
The American Brain - yarapavan
https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/american-brain.html
======
bluetomcat
As a European observer of the general discourse in "popular speech platforms"
of the "American Brain", I am baffled by the narrow breadth of topics that get
discussed most of the time. Enormous heat is generated from discussions on gay
marriage, gun laws, abortion laws and minority rights. Identity politics at
full throttle. It feels very shallow and unintellectual. You are forced to
identify as a member of some group, and then you become a social justice
warrior of that group. It all feels like a very wrong way to approach politics
on a national level.

~~~
Miner49er
What do you mean by "identity politics" in this context? What does identity
politics have to do with gun laws, for example?

~~~
bluetomcat
With respect to gun laws, you identify loosely either as a "Texan farmer who
needs guns to protect his farm", or a "student who might become a victim of a
crazy classmate", or maybe a gun producer who profits from the sales of guns.

The whole political and societal discourse then starts revolving around
satisfying the individual interests of these groups, instead of looking at
things integrally from a systematic point of view. If you optimise the system
from above, you may even avoid the need of having those groups of people in
the first place.

~~~
Miner49er
How would one look "at things integrally from a systemic point of view" in the
case of gun laws?

~~~
bluetomcat
Maybe by improving the socioeconomic conditions that generate crime in the
first place?

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stephanheijl
_A society’s mind is its marketplace of ideas, and the freer, more open, and
more active that marketplace is, the sharper and clearer the giant mind is and
the faster the pace of societal growth._

This is a good takeaway; even though the fringes of any discussion are
generally filled with bad ideas, enabling people to have the discussion is
paramount in finding the ideas that turn out to be "diamonds". It also permits
us to gauge the quality of ideas that are not good allows us to consider why
they are not. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

~~~
joelx
I agree. The article's key takeaway is that "Mute buttons in any form should
raise red flags".

~~~
nikodunk
Read further down though! He gets to the self-cleaning of the marketplace
through "Gauntlets" – that unpopular opinions will be attacked, but if there's
truth to them and they stand, they'll eventually be accepted and become
mainstream (ex: "smoking causes cancer" from 1940 -> 1960)

 _The cigarette story is a story of the MPI doing its job. It’s a story of a
needle of truth rising up from a haystack on the fringes of the big brain’s
consciousness and piercing its way through a century-long barrage of gauntlet
attacks until it had conquered the Thought Pile mountain and become the
mainstream, status quo viewpoint._

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socalnate1
This is chapter six of a much, much longer article; (which is not yet all
published). Make sure you read it with that understanding, this is not
intended to be read in isolation.

[https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/story-of-
us.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/story-of-us.html)

------
ihm
This article is pretty naive in completely ignoring the role of propaganda and
advertising.

~~~
helpPeople
I find marketing such a strange idea.

I believe the Ancient Greeks hated these mind control techniques. But in
modern society, we are told it's a good thing.

I'm not sure what is good about being tricked to buy average products at
expensive prices. Samsung/Apple are my two examples in the tech world.

~~~
rabidrat
There are Ages of Reason and Ages of Vanity. It is important to know which you
are in.

------
paulpauper
way too long of an article and obvious to anyone who knows about politics and
political discourse over the past few decades. the window shifts. views that
were not controversial become controversial, and the other way around.

>But dictators aren’t the only ones who use mute buttons. Given all of the
obvious benefits of free speech, when a culture or a movement or an individual
citizen seems threatened by free speech, the first question you should ask is:
“Why? What are they so scared of?” Free speech is a tool that helps us see
what’s true versus false and right versus wrong—so if you believe truth and
virtue are on your side, a vibrant, open discourse is your best friend. And if
someone is trying to repress free speech—that tells us something important.

this does not seem to apply to social networks and YouTube. tons of ppl and
content creators have been censored or terminated for making certain content
and remarks outside of the overton window.

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srmatto
The premise of this article reminds me of this essay:

"If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious"

[https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious...](https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious-140130a.htm)

~~~
olooney
Interesting paper but t feels a little like a "paradox of the heap"
argument[1]. A human has 9e10 neurons[2], while a rabbit only has 5e8, and
there are only 3e8 Americans. I don't see a problem arguing that consciousness
is an emergent phenomenon arising in networks of at least 1e10 nodes, or in
networks that have certain recurrent structures regardless of network size, or
that "consciousness" is a qualitative concept measured on a sliding scale so
that a rabbit is 1/180th as conscious as a human. Though if someone wanted to
argue that the United States as a whole exhibits about the same level of
consciousness as a rabbit, I don't think I would argue with them... but,
having known several pet rabbits, it would feel to me that we are saying the
same thing, which is that neither exhibits a meaningful level of consciousness
at all.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons)

~~~
minitoar
I’m probably missing the point of your comment by coming to the defense of pet
rabbits but...they are actually quite intelligent! They can be litter box
trained and really have a lot going on if you don’t keep them locked in a
hutch 24/7.

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pjc50
There's a real "Whig view of history" going on here, which seems to center on
the idea that society gradually moves from wrong ideas towards right ones. And
that truth not only sticks but expands, so all you have to do is proclaim the
Truth to enough people and it will move the window of acceptable ideas towards
progress.

What this doesn't cover is the "history of bad ideas", and their virality.
It's not enough to look at _just_ America. For a full picture you'd have to
look at Nazi Germany, Rwanda, etc. There are certain ideas which are popular,
persistent, false, and dangerous; a classic example is the "blood libel", or
the "protocols of the elders of Zion" hoax.

> "In 1959, almost every reasonable person in the U.S. thought interracial
> marriage was an immoral thing. Today, we see this as a failure of wisdom."

The thing is, this wasn't a position of blank ignorance; it was an ideology.
It was something people had to be taught, and an idea that had to be fought.
And there's no reason why it couldn't come back again if enough clever people
promoted that idea.

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SuperFerret
The "artificially generated speech" is really interesting. There's no reason
why it can't happen on the other side of of the bell curve. Global right wing
movements are a good example.

~~~
pjc50
I can't see where the article talks about this?

