Many people are hating on this video, but I actually think it's a fascinating display of the two very distinct modes that exist to relate with reality: mimesis vs. first principles thinking. 95% of people operate by mimesis. Truth doesn't matter to them as much as getting along; and their epistemology (how they decide whether something is true) is based on what people around them believe (which is obviously circular, since most of *these* people also operate that way). The remaining 5% — people with Asperger's really — think from first principles about things. This leads them to hold opinions that are sometimes very outside the Overton window, to be extremely disagreeable — basically to be that guy in the meme standing before a mob going "yes, you are all wrong." And the reason they can do this isn't courage as much as social ineptitude — it's not that they're strong enough to fight against the grain, it's that they *don't feel* the grain. They're rude by omission, not commission. Now, my running theory is that this balance — 95% mimesis, 5% first principles, at the expense of social cohesion — is probably finely tuned by nature. Asperger's is almost entirely genetic, and you'd assume that it puts its hosts at such a reproductive disadvantage that it should be rooted out in no time. And yet it persists, and I actually think it's been with us since time immemorial: the hunter gatherer's aspie was probably the shaman — a weird dude whose brand of wisdom earned him a certain respect, but also kept him forever on the fringe of the tribe. I think that balance exists because if we were all aspies, society mostly wouldn't be able to work together (even Peter Thiel fired Elon!). And if we were all normies, civilization would devolve into a mimetic black hole — you can get a feel for what that looks like by looking at university campuses.
Many people are hating on this video, but I actually think it's a fascinating display of the two very distinct modes that exist to relate with reality: mimesis vs. first principles thinking. 95% of people operate by mimesis. Truth doesn't matter to them as much as getting along; and their epistemology (how they decide whether something is true) is based on what people around them believe (which is obviously circular, since most of *these* people also operate that way). The remaining 5% — people with Asperger's really — think from first principles about things. This leads them to hold opinions that are sometimes very outside the Overton window, to be extremely disagreeable — basically to be that guy in the meme standing before a mob going "yes, you are all wrong." And the reason they can do this isn't courage as much as social ineptitude — it's not that they're strong enough to fight against the grain, it's that they *don't feel* the grain. They're rude by omission, not commission. Now, my running theory is that this balance — 95% mimesis, 5% first principles, at the expense of social cohesion — is probably finely tuned by nature. Asperger's is almost entirely genetic, and you'd assume that it puts its hosts at such a reproductive disadvantage that it should be rooted out in no time. And yet it persists, and I actually think it's been with us since time immemorial: the hunter gatherer's aspie was probably the shaman — a weird dude whose brand of wisdom earned him a certain respect, but also kept him forever on the fringe of the tribe. I think that balance exists because if we were all aspies, society mostly wouldn't be able to work together (even Peter Thiel fired Elon!). And if we were all normies, civilization would devolve into a mimetic black hole — you can get a feel for what that looks like by looking at university campuses.
@Altimor it’s fractal tho - within the 5% who believe themselves to be contrarian first principle Elves the vast majority again operates by mimesis towards that smaller ingroup (which hilariously puts them closer to the initial 95% )
@fabianstelzer @Altimor Not that I can see. I don't care what other people think -- very much including other people like me.
@fabianstelzer @Altimor There's Terry Davis in the middle and spiral fractals of normification expanding ever outwards from him.
@fabianstelzer @Altimor Thinking solo "from first principles" is in any case not a defense against drawing wrong, even absurd conclusions, because of biases, emotions, overconfidence and matching on partial informations. What works is a much broader, slow, collaborative social process called science 🤷♂️
@fabianstelzer @Altimor No, you're confusing the people who actually look for truth for the people who just like the idea that they look for truth.
@fabianstelzer @Altimor How steep you think is that “fractal” bell curve?
@fabianstelzer @Altimor and then the aspies see their own beliefs reflected back to them by normies and decide that belief wasn’t quite edgy enough, and go one step further
@fabianstelzer @Altimor I don't think they believe themselves to be different and thus they act that way. They likely don't think about that at all and are just infact different. "by omission not commision" is a great read on this situation.
@fabianstelzer @Altimor Nonsense. There are biases that build up over a lifetime based on experience and existing knowledge. But first principle people are uniformly open to new truth when its demonstrated. This is the ~essential difference with mimesiacs.