan of the Zionists. The reference was removed in the new covenant issued in 2017. Recent endorsements in the 21st century have been made by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri, the education ministry of Saudi Arabia…
The Nation of Islam has been a major promoter of the antisemitic conspiracy theory of Jewish responsibility for the Atlantic slave trade. [4] Their ideology is definitely not white supremacy. Antisemitism is found all over the ideological spectrum, even among secular progressives [5]; it is a disease which transcends the boundaries of ideology - and antisemites of any and all ideologies are susceptible to accepting antisemitic conspiracy theories
> May I ask if you've ever had an extended conversation with a conspiracy theorist?
Yes, a good friend of mine was quite taken in by PizzaGate, and tried hard to convince me of it, although in the end we agreed to disagree. Also, whatever is the ideology of PizzaGate as a whole, I know my friend didn’t share it. I’m convinced his credulity on that topic was more about his personal dislike of Hilary Clinton than disagreement with her actual policies (e.g. he was and is the kind of guy who says things like “abortion is a women’s issue, men should stay out of it”)
[0] https://time.com/104480/malaysia-airliens-flight-370-mahathi...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_flat_Earth_beliefs
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://www.patheos.com/resources/additional-resources/2010/...
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_...
[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Relationship_Betw...
[5] https://www.algemeiner.com/2022/09/06/adl-ceo-left-wing-anti...
I'm sorry that happened. That's really rough. I've also known some conspiracy theorists.
> Are you familiar with UFO conspiracy theories such as Area 51/Roswell/etc? What is their ideology? How about JFK assassination conspiracy theories, what ideology are they? What is the ideology of the moon landing hoax theory? Or the conspiracy theory (which a taxi driver once tried to convince me of) that the passengers on MH370 were abducted by the CIA?
"You gave me three examples? Well why don't you give me ten more?"
It seems like you're just trying to bury me in questions. Yes I am familiar with some of these, but I don't think this is really a good faith question or that you would be convinced if I provided you with my analysis of them, so I don't see why I should put in the effort.
> Flat Earth
> Antisemitism
So what I said was correct for a large subset of these groups (if we leave the pan-Christian part aside, my argument stands regardless of whether it is Christian or pan-Christian), and there are additional sects of the theory...? Presumably advocating different ideologies (eg you cite literal religious extremists - are you going to tell me that isn't ideological with a straight face?)? That doesn't really impact my argument. (I also just disagree with the analysis of that Wikipedia article, those are not distinct subsets of the Flat Earth community.)
I feel like you're starting to become uncharitable. I'm not really seeing a substantive disagreement here, frankly and meaning no disrespect, I'm seeing a series of nitpicks. So I think this is where I'll have to bow out of the discussion.
Best of luck.
I actually do have a substantive point. I admit I probably could have made it clearer. I'd be happy nice to clarify, but you are telling me you don't want to hear it.
They could have replaced "soy/insect" with "tendies" for the same rhetorical effect but appealing to a different crowd. That makes me interpret their choice as an intentional signal to a specific audience, rather than a functional part of their position.
If that's the threshold for calling a conspiracy theory baseless, then no conspiracy theory is baseless. I'm not sure that's a useful way to think of it.
I wish we had more voices who could speak to culture & onlineness & the world that had more sophistication & openness to possibility than "turn it off".
The ardently negative tend to be together in their means of disbelief & upsettedness, so it's hard hard hard in compare for more hopeful ventures to pickup real traction; belief is more specific & thus harder than disbelief, which can be blanket.
Maybe I'm a millennial boomer, but I don't care. Social media is cancer and the world would benefit from a return to a time when everyone wasn't on it.
Naturally, these folks have left social networks like Facebook and Instagram far behind.
But the social media I see from my actual human friends is in fact about 95% what you posted, and is actually what I want from social media.
Counterculture was a force that went up against the establishment as much as it did cultural norms. These days, it appears that the cultural norm is to bed in bed with the so-called establishment. When you have Cardi B and Ye rallying on behalf of politicians and celebrities/musicians regurgitating the talking points of the mainstream media you know the counterculture is dead.
I agree with the author’s assessment that a/the counterculture to the early 2000’s global tech MAGA FAANG thunderdome will come out of that… space in the way described: some mix of Snowden, crypto, compass meme, e-deologies.
If you read Snowden’s bio, he was fully schooled in the internet being a new space of free thought and open information.
If you read 20 Interviews, Nick Land comes up… a lot… in interviews with edgy teenagers.
One of the worst Intel leaks recently, the discord/Ukraine leaks, came from a what looks like a perma-online discord resident. You can guesstimate that he was in the direction of the political compass culture.
Crypto (cryptography and cryptocurrency) itself comes out of the original internet-establishment/surveillance state haters.
Jack Dorsey is firmly an old school cypherpunk.
I don’t think there’s a cohesive label for all this outside “cypherpunks” although that feels dated. but it is a cohesive group and this article was interesting to read as it seems rarely Linked in public.
I see it, there’s a group that is extending the cypherpunk ideologies of the 90’s combined with the nihilism of watching climate change/COVID failures combined with internet edge-lord roots. I think it’s a potent force. It has so far:
- brought consumer encryption into the world
- caused two of the largest intelligence leaks in recent memory
- love it or hate it, invented cryptocurrency and permanently changed conversations about what money is and how it’s accessed to include a new $5bil global market
- brought tor and vpns onto the scene
- brought you the Arab spring
A lot of their weapons are focused on divide & conquer and making us fight one another over identity politics and our small differences. A few toxic ideologues (and ideologies) were essentially stuck on the equivalent of an enclosed train and shipped to the heart of the problem, and the establishment amplified their voices a thousandfold with the outlets they had available to them.
> So what does today’s counter-hegemonic culture look like? It’s not particularly interested in being seen—at least not in person. It gets no thrill out of wearing leather and a mohawk and walking past main-street shops, which are empty now anyway.
It's really not about what you wear or don't wear, because it's all been done, it's all online.
> It’s as if, having grown up on a fully networked Earth, Gen Z has bypassed counterculture, finding it futile in the face of a hegemonic system that more clearly resembles a Hydra than the monolithic forces that legacy counterculture was rebelling against.
There is no escape so maybe fashion has become something that is completely orthogonal to counterculture, and the real counterculture is in the anonymous spaces, discourse, and connections found online, where it doesn't matter what you look like.
That's been mainstream for a while. There are plenty of counter-cultures out there online; but because the author leans left, they are blind to them. Likely, the author doesn't even think of it as culture, like how "white people don't have culture."
The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26436552 - March 2021 (436 comments)
Current culture rejects the normal, what people think is basic or commonplace in favour of the spectacular, the colourful, the exciting, the transgressive, the provoking, the radical. Many things that were shunned when we were growing up as being geeky are mainstream now as it is packaged up and made available to buy in as many formats and products as possible.
Washing your car on a Saturday, working 9 to 5, mowing the lawn, taking your kids to the park, not caring about politics much, visiting elderly relatives, going on holiday, having a hobby, doing a craft, not worrying about authenticity, getting a mortgage, going to church. Be there by being square.
The past radicals used to say "the revolution will not be televised". Perhaps now we have to say "the revolution cannot be televised" as it's anti spectacular.
Those of us who feel nostalgia for the countercultural internet … I fear we’re too old to be admitted into current counterculture. We are the culture the youths are countering.
No. The internet is the same thing or place; the mall is the well known part of it, like AOL or Yahoo was, "back in the days".
The artisan alleys of the net exist (eg http://www.penmorfa.com/ , or basically anything from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36575081 ), the abandoned houses or factories of the internet exist (look at blogs that hadn't been touched in a decade); museums, art, libraries, etc exist (look at websites like https://ubu.com/ or https://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/ ). It's all still there.
And malls are there as well, so are packed beaches, attractions, and all the cheap and bad things from the world.
Someone somewhere definitely said already the internet is but a mirror of the world.
Answering the phone, wearing clothes in public, taking a bus, driving a car, using a popular social media app, visiting a mall.
You can be at a mall ironically. Observe signaling from outside of your identity. Come in to take a dump in a nice bathroom. All that’s required is some self-awareness.
In fact, it is the other way around: problems often begin when a thing seems countercultural, leading you to approach it as part of your identity—it can be much harder to ironically or out of pure utility visit an artisan alley or an underground music club. In this sense, if we imagine some hypothetical scale of counterculturalness, I’d say it’s very well possible that some artisan alley would do much worse than a mall on it.
Hard to get more mainstream than “i work at facebook/google/whatever”
On the other hand, a lot of the counter culture that I've seen takes a view something like "The reality is that most of us have to work for a corp 9-5 to survive. What makes you counter culture is what you do with the rest of your life."
I think the reality is, that you have to work 9-5 to maintain the modern, expected standard. But if you don't care about that, there are plenty of other ways.
The thing that disgusts me the most about modernity, is actually teenage Instagramm/TikTok zombies, totally unaware of the algorithms controlling them, created by the tech crowd.
If you would, you might find that there are differences, just like with old people.
Secondly, maybe try seeing more people under 30 regulary with an open mind. I am sure you will eventually find someone not engaged with that. Just like you can find people over 30, who are still open to the world.
2. Maybe you have distant memories left, when you yourself were young. Do you think, you would have liked to learn from someone, who thinks all young people are stupid?
Pretty sure this is exactly how my Gen X parents feel. My mom couldn't understand how the music I loved in high school doesn't have a political message.
But she grew up in a time when you'd go to jail for speaking up against the regime unless it was masked through art. I grew up in a democracy. Very different.
Sure, in the early 90s it was still possible to shock conservatives but what really made counterculture viable back then was that you could afford an apartment without having a career. It wasn’t just housing costs, either - in general, the benefits of participating wholeheartedly in the system were much more modest than they are now.
The internet has certainly been a factor, particularly in making the concept of a local music scene kind of obsolete, but the demise of counterculture is definitely due to material concerns.
The best times I've had were having parties where we would work on cool exhibits with barely contained pyrotechnics, Tesla coils that would kill you if you touched it, and an expectation that YOU DO NOT PUT IT ON THE INTERNET and if you get hurt, YOU DID NOT GET HURT HERE.
Everyone wants a nice and curated experience of "counterculture" until they get into a scenario where they are the only person not cool with losing a finger or two from doing something fucking awesome
Meditation or maybe partner dancing for example. There’s definitely plenty of internet content on both, but it feels to me like there’s certain things I can do that don’t as easily translate to an instagram story, and the reason I do them is because I benefit with some internally directed experience. A sort of connection with myself or another person. This feels like the exact opposite of doing something for the purpose of the resulting content and/or social approval.
Counter culture is based on taking social risks which threaten the status quo. It does not need to include bodily risk. (edited for clarity)
To some, "move fast, break things" is counter-cultural, even if the term comes from an erstwhile hoodie-clad CEO that rapidly mutated into the biggest suit in corporate history.
I think the word to describe counter culture is "exclusionary," and I suspect if a large crowd of "Instagram" people showed up at a "counterculture" gathering the counterculture-ists would be equally unable to "take it."
Eventually you may start connecting with people who know things
You did not get hurt here works until someone does get hurt and the hammer comes down on you.
I've hurt myself badly many times and have never regretted it, because it was fun and incredibly intellectually satisfying. I know no-one at these places that regret it, everyone accepts that that they are all working to a common goal of being awesome
If people wanted to speak out against them, then there'd be 50-year-olds writing angry screeds to "warn the youth of today" about "the mistakes they made in their own youth, and deeply regretted, but couldn't speak out at the time." But we don't see that.
- Free divers
- Rock climbers
- Motorcycle riders
- Mountain bikers
- Sky divers
- Skateboarders
- Glider pilots
- Base jumpers
There is a vast array of body-part-risking hobbies with a spectrum of associated risk.
While I’m not one to encourage obvious stupidity, bodily risk is at the center of so many things that humans value, that I think there’s a framing problem by saying this is just uncool.
More interesting is to explore why people are drawn to these things to begin with, and to examine why we dismiss some categories of risk as unnecessary or stupid while other socially acceptable risks are part of our daily lives.
When I was a kid, I was drawn to model rocketry. I’m surprised my fingers are all still intact, but some close calls quickly reoriented my precautionary measures (I started being a lot more careful).
The book “Flow” explores why some people do the things they do, and it seems that engaging in risky endeavors like rock climbing can be rewarding because of the feeling of flow and control one experiences.
“Try crazy stuff but be as safe as you can be, and avoid impacting others” seems better than “uncool”, IMO.
But I nevertheless have hangups with the original scenario as described. It seems constructed to dial up social pressure and exploit it to provoke careless behavior and avoid accountability. Countercultural in a sense (arguably straddling antisocial) but that's not the same as good, and it's nothing like those sports that usually have a culture (hmm) of planning, safety, and consent.
Well, maybe not motorcycling and skateboarding so much as the others, but you get the gist.
And yet, there's still something appealing about the idea... can't quite put my finger on it, but perhaps I've already blown it off.
I understand that mastery and control can come from dangerous activities, but I can still voice my disapproval of these activities, since you can get the same feeling through safer ways.
Interesting position which I dont personally think is true. I dont think it can be proven either way, but my counterpoint is below
1) Variability: Different people have different attraction/affinity and passions for activities or lifestyles.
2) Non-fungability: Not all feelings/experiences have equivalent replacements and not all personalities can be modified find equivalent satisfaction in something else.
3) Risk: Given that not all feelings are replacable with similar life satisfaction, individuals can and should balance risk against the life they want. Some feelings and values are worth dying for. (e.g if base jumping makes you so happy you would rather risk dying than live without it, DO IT). This should be celebrated, not condemmed.
There are worse fates than death, and I think a safe and unfulfilled life is one of them.
Of course everyone's opinion and "general advice" on this depends on if they think the current cultural norm is erroring on the side safetyism or risk-taking behavior. Based on my experience, I am far more concerned about my friends, family, and children stifiling their self actualization by taking too few risk opposed to too many.
People's advice will also obviously depend on where they their personal attractions are. For me, many of the things that make me satisfied with my life involved some risky behavior. Someone who's life satisfaction is derived from knitting might feel otherwise, but thats not me.
In short: "Different strokes for different folks"
My point was more that framing this as a thing to judge (implicit in uncool) isn’t ideal and probably less likely to change minds than an exploration of the reasons people enjoy things, with clear examination of the risk/reward, which isn’t going to be an absolute number to apply equally to all personalities and life situations.
Many rock climbers are tortured people and will tell you that doing what they do is the reason they’re alive. Having had brushes with dark frames of mind personally, I can understand the willingness to embrace whatever it is that will provide consistent/reliable relief.
The binary position (disapproval) misses the broader context. And perhaps there is a less risky alternative to be found, but it seems more likely to be found if explored from that broader perspective.
My initial message through was that multiple counterarguments by multiple people need to be made in order to really balance out the perceived coolness of those that risk harm in extreme activities, and I was arguing to not simply shut down the poster that said:
>If you are risking fingers, cutting off body parts or taking dumb risks just stop. It's not worth it. It's not cool or interesting. These are the things you regret later.
To me, it's pretty obvious "cool" can only be defined descriptively, not prescriptively — i.e. "cool" is whatever makes idiot teenagers intuitively, instinctually impressed with you. By definition, you can't tell idiot teenagers what to think — in that, once you successfully do that, they're not idiot teenagers any more, and so are no longer the arbiters of "what's cool."
i'd say they risk is what makes it interesting.
4chan certainly isn't mainstream. Being somewhat well-trafficked != mainstream.
> Being edgy and racist isn't countercultural, certainly not nowadays.
That's just so obviously wrong, it's hard to know where to start. I mean, pretty much the entire media and business apparatus of the country spends a lot of effort loudly condemning those things. You might have the arrived at the wrong impression because those groups have the goal of achieving something close to total extermination of those things, so counter-productively give even small instances massive amounts of attention.
... and it's widely claimed by many that they're out of touch with Real American culture for doing so.
There's no easy, solid definition here. Disney and DeSantis are fighting over culture hot potatoes; which one is "establishment" and which one is "counter-culture" in that fight? (Neither, really. Both are establishment, and both are a little counter-cultural.)
4chan has become a lot less shocking than it used to be. That's a bit of a cultural shift in its direction.
Which does not in any way translate into 4chan-style "edgy and racist" being in any way mainstream, let alone "as mainstream as it gets."
And we're talking about 4chan here, and wouldn't they just use the n-word?
This holds for writing and stories as well, so it's best to rely on personal experience and not assume that you can use the Internet to predict the details of the experiences you can have in the world.
Therefore, the question arises - is there any semantics of the word "culture" in the syntax-semantics of the word "Instagram"?
And, it turns out that there is the possibility of searching for "the denial of what cannot be at all" :)
So this is a moving target. You can surely find counterculture of yester on instagram.
Political extremism has always existed, but social media algorithms (and yes that includes the HN comment system) incentivize controversy while penalizing moderate, rational viewpoints as "unpopular." So these extreme views tend to bubble to the top of people's feeds, making them appear "very prevalent" to the average person.
This is one of MANY reasons that I have nothing to do with (most) social media anymore.
You could have said this at least for the last 70 years. It doesn't change the systemic issues that enable prejudice against minorities. This means prejudice is still more mainstream than tolerance. Recently, there was a SCOTUS ruling that allows one to refuse making websites for same sex couples. This whole case was based on a falsified request. https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-...
While I find it impossible to quantify, I think we can at least assure that prejudice is frowned upon by society. Things have definitely changed in 70 years.
>Recently, there was a SCOTUS ruling that allows one to refuse making websites for same sex couples.
No. It allows one to refuse making a product if making that product implies speech.
No, you can't. If it was, at a minimum SCOTUS wouldn't be playing games wrt signaling that it's OK do discriminate against same sex couples. Also at a minimum, we wouldn't have so much, let alone rising amounts of hate crime [0]. Unfortunately, society is pretty split on the whether prejudice is good or bad.
0 - https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-supplem...
The only conclusion I’ve come to is that everyone is a damn hypocrite. Everyone wants to discriminate against people not in their group because they’ve been brainwashed, and because people are assholes.
I can win a lot of arguments if I define myself as the only one who should be allowed to speak...
I honestly think modern conservatism could now be classified by a counterculture, because they define themselves more by what they're against than what they are for.
Seriously, over the years I've wracked my brain wondering why conservatism has moved so far to the radical fringe to the point where they simply seem to stand in opposition to even the most uncontroversial stances on things like global warming, healthcare, vaccines, basic human rights, etc. This is all I got.
The right has become a counterculture, and the best way to see what their next cause de jure will be is to see what's become commonly accepted as reasonable truth on the left.
Has conservatism "moved?" And if it has, has it moved to the right? If we were to time travel three generations ago, would the mainstream liberal culture then be more similar to the present day conservative culture or the present day liberal culture on the issues mentioned?
I submit that a present-day conservative would likely be a staunch liberal in those days. The Left has simply moved much further to the left.
As I got older, I eventually started to notice conservatives starting to blatantly ignore the science and facts in a way I had previously only seen from the left. Today, I feel like the situation has completely reversed itself, and the right is more likely to completely ignore reality, fact and science if it clashes with their current beliefs. I do see some of this on the left, but it seems like it's gotten so much worse on the right in the past 20 years.
... on social issues. The mainstream left and right, as far as those in power, remain about as similar on economics as they have since the right neoliberal movement took over both parties in the 80s—a position that both parties' extremes strongly disagree with, and that isn't particular popular among their electorate more generally (which is why Trump's just-say-what-R-voters-say platform fell, remarkably, outside that consensus) but which nonetheless drives most of both parties' activity, on that front.
Part of the appeal of these ideologies is clearly that they are offensive, not permitted on mainstream platforms, and therefore are something that their participants can "own" and that won't be co-opted by consumerism.
It's the same thing that fueled "Satanic" rock and similar things. Fascism is devil music. That most people are offended by it and mainstream authorities preach against it is a huge part of its appeal.
Elon Musk might be damaging this a little. It's hard to think you're a rebellious counterculture when you have one of the world's richest men acting as a public torch bearer.
I disagree that it makes them cool. Counter culture generally contributes something different and important enough that it eventually becomes the culture and hence the counter cultural people become 'cool'. Extreme ideology of any kind isn't contributing anything. It's an attempt to feel different/special/part of a group, but there's nothing cultural about it and it's not going to receive any validation from outside the group (that would make it cool).
The thing that mystifies me is that when parents get in on something it usually nukes the coolness factor, but the far right has an overwhelming supply of 50+ year olds on just about every platform and this has had no impact on its rise in popularity among the teens and twenty-somethings.
Also I'm not talking so much about Fox News right wingers. I'm talking about the 4chan /pol stuff. The stuff Fox provides is the radio-safe edit.
Musk's funding of the far right has the much more terrifying trajectory of a Hitler not an Enrique Tarrio.
So where does Elon fit in here?
I obviously can't prove it (even more so because it's unlikely Elon is more than an ultra-rich obnoxious online idiot), but it's an entertaining thought nonetheless.
Doubt.
That'll be the Koch brothers, Peter Thiel, Harlan Crow, Paul Singer, etc. You'd probably count Musk in there now, too.
The DNC receives more money from Wall Street than the GOP now. Same with Tech.
Believe what you want, but the Right is mostly driven by small donors now.
Hand-waving away right-wing billionaires as if they don't have an impact is disingenuous.
As for small donors, Trump bucked the mold here a bit; it's not typically true for Republicans:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/21/gops-2022...
> Democrats have long relied more on small-dollar donations, and that trend continues today. Some key Republican candidates are also relying heavily on wealthy benefactors like Peter Thiel funding super PACs to support them.
> One of the stories of the GOP in the Trump era was its ability to close the gap on small-dollar fundraising — a gap that has yawned again with Trump out of office, at least through these two platforms. (Not all small-dollar donations are routed through them, but they are the parties’ respective choices for facilitating such donations.)
> And now comes more data, which shows that Democratic small-dollar donors — one key measure of how engaged a party’s base is — appear significantly more motivated than their GOP counterparts.
Edit: another modern counterculture that's easy to identify: the Amish.
Sure the republicans have won elections, but would you really call Trumph conservative?
This ended when they won Row vs Wade, but short of that, they lost almost every battle they engaged in. The US is less religious than ever, porn and violent video games (not to mention DnD) is available everywhere and trans people are accepted at least in some places.
The difference is that the poor and middle class of the right don't get to enjoy the benefits of their side's "win".
That dynamic is kind of inevitable when you buy into someone else's battle for your own win condition. Falling for the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" dynamic was never going to result in a good outcome. But the same lack of benefits of "winning" apply to the "left" as well - the majority is still heteronormative, and so doesn't directly benefit from societal acceptance of homosexuality. So in reality the grassroots of both tribes are mostly looking at symbolic victories that don't convey direct benefits, and directing focusing on a single one is just further stirring the pot.
(And yes there are definitely arguments to be made that appeal to loftier goals such as freedom etc, but those are orthogonal to discussing who actually benefited from each winning trend).
But sure, it's less tangible than the rich benefitting from sucking up all the money.
There are tangible reasons for social progress as well, like for example in a world where women aren't pressured to be closeted I don't have to worry about marrying a lesbian who's trying to fit in.
But rather than iterate the reasons we all benefit from living in a world with acceptance, it feels like enough to support it on principle.
>> (And yes there are definitely arguments to be made that appeal to loftier goals such as freedom etc, but those are orthogonal to discussing who actually benefited from each winning trend).
Sure. This type of comment is exactly what I meant by the last bit I said. Including a summary of one team's well-reasoned support for a topic is also one-sided stirring the pot, regardless of whether one agrees with the argument specifically (which I do).
(The "right" would make an analogous argument about trickle down economics and how things would be so much worse for the grassroots right if big business was further constrained in any way)
By this logic the counterculture can’t be left-wing either.
Counterculture among the right would be the alt-right/white supremacist movements and QAnon, which counter mainstream conservatism. Among the left it would be actual (not the American definition of "anyone to the left of Reagan") communists, tankies, black and indigenous activism, etc.
It's true that not every counterculture has to be defined, or define themselves, along the left/right axis, but given the greedy nature of that axis, it seems inevitable that any counterculture could be.
When they finally overturned Roe v Wade they went too far. Their results from the 2022 midterms, which should have been an absolute bloodbath with GOP dominance, was one of their worst showings ever. President's party usually gets punished, rampant inflation, another war, rising interest rates, housing crisis, etc. The GOP barely managed to take the house and did slightly worse in the senate. It's because of abortion. They exposed themselves as The Man, for all time.
I think maybe what true counterculture needs is risk. Something has to be at risk, either by the participants being excluded naturally from a greater system, or choosing to exclude themselves and risking their privilege. Being queer is still countercultural, because there is still significant risk to them every day. Rainbow flags at Starbucks does not mean they are "safe." They can get married, but they still find themselves excluded from a lot of traditions later in life. Young women now literally risk death from accidental pregnancy in many states. Being a vocal proponent of unionization can lose you your job.
There's really nothing at stake for the right wing. Their mouthpieces fall out of fashion and go on to lucrative gigs at consulting firms, or writing books filled with grievances, or really just sitting at home because they were already obscenely wealthy. Tucker Carlson doesn't need to work ever again. Haven't heard from Ann Coulter in a while, but she's still worth tens of millions.
But these people aren't necessarily conservatives, at least as their defining attribute, they frequently maintain liberal values after their exile from the increasingly illiberal world of the left. They very rarely turn into gun-toting and God-fearing, card-carrying Republicans. Two great examples - Tulsi Gabbard and Naomi Wolf recently doing strangely cordial interviews with Jordan Peterson, you could hardly call either of those women conservative Republicans, but they get along with him splendidly on the topic of why the Left is f*'ed up.
I think the article hits the nail on the head with the line "To be truly countercultural today, in a time of tech hegemony, one has to, above all, betray the platform" - this really is the essence of it, it so happens that the mainstream platforms are pretty Left, so betraying them feels like an anti-Left thing to do, but to do so isn't necessarily Right.... it's a counter-culture going off in its own direction. The mainstream may call them Right wing as a slur to discredit them, whether they are or not.
No, there isn't and a sector defined by a particular ideological position doesn’t get “more ideological”. (There might be a belated exit of lingering ideological conservatives from the Democratic Party, a historically right-wing institution, as it has stabilized as the left-most major party with its main factions center-right neoliberal and center-left progressive, but most of that happened in the 1970s-1990s.)
It may also be the case that previously politically detached members of privileged groups that were well-served by the past status quo are becoming reactionarily defensive of their privileged status as it seems threatened but still identify with the privilege of being “apolitical” and with ideology being a thing other people do and they remain “above”, forming a group that is very much part of the reactionary right (with a very clear and self-focussed ideology) but identifies as “apolitical” and “non-ideological”. Which is a much better understanding of the “grey tribe”.
When I said the Left is becoming increasingly ideological perhaps I should have used the word intolerant instead. It is becoming more rigid in terms of what beliefs its members are allowed to hold, and the punishment for holding transgressive beliefs is becoming more severe. Another example of this is the "canceling" of JK Rowling - a liberal feminist who is virulently anti-conservative - for stepping out of line on a single issue. This list of liberals being ejected from the Left for their thought-trangressions is growing rapidly. I don't see how any clear-headed observer can deny its existence.
Tulsi Gabbard has had bizarre (usually extreme but also radically inconsistent over time) set of political positions, her moving around relative to a group generally isn’t a matter of the other group moving at all, its usually (including her formal move away from the Democratic Party) directly associated with substantive changes of her positions, whether its her move from being an extreme anti-LGBT activist where she built he early political career to a move to a moderate mainstream Democratic position, her move from an extreme Islamophobe and anti-Arab racist activist to rhetorically coddling Assad, or her more recent moves.
Wolf seems to have been an opportunistic, dishonest hack her entire career, and pushing culturally conservative angles at least as far back as her work under Dick Morris doing image work for Clinton.
Google Doodle Capitalism is really, really unpopular among that set, and the memes are incredible
They just have no idea. They have an equally irrelevant and unaware corporate media reenforcing this. I think certain corporations are beginning to sense it - you've seen a bit of a tone shift but they're just not sure because they just aren't tapped into this thing. Their elite training has not prepared them for this. They're still "hello fellow kids"'ing things that have become amazingly unpopular very quickly.