Comment by potholereseller | Hacker News Reader

Comment by potholereseller | Hacker News Reader

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potholereseller

The other commenter mentioned "narrative", which is very relevant, because that is an important part of simulation (and your username)

Baudrilliard was careful to point out that simulation isn't a matter of fabrication; to simulate is to obscure the absence of facts, not to create false facts. A simulacrum is a symbol that obscures the fact that it refers to nothing; whereas a symbol, in centuries past, invariably referred to something, real or imagined. The resulting reality (or maybe "mindspace"?) is a construct on top of the real world -- a hyper-reality -- in which every symbol is a simulacrum; the only thing real in hyper-reality is that the symbols hide the absence of facts. This is why, again as the other commenter mentions, we appear to live in a post-truth society; we are fully living in hyper-reality.

>Bad Journalism

The guy who created the Pullitzer prize also co-invented Yellow Journalism.[0][1] There is neither good journalism or bad journalism; it's all simulation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer#Pulitzer_Prize

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#Origins:_Pul...

> the only thing real in hyper-reality is that the symbols hide the absence of facts

What's a fact? Concepts like justice and fairness are fundamentally cultural constructs, and yet they've always been a core concern of human society. Setting up "facts" in opposition to "simulation" is no less a rhetorical narrative than what the article is pushing.

My takeaway from post-structuralism generally isn't that we live in a "fake" reality, but that the human experience--individually, collectively--is deeply complicated.

Baudrilliard didn't assert that reality/facts never existed; he in fact asserted that prior to the 20th century, there was plenty of correlation between symbols and facts/reality. His vision of the hyper-real is that it is detached from reality and it's facts; this is why I included "mindspace" parenthetically as an alternative word for "hyper-reality"; those operating in hyper-reality are physically in reality, but their actions appear to be based on another world, which they share through things like news media.

> post-structuralism

I don't think Baudrilliard can be categorized as post-structuralist or post-modernist, because "Baudrillard had also opposed post-structuralism, and had distanced himself from postmodernism."[0]

[0] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard>

Camus didn't consider his views existentialist, but I consider them as such. Likewise, for me authors like Baudrillard and Benedict Anderson (political scientist) have written works that I think well capture the substantive gist of post-structuralism, even if neither saw themselves as part of that intellectual movement (and few if anyone else would relate Anderson to post-structuralism).

Plus, AFAIU Baudrillard turned into an angry, cynical, conspiratorial old man, kinda like a teenager who discovers the world is far more complex than the simplified versions he was taught, and then becomes angry at the world for being hoodwinked, as well as at everybody's complicity. IOW, some of Baudrillard insights are powerful, but I don't care all that much about how he chose to make use of them. (That said, the radical and exaggerated way he conceives of and presents things lends much of that power.)

I've never read any of Baudrillard's books, though, just several of his essays.

I read all Baudrillard's books, back when he was relevant in the day. You've not missed much. In fact you seem more insightful than those who do have them all to set.

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