6 ms·

Straussian Memes

43 points by kp1197 9mo ago

cathyreisenwitz 9mo ago
Did I miss something, or are none of the examples both Straussian and memetic/memes? I feel like if this were a real thing, one could imagine one example. Also, that's not how churches generally work.
- PaulHoule 9mo ago
  It's classic Bay Area monoculture, like that Paul Graham essay about "things you can't say". People are deferential to it because LessWrong is a hugbox or because Graham is rich but in that monoculture people are used to laughing at jokes that lack a punch line and thinking that makes them "insiders", "cool", or "smart", compared to people in flyover states, the East Coast, and the rest of California who can't see the Emperor's clothes. The article itself is an example of something that overlaps to some extent with its subject without being an example of the subject, like all the examples in it. It's an intriguing idea, like "things you can't say" but without examples it falls flat but that won't bother the rationalists anymore than they are bothered by Aella's "experiments" or allegedly profound fanfics or adding different people's utility functions or reasoning about the future without discounting. It's a hugbox. Or maybe it is something they can't find any examples of it because humans can't make them, only hypothetical superhuman AI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI
  - _yb2s 9mo ago
    Your rant about Bay Area subcultures is suspiciously written in jargon that only someone deep in these subcultures would recognize- well done, very Straussian.
    - PaulHoule 9mo ago
      You know they do have my picture in the dictionary next to "insider-outsider!"
      - gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
        Thanks for providing a (meta-)example of "things-you-cant-say")? you absolutely need to turn the "insider-outsider" idea into a paragraph that will attract downvotes (EDIT- without reading like colloquial schizo ;) Ps: to what extent is your lack of engagement coming from a fear of counter-transferrence (/mirroring)
  - lcuff 9mo ago
    Everybody's mileage will vary on this ... I spent a lot of time in the year after I read Paul Graham's essay on "things you can't say", searching for things that I thought matched the criteria he set out, and found a few. But it's not that the words may never cross my lips, I can say these things within some small circle of people, but would definitely not be saying them in public without being prepared for an onslaught of negative attention. Some examples of 'cancel culture' are proof of this. Donald G. McNeil comes to mind. That said, I'm not impressed with the notion of Straussian memes and agree that way better examples are needed to give the idea some validity.
  - aaron695 9mo ago
    [dead]
- _yb2s 9mo ago
  Religions themselves are a great example of a Straussian meme, it’s shocking how close they got to using that example but instead went somewhere else with it that made zero sense. I suspect that the use of incredibly bad examples is some sort of intentional Straussian joke, and that the entire article itself, and not the examples in it, is supposed to be the real example of a Straussian meme.
  - dmichulke 9mo ago
    Once you assume that any collection of Straussian meme examples is itself a Straussian meme example, you're free to start with the worst examples And maybe that's the higher reading.
    - _yb2s 9mo ago
      Is this HN or Tyler Cowen’s blog?
- stocksinsmocks 9mo ago
  I wish atheist would just stop writing about Christian practices. Particularly screenwriters. It’s better that your audience assumes you are ignorant than to open your mouth and prove them right.
galaxyLogic 9mo ago
Another phrase that comes to mind is "Plausible Deniability": By uttering ambiguous sentences you can deny all but one possible meanings of what you say. And talking to different audiences at different times you can claim you didn't mean anything like what your citics are claiming you did. But I like the idea there is a term for this, be it Straussian Memes or something else. What I didn't quite get is how "self-stabilizing" works? What I'd like is for TV-anchors to get wise and start asking their interviewees "What EXACTLY do you mean when you use this term ...". But I guess they won't because they too are happy to spread a meme which multiple different communities can like because they understand it in the way they like.
- ryandv 9mo ago
  > Another phrase that comes to mind is "Plausible Deniability": By uttering ambiguous sentences you can deny all but one possible meanings of what you say. And talking to different audiences at different times you can claim you didn't mean anything like what your citics are claiming you did. This is the core rhetorical tactic of the progressive left in a nutshell. Linguistic superposition, equivocation, Schrodinger's definition - whatever you want to call it, it's the ability to have your cake and eat it too by simply changing your definitions, or even someone else's, post hoc. Let us take a moment to be reminded of the English Socialism of Orwell and doublespeak.
  - lcuff 9mo ago
    "Core rhetorical tactic of the progressive left". Or the conservative right, depending on which side of this divide one happens to stand on. And speaking of Orwell, he was pointing out the doublespeak of the Fascists, not the socialists.
    - ryandv 9mo ago
      It's really quite potent in terms such as "racism" or "gender" which have seen unilateral attempts at redefinition.
      - 9mo ago
VikingCoder 9mo ago
I don't know what you'd call something structured like this, but I really love that advice: "You can't change the people around you - But you can change the people around you."
- JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
  What is the difference between a Straussian meme and a double entendre?
  - klysm 9mo ago
    I think one is more interpretation vs lexical similarity
  - maxbond 9mo ago
    Allegedly a Straussian meme is "self stabilizing" because it imposes some sort of cost to buying into the lower or higher meaning. So it's a multiple entendre that has ideological or epistemic implications. (I'm not convinced this is a thing, the examples were pretty contrived.) Whereas in the example here, acting on that advice is costly (it means losing friends) but believing it is free. And there aren't different layers of meaning accessible to different parties. It's straightforwardly a play on words.
    - aebtebeten 9mo ago
      I've been trying to come up with "self stabilizing" examples since yesterday, but think I finally may have stumbled upon one: "Prep hop" videos, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPpjU1UeAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPpjU1UeAo or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1N3WXZ_1LM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1N3WXZ_1LM , may get forwarded by members of different subcultures for two different reasons: the first because they appreciate the comic satirisation of others, and the second because they appreciate how the comics have sweated the details of their own subculture — "we are like that only". Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McMSHqWM3G8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McMSHqWM3G8
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
motohagiography 9mo ago
I think the author is talking about "exoteric" meaning, which is for public consumption, and "esoteric" meaning, which is for the initiated. Even though they say they aren't dogwhistles or shibboleths, these Straussian memes are closely related, as the accusation asserts that there is an "esoteric" meaning to something beneath its "exoteric" face value. They may be a converse of the Scissor Statement, which has a dual meaning that is irreconcilable between the separate interpreters. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190508)
- ryandv 9mo ago
  Right. See also Paul J. Bagley, "On the Practice of Esotericism," 1992. https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709872?origin=crossref https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709872?orig...
- kp1197 9mo ago
  I kind of regret calling it Straussian because of the baggage that comes with that label. The key differentiator here compared to exoteric/esoteric is the stabilization mechanism: social costs to either upgrading one’s own understanding, or upgrading someone else’s understanding. That’s what keeps the readings differentiated and therefore the tiered structure stable. Keeping the structure encourages the memes survival, because it widens the acceptability of the message to meet audiences where they are. I think I need a few more examples and I ought to make this point a little more explicit.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
blamestross 9mo ago
I've called things shaped like this "polyentendre". In my head I think of it has just really high linguistic compression. Minus intent, it is just superimposing multiple true statements into a small set of glyphs/phonemes. Its always really context sensitive. Context is the shared dictionary of linguistic compression, and you need to hijack it to get more meanings out of words. Places to get more compression in: - Ambiguity of subject/object with vague pronouns (and membership in plural pronouns) - Ambiguity of English word-meaning collisions - Lack of specificity in word choice. - Ambiguity of emphasis in written language or delivery. They can come out a bit flat verbally. A group people in a situation: - A is ill - B poisoned A - C is horrified about the situation but too afraid to say anything - D thinks A is faking it. - E is just really cool "They really are sick" is uttered by an observer and we don't know how much of the above they have insight into. I just get a kick out of finding statements like this for fun in my life. Doing it with intent is more complicated. What the author describes seems more like strategic ambiguity but slightly more specific. I don't think it is a useful label they try to cast here.
throw4847285 9mo ago
The fact that the LessWrong crowd will reference a memeified version of Leo Strauss is very telling. To be anti-philosophy but really into Leo Strauss. Curious. I wonder where they encountered his ideas? Edit: Not sure why I was being coy. I'm talking about the Claremont Institute.
stocksinsmocks 9mo ago
Unrelated to the topic, I’m a bit at a loss as to what to make of this website. There was a link to a really cool analysis of artificial intelligence research. And I guess they are a nonprofit and are raising $2M for “infrastructure“ but I think they mean infrastructure in the sense of software they like, and not the kind of infrastructure normal people think of like plumbing, electricity, and roads. I spent a few minutes browsing, and I can’t even tell what charitable purpose or educational purpose they could be serving. There’s just no clear statement of purpose anywhere other than I suppose being really rational. Who are these dudes?
- petesergeant 9mo ago
  > Who are these dudes? Top right in this picture: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GgTm194WIAEqak3?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GgTm194WIAEqak3?format=jpg&name=...
- adastra22 9mo ago
  Dude, seriously, walk away. You have stumbled upon the website of a cult that ensnares smart people and eats their brains. No level of exposure is safe.
  - maxbond 9mo ago
    Like something that if you look at it too long you won't be able to pull yourself away? Almost as if you were petrified? That's an interesting idea. Someone ought to write an essay.
    - adastra22 9mo ago
      LMAO
    - dmichulke 9mo ago
      Nerd sniping https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/
      - 9mo ago
drivebyhooting 9mo ago
I would’ve preferred more examples.
- janalsncm 9mo ago
  Yeah if only to justify why a phenomenon deserves its own term and article. I wouldn’t even call the examples the author used memes.
petermcneeley 9mo ago
"Straussian moment" is a struassian meme
alfiedotwtf 9mo ago
The fact that this is not called Paganini Memes has me upside down
xtiansimon 9mo ago
> “There's a bit of a category mistake here, because a single utterance by a father is not a meme. But the example is meant to be an aid to developing an intuition for the general idea.” In the Dawkins sense, if the Dad’s use of the Santa myth makes the child feel happy, and preserves in some sense their innocence (ignorance of the world the way it really is), then the mother can recreate the same myth pattern elsewhere, most likely through family traditions. Or in a semiotics of Ecco, the parents are overcoding Santa and the child is undercoding Santa—same expressions but different interpretations between the two groups. Maybe childhood lives in that gap.
- xtiansimon 9mo ago
  -1? Semiotic hater, or clinical psychologist? The former doesn’t like language games, and the latter just doesn’t like any suggestion not backed by observation (god knows where they get their ideas).

43 points by kp1197 9mo ago

Did I miss something, or are none of the examples both Straussian and memetic/memes? I feel like if this were a real thing, one could imagine one example. Also, that's not how churches generally work.

PaulHoule 9mo ago
It's classic Bay Area monoculture, like that Paul Graham essay about "things you can't say". People are deferential to it because LessWrong is a hugbox or because Graham is rich but in that monoculture people are used to laughing at jokes that lack a punch line and thinking that makes them "insiders", "cool", or "smart", compared to people in flyover states, the East Coast, and the rest of California who can't see the Emperor's clothes. The article itself is an example of something that overlaps to some extent with its subject without being an example of the subject, like all the examples in it. It's an intriguing idea, like "things you can't say" but without examples it falls flat but that won't bother the rationalists anymore than they are bothered by Aella's "experiments" or allegedly profound fanfics or adding different people's utility functions or reasoning about the future without discounting. It's a hugbox. Or maybe it is something they can't find any examples of it because humans can't make them, only hypothetical superhuman AI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI
- _yb2s 9mo ago
  Your rant about Bay Area subcultures is suspiciously written in jargon that only someone deep in these subcultures would recognize- well done, very Straussian.
  - PaulHoule 9mo ago
    You know they do have my picture in the dictionary next to "insider-outsider!"
    - gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
      Thanks for providing a (meta-)example of "things-you-cant-say")? you absolutely need to turn the "insider-outsider" idea into a paragraph that will attract downvotes (EDIT- without reading like colloquial schizo ;) Ps: to what extent is your lack of engagement coming from a fear of counter-transferrence (/mirroring)
- lcuff 9mo ago
  Everybody's mileage will vary on this ... I spent a lot of time in the year after I read Paul Graham's essay on "things you can't say", searching for things that I thought matched the criteria he set out, and found a few. But it's not that the words may never cross my lips, I can say these things within some small circle of people, but would definitely not be saying them in public without being prepared for an onslaught of negative attention. Some examples of 'cancel culture' are proof of this. Donald G. McNeil comes to mind. That said, I'm not impressed with the notion of Straussian memes and agree that way better examples are needed to give the idea some validity.
- aaron695 9mo ago
  [dead]
_yb2s 9mo ago
Religions themselves are a great example of a Straussian meme, it’s shocking how close they got to using that example but instead went somewhere else with it that made zero sense. I suspect that the use of incredibly bad examples is some sort of intentional Straussian joke, and that the entire article itself, and not the examples in it, is supposed to be the real example of a Straussian meme.
- dmichulke 9mo ago
  Once you assume that any collection of Straussian meme examples is itself a Straussian meme example, you're free to start with the worst examples And maybe that's the higher reading.
  - _yb2s 9mo ago
    Is this HN or Tyler Cowen’s blog?
stocksinsmocks 9mo ago
I wish atheist would just stop writing about Christian practices. Particularly screenwriters. It’s better that your audience assumes you are ignorant than to open your mouth and prove them right.

galaxyLogic 9mo ago

Another phrase that comes to mind is "Plausible Deniability": By uttering ambiguous sentences you can deny all but one possible meanings of what you say. And talking to different audiences at different times you can claim you didn't mean anything like what your citics are claiming you did. But I like the idea there is a term for this, be it Straussian Memes or something else. What I didn't quite get is how "self-stabilizing" works? What I'd like is for TV-anchors to get wise and start asking their interviewees "What EXACTLY do you mean when you use this term ...". But I guess they won't because they too are happy to spread a meme which multiple different communities can like because they understand it in the way they like.

ryandv 9mo ago
> Another phrase that comes to mind is "Plausible Deniability": By uttering ambiguous sentences you can deny all but one possible meanings of what you say. And talking to different audiences at different times you can claim you didn't mean anything like what your citics are claiming you did. This is the core rhetorical tactic of the progressive left in a nutshell. Linguistic superposition, equivocation, Schrodinger's definition - whatever you want to call it, it's the ability to have your cake and eat it too by simply changing your definitions, or even someone else's, post hoc. Let us take a moment to be reminded of the English Socialism of Orwell and doublespeak.
- lcuff 9mo ago
  "Core rhetorical tactic of the progressive left". Or the conservative right, depending on which side of this divide one happens to stand on. And speaking of Orwell, he was pointing out the doublespeak of the Fascists, not the socialists.
  - ryandv 9mo ago
    It's really quite potent in terms such as "racism" or "gender" which have seen unilateral attempts at redefinition.
    - 9mo ago

VikingCoder 9mo ago

I don't know what you'd call something structured like this, but I really love that advice: "You can't change the people around you - But you can change the people around you."

JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
What is the difference between a Straussian meme and a double entendre?
- klysm 9mo ago
  I think one is more interpretation vs lexical similarity
- maxbond 9mo ago
  Allegedly a Straussian meme is "self stabilizing" because it imposes some sort of cost to buying into the lower or higher meaning. So it's a multiple entendre that has ideological or epistemic implications. (I'm not convinced this is a thing, the examples were pretty contrived.) Whereas in the example here, acting on that advice is costly (it means losing friends) but believing it is free. And there aren't different layers of meaning accessible to different parties. It's straightforwardly a play on words.
  - aebtebeten 9mo ago
    I've been trying to come up with "self stabilizing" examples since yesterday, but think I finally may have stumbled upon one: "Prep hop" videos, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPpjU1UeAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPpjU1UeAo or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1N3WXZ_1LM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1N3WXZ_1LM , may get forwarded by members of different subcultures for two different reasons: the first because they appreciate the comic satirisation of others, and the second because they appreciate how the comics have sweated the details of their own subculture — "we are like that only". Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McMSHqWM3G8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McMSHqWM3G8

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

motohagiography 9mo ago

I think the author is talking about "exoteric" meaning, which is for public consumption, and "esoteric" meaning, which is for the initiated. Even though they say they aren't dogwhistles or shibboleths, these Straussian memes are closely related, as the accusation asserts that there is an "esoteric" meaning to something beneath its "exoteric" face value. They may be a converse of the Scissor Statement, which has a dual meaning that is irreconcilable between the separate interpreters. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190508)

ryandv 9mo ago
Right. See also Paul J. Bagley, "On the Practice of Esotericism," 1992. https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709872?origin=crossref https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709872?orig...
kp1197 9mo ago
I kind of regret calling it Straussian because of the baggage that comes with that label. The key differentiator here compared to exoteric/esoteric is the stabilization mechanism: social costs to either upgrading one’s own understanding, or upgrading someone else’s understanding. That’s what keeps the readings differentiated and therefore the tiered structure stable. Keeping the structure encourages the memes survival, because it widens the acceptability of the message to meet audiences where they are. I think I need a few more examples and I ought to make this point a little more explicit.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]

blamestross 9mo ago

I've called things shaped like this "polyentendre". In my head I think of it has just really high linguistic compression. Minus intent, it is just superimposing multiple true statements into a small set of glyphs/phonemes. Its always really context sensitive. Context is the shared dictionary of linguistic compression, and you need to hijack it to get more meanings out of words. Places to get more compression in: - Ambiguity of subject/object with vague pronouns (and membership in plural pronouns) - Ambiguity of English word-meaning collisions - Lack of specificity in word choice. - Ambiguity of emphasis in written language or delivery. They can come out a bit flat verbally. A group people in a situation: - A is ill - B poisoned A - C is horrified about the situation but too afraid to say anything - D thinks A is faking it. - E is just really cool "They really are sick" is uttered by an observer and we don't know how much of the above they have insight into. I just get a kick out of finding statements like this for fun in my life. Doing it with intent is more complicated. What the author describes seems more like strategic ambiguity but slightly more specific. I don't think it is a useful label they try to cast here.

throw4847285 9mo ago

The fact that the LessWrong crowd will reference a memeified version of Leo Strauss is very telling. To be anti-philosophy but really into Leo Strauss. Curious. I wonder where they encountered his ideas? Edit: Not sure why I was being coy. I'm talking about the Claremont Institute.

stocksinsmocks 9mo ago

Unrelated to the topic, I’m a bit at a loss as to what to make of this website. There was a link to a really cool analysis of artificial intelligence research. And I guess they are a nonprofit and are raising $2M for “infrastructure“ but I think they mean infrastructure in the sense of software they like, and not the kind of infrastructure normal people think of like plumbing, electricity, and roads. I spent a few minutes browsing, and I can’t even tell what charitable purpose or educational purpose they could be serving. There’s just no clear statement of purpose anywhere other than I suppose being really rational. Who are these dudes?

petesergeant 9mo ago
> Who are these dudes? Top right in this picture: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GgTm194WIAEqak3?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GgTm194WIAEqak3?format=jpg&name=...
adastra22 9mo ago
Dude, seriously, walk away. You have stumbled upon the website of a cult that ensnares smart people and eats their brains. No level of exposure is safe.
- maxbond 9mo ago
  Like something that if you look at it too long you won't be able to pull yourself away? Almost as if you were petrified? That's an interesting idea. Someone ought to write an essay.
  - adastra22 9mo ago
    LMAO
  - dmichulke 9mo ago
    Nerd sniping https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/
    - 9mo ago

drivebyhooting 9mo ago

I would’ve preferred more examples.

janalsncm 9mo ago
Yeah if only to justify why a phenomenon deserves its own term and article. I wouldn’t even call the examples the author used memes.

petermcneeley 9mo ago

"Straussian moment" is a struassian meme

alfiedotwtf 9mo ago

The fact that this is not called Paganini Memes has me upside down

xtiansimon 9mo ago

> “There's a bit of a category mistake here, because a single utterance by a father is not a meme. But the example is meant to be an aid to developing an intuition for the general idea.” In the Dawkins sense, if the Dad’s use of the Santa myth makes the child feel happy, and preserves in some sense their innocence (ignorance of the world the way it really is), then the mother can recreate the same myth pattern elsewhere, most likely through family traditions. Or in a semiotics of Ecco, the parents are overcoding Santa and the child is undercoding Santa—same expressions but different interpretations between the two groups. Maybe childhood lives in that gap.

xtiansimon 9mo ago
-1? Semiotic hater, or clinical psychologist? The former doesn’t like language games, and the latter just doesn’t like any suggestion not backed by observation (god knows where they get their ideas).