Beautifully written! I love the important nuance that it's really about thought terminating cliches and memes are just one of many possible formats these can take. And also, not every meme is a thought terminating cliche. The midwit meme specifically was a real upgrade for me. "Wait, am I midwitting this right now?" is a valuable question to ask, imo.
Thank you! I plan to write more about thought-terminating clichés in the future, so look forward to that!
Also yes, the midwit meme is a very funny way to cajole yourself out of overthinking. I have a full set of reaction memes/images that I send to people in order to jostle them out of some way of thinking and the midwit is going to be added to that repertoire
I think you’re right that memes are mostly to connect with others. I think people miss this because it mostly happens in the dark forest of the internet.
Nadia asparhouvas new book antimimetics on this is really interesting so far. Reading it now
What's interesting is that I have never heard of that book, but I did read and love "There Is No Antimemetics Division" by qntm when it was still just a series on the SCP site. I haven't thought of that series in ages.
I enjoyed bentham 's post a lot, But I also agree with your points here. I think you're exactly right that his post skips over the value of the midwit meme, which is that sometimes the simpler or more obvious answer is the correct one. Although It makes sense that he would discount this as a proposition in general, because his brand of thinking relies heavily on the idea that counterintuitive concepts derived from first principles are actually correct, no matter how complicated or unusual they may seem. So he may reject the entire premise of the midwit meme
Beautifully written! I love the important nuance that it's really about thought terminating cliches and memes are just one of many possible formats these can take. And also, not every meme is a thought terminating cliche. The midwit meme specifically was a real upgrade for me. "Wait, am I midwitting this right now?" is a valuable question to ask, imo.
Thank you! I plan to write more about thought-terminating clichés in the future, so look forward to that!
Also yes, the midwit meme is a very funny way to cajole yourself out of overthinking. I have a full set of reaction memes/images that I send to people in order to jostle them out of some way of thinking and the midwit is going to be added to that repertoire
I think you’re right that memes are mostly to connect with others. I think people miss this because it mostly happens in the dark forest of the internet.
Nadia asparhouvas new book antimimetics on this is really interesting so far. Reading it now
What's interesting is that I have never heard of that book, but I did read and love "There Is No Antimemetics Division" by qntm when it was still just a series on the SCP site. I haven't thought of that series in ages.
She just launched it.
I'll give it a look!
I enjoyed bentham 's post a lot, But I also agree with your points here. I think you're exactly right that his post skips over the value of the midwit meme, which is that sometimes the simpler or more obvious answer is the correct one. Although It makes sense that he would discount this as a proposition in general, because his brand of thinking relies heavily on the idea that counterintuitive concepts derived from first principles are actually correct, no matter how complicated or unusual they may seem. So he may reject the entire premise of the midwit meme