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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

Language and memes evolve beyond their original intended context, boo.

I think OP knows, its still okay to be mad about things, we do not need to accept everything is what it is.

Language evolves = you are wrong to use the original meaning of words? Hm

"Language evolves" means language evolves. To insist that the only valid use of the torment nexus meme is in the context of a reference to the Metaverse from Star Crash vis a vis Facebook's meta is language prescriptivism at its most absurd. It works as a general metaphor in numerous contexts relative to the tech industry and the dystopic effects of its own utopian nerd hubris, in trying to make science fiction real while failing to heed the warnings of that same science fiction.

In fact, there was a whole HN thread about an article on just that phenomenon recently[0,1].

The meme is used so often because there are many, many torment nexuses. Just as the definition of "enshittification" ceased to be bound to a description of platform decay almost as soon as it went viral here, and "literally" has been its own contronym for literal centuries, "torment nexus" has evolved to communicate a broader concept than was originally intended. And that's OK. It doesn't take anything away from the original usage.

Yes, one can be angry that human language doesn't follow the strictly defined, rigid rules of a programming language, and that the meaning of words can change quickly, and that language is fluid, sometimes vague and even self-contradictory. But to be mad that other people are using a meme in a way you don't approve of is petty and silly, because that's how the internet works. Such people need to touch grass and get a life.

[0]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires...

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38813976

The comment you replied to wasn't complaining that the meme was being misused, but that the original tweet itself misconstrued the book it was referring to. This isn't a prescriptivism vs. descriptivism situation, it's a matter of literary interpretation. (Anyway, linguistic descriptivism doesn't forbid people from having opinions about usage.)

I think that pointing out of the misunderstanding about what exactly the metaverse was in the book and how it relates to silliness around Metas "metaverse" could actually become a meme in it own right. It speaks to how often the "torment nexus" meme is really just misinformed pessimism because "technology is scary" and many people just totally completely misunderstood the message in cyberpunk fiction.

"The radio is powered by satanic devils"

I think there’s a difference here in the sense that the “torment nexus” meme was originally “off” (in the sense that it was apparently misunderstanding the Metaverse from fiction—I don’t know, didn’t read the book). I still don’t 100% understand why they dislike the meme, but I think it just might be that people are misunderstanding a book they like. I don’t really get why anyone who isn’t a fan of that particular book should care about this, it is just trivia about the book, the meme stands alone.

A change in the meaning of enshittification would be worse, IMO, because it is a nice description of a widespread phenomenon. It didn’t really have a great name before (“platform decay” sounds too passive, enshittification is good because it emphasizes the fact that it is incentivized to proactively make the platform bad).

So, I think we should go along with the former but not the latter.

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