this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
630 points (94.7% liked)

Lemmy Shitpost

26649 readers
3238 users here now

Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.

Anything and everything goes. Memes, Jokes, Vents and Banter. Though we still have to comply with lemmy.world instance rules. So behave!


Rules:

1. Be Respectful


Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.

Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.

...


2. No Illegal Content


Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.

That means:

-No promoting violence/threats against any individuals

-No CSA content or Revenge Porn

-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)

...


3. No Spam


Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.

-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.

-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.

-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers

-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.

...


4. No Porn/ExplicitContent


-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.

-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.

...


5. No Enciting Harassment,Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts


-Do not Brigade other Communities

-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.

-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.

-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.

...


6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.


-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.

-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.

...

If you see content that is a breach of the rules, please flag and report the comment and a moderator will take action where they can.


Also check out:

Partnered Communities:

1.Memes

2.Lemmy Review

3.Mildly Infuriating

4.Lemmy Be Wholesome

5.No Stupid Questions

6.You Should Know

7.Comedy Heaven

8.Credible Defense

9.Ten Forward

10.LinuxMemes (Linux themed memes)


Reach out to

All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules. Striker

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

This must be the truth engine that enticed him to invest in Dogecoin.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is why all scientists are athletes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I mean, there's a joke in here about the brain being the biggest muscle

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

He saw the word "alpha" and ran with it!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I assume this is objective truth then, something that definitely exists and we can definitely know. I'm sure they have plenty of science to back it up.

They wouldn't just hear a bunch of thinly disguised bullshit built on the back of junk science and take it at face value without checking if any of it is real, not this person with their special objective truth brain.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

Do you want 'the handmaid's tale'? Cause that is how... You do? Oh

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's funny how I've tried to bring some of that most blokey guys I have come across on mountaineering and such, and the vast majority weasal out of it

And the biggest badasses I know always drive the most basic cars lol

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you're an actual car guy, you're probably driving some absolute piece of shit that you've been continuously breathing life into for the last ten years.

The folks with the real high end luxury stuff just end up leaving their vehicles in the shop for half the year.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

As the owner of a Jeep Wrangler, I feel both called out and proud...

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

high T alpha male

in other words, an asshole

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

we all saw how that went with Andrew Tate. His high testosterone levels give him his sound judgement skills and wisdom

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Imagine thinking that you’re tougher than context.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Good point.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Whenever you find yourself thinking about "how to get rid of the others", you've already taken a wrong turn somewhere like this.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Although I think it's fair to think about getting rid of those who want to get rid of others. Just make it a hard line: only those, no others.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Is this about getting rid of others somehow?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Why some of the smartest people can be so very stupid | Psyche Ideas

Basically many people who have the raw processing power or "IQ" to understand and analyse things can still lack certain "mental infrastructure" or education to understand things. This is especially atrocious for narrow minded people who actively rejected new information that doesn't fit into their mental comfort zone. Musk is definitely one of them.

This is the reason why we can't have nice things.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I'd say it's more people who are repeatedly told they are smart can be very stupid.

Many of then might even be "smart", but the important part is having unwarranted confidence.

Complicating things is that society rewards confidence way more than it rewards competence. If I'm honest about a lack of competence in a certain area but someone else lies during the interview, good chance they are going to get the job over me.

The reality is that everyone can be very very stupid, and so long as each and every one of us is willing to accept and recognize our weakness we aren't as likely to be assholes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It’s also important to recognize that smart people can and do fool themselves into believing whatever’s most comfortable to themselves, unless they actively develop the emotional fortitude to face reality.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah true. But like @[email protected] write it's also that confident behavior is rewarded. And narrow minded focus on profit is more efficient than being focused on other things. And they need to compete with others on this "game" who pursue the calculus of power. So humility is a really hard sell to them. And media is not looking at politics or politicians in that way at all.

I sometimes feel this lack of emotional fortitude when thinking about reading a book, because books often break up your worldview and require you to adjust. There is a kind of intellectual pain of disillusionment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

And they need to compete with others on this "game" who pursue the calculus of power.

Such compulsions are a function of lacking the kind of emotional fortitude I’m referring to.

Spineless people of poor character “need” to pursue upward movement along the gradient of power.

The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, “If you learned to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.”

Said Diogenes, “If you learned to live on lentils, you would not have to be subservient to the king.”

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

The trouble is that they do need to compete with people who do pursue power (or wealth) relentlessly. So there are hard calculations. Those who don't play don't get power and won't change anything. Those who do want to chance things and want other things than just power are at a (big) disadvantage. Even with the best of intention, the game plays you.

I believe the solution would be something like more rules or systems in place to focus on this kind of pursuit and call it out and dissuade it. Like develop social tools to change the rules of the game. No clue how though. Maybe AGI.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

Once again, it comes down to material conditions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Great article, thank you for sharing.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Musk is definitely one of them.

Musk is a rich trust fund baby whose fortune started off the back of Apartheid. It's not a shocker that he's a mask-off racist. He's done nothing to prove himself a genius, just a skilled grifter and financier.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Musk is definitely one of them.

I've yet to see any evidence that Musk is particularly smart. What I've mostly seen is his ability to throw big parties and charm investors with bullshit business speak, while riding a wave of lucky bets and state subsidies to billionaire-hood.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

No he's not. But he's also far from dumb.

‘On Stupidity’ (1937). At its heart was the idea that stupidity was not mere ‘dumbness’, not a brute lack of processing power. Dumbness, for Musil, was ‘straightforward’, indeed almost ‘honourable’. Stupidity was something very different and much more dangerous: dangerous precisely because some of the smartest people, the least dumb, were often the most stupid.

Musk is far from genius level but above average intelligence. He does have knowledge about rockets on a non-engineering level which you can see e.g. in this video talking about his starfactory (EDIT: Yes watching him in his element is kinda painful, knowing he's a fascist)

But he and others like him focus their thinking narrow mindedly on the pursuit of profit. Every decision is based on gaining wealth. THAT is by far the bigger problem.

Besides the focus of all education towards profit seeking, technical nerds also seem to "want to" see other fields like sociology or politics or history in a simple and easy to explain way. So they seek principles or the most simplistic social theories that don't explain anything real. Musk certainly falls into that.

Except now where he seems to go completely off the rails. Possibly a symptom of narcissism ever since he became unpopular, he's doubling down to find new validation for his fragile ego. So yeah in that sense he is not the best example.

My point was not just about Musk but about the idea of "finding the smartest people to rule". Because to anybody who is above intelligence that sounds smart except - stupidity can be more dangerous in intelligent people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

but above average intelligence

Maybe once. But that much Ketamine, plus his advanced age and excessive social media exposure, has degraded his ability to process information substantively.

He does have knowledge about rockets on a non-engineering level

He has prepared statements to read to a friendly interviewer. That's PR, not intelligence.

Besides the focus of all education towards profit seeking, technical nerds also seem to “want to” see other fields like sociology or politics or history in a simple and easy to explain way.

Musk isn't technical, he's a finance bro. And while I agree there's a strong "Education should be about making money" propaganda wave, I've noticed a lot of backtracking on this any time some group of labor activists starts passing around the financial reports of the publicly traded company to their coworkers. Then, all of a sudden, the finance bros become obsessed with sociology, politics, and history, at least in so far as they keep shouting and pointing to Venezuela any time someone at the firm mentions the company health care policy.

My point was not just about Musk but about the idea of “finding the smartest people to rule”. Because to anybody who is above intelligence that sounds smart except - stupidity can be more dangerous in intelligent people.

The fixation on "intelligence" as a discrete and quantifiable measure is what bothers me more than anything. I like to look at track records more than hypothetical quantifiers. Even if Elon were a "genius", I won't particularly appreciate the pro-eugenics track that brain power has sent him.

But I find it particularly galling when people conflate intelligence and success. So much of the modern economic system is about who you know rather than what you know. Elon Musk had access to enormous amounts of cheap credit, which he used to take a series of highly profitable gambles. He then leveraged his winnings to pull on more cheap credit.

Even setting aside whether that's "smart" or "stupid", I would say its a reflection of statistical probability. There are thousands of guys like Elon. Some make it, others don't. But what defines Elon in the end is simply luck. Recognizing him as exceptionally fortunate, rather than exceptionally smart or savvy, means pealing off the layers of PR and revealing the human underneath.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I assume this is referring to William Reich the psychoanalyst. His books look interesting in the way all kooky psychoanalysis crankery does, but I don't think he ever wrote about high T alpha males before dying in 1957.

He did write about about how fascists gain power by sexually repressing the population though. I'm sure Elon would hate his views on that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Why would this be in reference to Wilhelm Reich?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

"Reich effect" on google is wall to wall Nazi shit. "Reich effect psychology" leads to oldmates Wikipedia page.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Oh I just noticed the post actually says “the Reich effect”

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Fascists gaining power by sexually repressing the population doesn't sound kooky at all. It's sounds like reality.

load more comments
view more: next ›