The bizarro bondage-clown-violinists are from a Laurie Anderson show called “Language is a Vir
Language is a Virus: Mike Pence edition
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Ha great note and I’m only halfway through!
The meta reason why Language is a Virus in this note is that we now have to spend half our time explaining what a thought is NOT about in order to utilize an auto tuned model or narrative. I’ve noticed this a lot lately where the choice of framework immediately compels prejudgements on the part of listeners. I’m sure I do it more often than I notice as well, but I expect it’s a twig in my eye vs a log in others kind of thing.
I am saddened that my reply didn’t make the cut Ben.
Otherwise, it is an interesting post. But specifically I do wonder if your intention is to point that a therapeutic tone coming from the left is a bad thing? Or do you intentionally leave it as a point of reminder with no leaning?
In and of itself, it’s neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It simply is.
To the degree it’s an intentionally constructed weaponization of viral language for the economic and political gain of the virus spreaders - which I believe it 100% is - then it’s absolutely a bad thing.
The languages of peace and understanding being weaponised against others for an agenda is truly ironic and truly a bad thing.
But I’m not surprised that they are finding it effective using psychobabble speak against Trump. Maybe you sit on one side or the other on an issue to Trump (I’m pretty sure I sit opposite in nearly everything), but one thing about near everyone can agree is that Trump is a verifiably a narcissist. Maybe the word “enable” is to trigger the memory of other enablers and narcissists.
In the same vein, maybe the “civil war” narrative is to trigger the amygdala and the fear response, which again is ironic because in this context the appropriate response in this war is to downplay that there even was a war.
But in either case, the narrative/language virus is triggering those strong responses by borrowing associated memories with those words.
Or maybe I’m writing a bunch of bullshit. Who knows?
Anyway I appreciate the troll on twitter. It’s really the best way to be. Elon in that sense has mastered it the most though probably.
Now I’ve finished it and I think this note is in excellent addition to mogcom for the summer.
Rusty’s work gave me new awareness of a mode by which memes propagate themselves in the metaverse. This note has done something similar. Seems obvious in hindsight but I don’t think I had appreciated how much the types of words we use signal the viruses that we are infected by at the same time that our adoption of them is a mode which spreads the virus further. And this is our intention in selecting them because it worked for us.
I assume that the social media algorithms already take this into account in some form. Whatever signal is there in our own words choices would be measurable by something like the fiat index. As I think about it I can’t decide how much I think social media algorithms capture this or if there are some other dimensions to what you are talking about.
I commented on mogcom about the viruses I realize I’ve been infected with that have most dominated my thinking in life, which have naturally changed and gotten to be a more complex milieu over time. Reading your note I realized how prominently my word choices reflect these infections. The worst one is the Trust the Science virus, or whatever you prefer to call it. Academic, sciency words really do it for me lmao (intentionally done here a time or two for kicks…did you catch it?). Somewhere more distant is still the Charismatic Revival Fury virus. I expect if the algorithm runs on me that it’d find I still like to use religious language. Which others??
You’ve added another layer to my narrative hypersensitivity! Have to police my own language now for high load viral infections.
Adding to my first comment on the sense that much caveating is required, you can just feel the difficulty in our minds keeping the topic on the story about the story, and not the story itself. I think this is what you are struggling with on climate change discussions also and…yea that one will be maybe even tougher than Jan 6th to keep the attention on the story about the story.
I had more thoughts from your note that were epimemetics related but they’ll have to wait. Thanks for the fun and insightful piece.
Right? It’s literally like fighting a fever.
I’m a little surprised to find that while I thought I leaned a little towards one team on the red/blue spectrum, I’m actually infected by the virus on the other side of the spectrum.
Hi Ben - thanks for the post. Our neural pathways create associations, linking related things or experiences. Those associations can sure act like a virus, contaminating our thoughts with feelings instead of facts. Your post made me think about how I think.
This note is a brief explanation of why ET has held my attention. I was introduced to ET though Narrative and Metaverse Part 1 and have continually experienced ET notes, effectively, as a mirror. I quit my Twitter account 5 weeks ago and my life is significantly better. I’m less irritable with my fiance, I’m less prone to impulsively, and inappropriately, vent about the culture war with friends/family. And I’m more at peace with my emotions, more focused on pursuing my goals. Everything seems to be better. Twitter had a way of infecting my mind with thought patterns, powerfully tied to emotions (primarily of outrage and a false self-righteousness), that I have now come to know as ‘narratives’. Things are trending in the right direction and the wisdom here is much appreciated!
Having never been much a Twitter user I can’t attest to the infection, but I definitely felt a sense of nauseation with it as soon as I’ve started using it. I think the best way to innoculate yourself to the virus is first always asking yourself why? Even personally ET is a masterclass in that specific thing; it’s not about understanding how but always trying to get at why?
The how is usually pretty boring and almost always mundane, but the why? If nothing else, is always entertaining. Or sometimes horrifying.