"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis"
Examples of such phrases might be encountered in political protests by activists. The phrases can be mainly for the members of the group particularly the call and response type.
Lifton's book explains some other factors of such societies which I think can help identify whether a group is more like a cult: Leaders control information, hidden knowledge, demand for purity, confession of "sin", truth deciders, language control, doctrine > persons, only the in group are awakened.
That's a beautifully written quote, and describes to a T the number one issue plaguing mainstream online discourse today.
It's extremely prevalent on Reddit and similar social media sites (even here, although to a much smaller extent). I have no idea why so many people seem to enjoy this style of speaking, and to be surrounded by others doing the same. Isn't being proven wrong or learning something completely unexpected the best part of the internet?
People like to be surrounded by people like themselves, so there's a group mentality thing going on. A group seeks to maintain itself. Encountering yourself in the other is hard to do online. And on this subject of polarity it's always the other side that is wrong and needs to change! :-)
Being proven wrong and learning something actually hurts. It doesn't harm me when I learn that I'm wrong (just the opposite, it helps me grow) but it very much does hurt! So it makes sense that I tend to avoid things that will hurt me. For some even thinking that they could change and learn leads them to worry and avoidance.
Putting the two together if an individual changes then it weakens their group identity. So a person wants to stay in the group and be safe and not be hurt and the group wants the person to not weaken their membership.
In international peace negotiations a good neutral negotiator seeks to build a common ground between the sides - to show that their groups hold things in common, that change is possible.
On that topic: "No pain no gain." Its a cliche but I dont think thats terminating? "you're not the same person you were five years ago", "change happens", "You don’t have to have it all figured out"
Maybe terminating ones would be "if you don't like the heat get out of the kitchen", "curiosity killed the cat", "Why overthink it?", "That’s above my pay grade", "You can’t teach an old dog new tricks", "leopards cant change their spots"
> Examples of such phrases might be encountered in political protests by activists. The phrases can be mainly for the members of the group particularly the call and response type.
This feels like it's aimed at leftist activism, but the American right has plenty of thought-terminating dogmas: the unitary executive, backing the police and military unequivocally, "if you don't like it here you can leave", the "original intent" of the founders. "Patriotism", the Constitution, and the American conception of Protestant Christianity are cudgels to be employed against wrong-think.
I think you're confusing thought terminating cliches with foundational beliefs, legal arguments, religion, and uhhh, the founding document of the country?
It's one of those irregular nouns: _your_ thought terminating cliche, _my_ founding principle.
Although also a reasonable criticism of the far left. Orwell has a whole essay on this. "The fascist octopus has sung its swan song". It's especially annoying when it's a slogan that has been clumsily translated from German by Marxists or from Chinese by Maoists (although the rise of Chinese capitalism has rather cut of the supply of the latter).
Look do you think the claim "human life has value" (choosing something uncontroversial that's likely to be a shared foundational belief, feel free to choose something different if you disagree) is a thought terminating cliche? At some point in discourse you will eventually run into foundational beliefs and while they may functionally be terminating thought I think they have to be a different category because they are foundational. It's a first principles thing.
> "human life has value" (choosing something uncontroversial that's likely to be a shared foundational belief
You've chosen to charge straight into the minefield there: that's possibly the most controversial thing you could say, it has all sorts of implications in all sorts of contexts as diverse as abortion and Palestine.
This is fair. You can't really have a good debate with anyone if you don't agree on first principles. It think that's part of the problem with the worlds polarization these days.
We have this fundamental disconnect between 'the greatest good for the most people' on one side and 'the greatest good for MY people' on the other. It's literally two different answer to the question of life having value. IE - "They all have the same value." vs "Some are more valuable than others."
When you have disagreements that fundamental you will never find common ground. The zero-sum view of the universe is fundamentally incompatible with the other view.
The only way to stop it from becoming a thought terminating cliche when it comes up (in it's many forms) is to explicitly call it out as what it is - A fundamental an insolvable disagreement that can only be met with some level of compromise.
Maybe? I mean, if I believe that all lives have value, and I'm talking to someone who believes that their peoples' lives are more valuable, then I can go further back. Why do any lives have any value? What's your basis for saying that any life has value? All right, starting from there, can you keep that without also extending it to those who are not part of your group?
Note well that this may not work to persuade them. But you can at least have the conversation.
> Note well that this may not work to persuade them. But you can at least have the conversation.
It is noble to try. I suspect that you will always fail, unless the other person is uncommonly reasonable. Those views of life are the result of having vastly different experiences and backgrounds, and aren't something that typically changes after reaching adulthood.
Do American right-wingers think "human life has value"? Why are they ok with people starving to death, or dying of preventable disease? Is human life valuable when they're an AIDS patient? Is it valuable when it's a child being killed in a mass shooting?
Internet trolls want attention. When the internet gives trolls attention and said that the trolls are culturally and politically important and dangerous it is exactly what was desired.
That many serious commentators didn't see this was itself very funny as anything with lots of attention on the internet does become influential! It is funny to a troll to see people pay serious attention to them "I am just a clown and they think I'm serious!". But don't think that they were actual comedians, lol, they are as serious as HN users.
In the dawkins sense of the word: the "meme" wants to spread and grow and the mechanism for it's virality was the immune response to it.
On another angle, the responses also gave the target an identity. Groups get defined as groups from outside more than from within. And it's always a wrong characterisation which also helps define the in group in relation. "You guys are all toxic Linux dude bros" inside: "but some of us love macs and windows, and some of us are girls, they sure dont understand our ways"
You sent a report saying you were not searched for 20 times and now you are searched all the time? Has it been over 20 times that you have been searched?
I used to work with graphic designers and creatives. Their skills are invaluable and today's slop really makes this visible.
Creation and creativity will always have value.
I don't know if today's graphic designers are doing the equivalent of vibe coding and shipping slop, but if they are they should at least make it know that they can produce better quality work for a price.
The news is what's new, uncommon, strange, interesting. Shiny, attractive, shocking, raging: dopamine raising and cortisol antagonising. The news doesn't describe our actual lives. But the news does sometimes contain information relevant to our lives!
I find I will hear about the relevant things from people and events around me, whether or not I follow the news. The news doesn't have any actual bearing on my life but the news does have a few stories that do have bearing.
So theres no downside of not following the news. I will hear what I need to and want to hear about from people around me or other sources.
Some think that in not consuming what they think I should consume, that this is a morally wrong thing to do. They will be personally offended, how can they ignore my story? There is a case that if we all stopped following the news then how can the other sources inform us, so there would still be a benefit to reporting...
Consider two anthropologists examining a culture. One only has remote access to every news source the culture produces for itself, the other can only talk face to face with people. Which one will understand the people more?
Electric cars are required by law to emit sound via a speaker for safety. Usually the sound is unique and somewhat electronic in nature.
Some electric sports cars, and I'm not sure but Porsche may be one of them, have a loud deep bassy faux-sports engine sound emitting from the speaker. "VROOOOM VROOOOOM VROOOM!" - on an electric car.
Does anyone else find this *extremely* weird?
It's like a petrol car having a speaker playing the coconuts (as it's replaced the horse).
> Electric cars are required by law to emit sound via a speaker for safety. Usually the sound is unique and somewhat electronic in nature.
And this is absolutely… bad. I mean requiring is good, but almost all of the execution of it is awfully bad.
It can be personal - but Hz of that sounds just makes me boil inside. That's how badly I'm receiving it. Almost no other sounds I hear on daily basis makes me uncomfortable.
And another issue - when somebody is parking the sound goes on, off, on, off, and that all the time until person is happy how car is parked. Couldn't it just make that sound all the time? Would be easier to get used to it. Same way it works with PC fans - there is no benefit to keep it as lowest as possible at all times, the trick is to keep it spinning fast enough to avoid as many changes of speed as possible - keeping the noise constant and easier to live with.
More weird is, that the electric harley davidson is by intention more loud than the gas powered ones.
But the law requires a artificial sound only for low speeds. Electric cars are indeed silent and it can be dangerous not expecting one approaching, when one is used to loud explosion engines. But I would prefer to just have no noise and people adopting.
It is very obnoxious, the sound should just be enough for pedestrians to notice there's a car behind them (happened to me a few times now that there was an electric van one meter behind me that I hadn't heard at all). Tangentially related, but I came across a startup selling EV noises as NFTs once, and it still holds the palm of "most ridiculous business" in my head.
My last ICE car (a VW GTI) did this. I could turn the engine noise up or down in the settings on the touch screen.
I think I’d prefer it sound like an ICE car vs the weird electric noises. I don’t notice when most cars drive by my house, unless they are obnoxiously loud. But someone on my street got an electric SUV about 6 months ago and I can hear it every single time; it drives me crazy.
I was hoping electric cars would cut down on noise pollution, but no such luck. I understand the sounds is there for blind people, but the sound some of these companies have picked cuts right through the walls of my house like few other things do. I’m wondering what it will sound like when we have a whole city full of them.
Totally agreed. It is beyond understanding why you would even pay extra to get these sounds. The heavenly silence is one of the great advantages of an EV in my opinion.
Points vs comments. If there's lots of points on a story but only a few comments, it won't stick around. Or maybe its the other way around? (see below)
There is an automated flame detection mechanism. Don't know how it works. probably some kind of count of downvoting of comments?
Users manually flag.
Most political stories are flame bait; the discussions are low quality.
Most politics is off topic, but if a story has been discussed and this one has for almost a year, posting more about the same story with little change won't add much to the conversation.
E.g. I commented about this story 10 (ten!) months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43212206 and do not feel the need to share my thoughts each and every time the story comes up again, although I did 5 months ago. Maybe in 5 months time I will do so again but not every day!
Users do not want to see the same story permanently on show for discussion - they want novelty.
Users tend to not like: Emotions. Propaganda. Accusations of conspiracy. Less thoughtful and more thought terminating comments.
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You can find better and more answers by the site moderator @dang on why things slip off the front page by using the search box at the bottom of the page.
AI being harder to spot still won't make dead internet crackpottery true. As for us being cooked ... in so many ways, including literally due to AGW, exacerbated by LLM compute and by the orange demento's policies.
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