A Theory of the World as run by large adult children

https://tomclancy.info/harold-and-george.html

130•tclancy•1h ago

Comments

SideburnsOfDoom•1h ago

See also: the "Everyone is Twelve now" theory of politics.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91429448/everyone-is-12-twitter-...

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/everyone-is-12-now-theory-of-...

afavour•1h ago

Reminds me of this classic:

—

working on a new unified theory of american reality i'm calling "everyone is twelve now"

“I’m strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm” of course you do. You’re twelve. “I don’t want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal” hell yeah homie you’re twelve. “Maybe if there’s crime we should just send the army” bless your heart my twelve year old buddy

https://bsky.app/profile/veryimportant.lawyer/post/3lybxlwzj...

Fricken•1h ago

Observing toddlers fight over toys has yielded some of my most valuable insights into the nature of statecraft.

api•41m ago

That was my oil pipeline and he broke it!

Did not!

Did too!

But he drove his tank on my side!

That’s not your side! That’s my side!

Is not!

bitexploder•28m ago

The narratives and what can be identity evolve. The brain’s core function to defend identity never does.

simpsond•27m ago

All fights between my children stem from resource contention.

fzeroracer•1h ago

I think a lot of us have worked with That Guy at one point or another. The person that never internalized what being 'wrong' means. I don't mean the curmudgeons that might be really prickly about certain things, but the kind of person that is not only habitually wrong but incapable of recognizing it.

In a sense I think this is a different thing from someone that is antisocial or manipulative, because even they can admit being wrong or incorrect in certain circumstances. It's closest to narcissist behavior but it exhibits in such a specific way that makes me think it's a different type.

You could probably link it to a lot of different things. Extreme machismo social media brainrot, a society that rewards never admitting you're wrong, extreme wealth.

rglover•49m ago

Garden variety malignant narcissism (my armchair psych opinion but grew up in this dynamic). It's acting out in response to their deep shame (the root thing that all of the narcissistic behavior is desperate to hide). They can't admit they're wrong, otherwise their entire psychological world collapses.

Coincidentally, that's also why it's so terrifying to see so many of these types in power. While most narcissists are mostly hot air and talk, occasionally, you get a legitimate wildcard that's destructive in difficult to repair ways (sometimes leaving nothing but smoldering rubble).

simpaticoder•26m ago

Yes, and here's an interesting (and clear) example that shows that narcissism is a complex delusion that puts one's own fault squarely into a blind spot that cannot be perceived. I watched this and, for the first time in my life, felt a huge pang of compassion and sadness for those that suffer from it, even though they make life more difficult for everyone else. They are broken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqRIw5FICAs

A Kent State professor calls 911 because she can't get into her building to pee; she is clearly drunk; they give her every opportunity to get a ride home; she refuses and is eventually detained. Later she goes to the police department to get an apology from the officers involved. It was, to me, a shocking example of the narcissistic delusion, with stakes low-enough that one could focus on that and not the side-effects.

bitexploder•23m ago

It is very interesting when you explore the neurological mechanics of this. A narcissist is rigid thinking dialed up to 11. It is essential a special and pathological “skill” their brains have learned. They do not have to update their priors or spend metabolic energy on almost anything their life. Their brain figured out the best way to survive and conserve energy was to avoid costly updates to their beliefs. Repeated over years and that system becomes deeply myelinated, a core identity. Unwinding that is a feat. Some people just have a more narrow set of rigid beliefs (e.g. religion, work skills, etc).

hyperhello•55m ago

It’s an evolved skin for blending with the other humans. Look at what they always actually do.

amelius•43m ago

If you're saying they are only pretending to be stupid, then they're doing a really good job.

glitchc•48m ago

In my experience, everyone turns twelve when they disagree or are shown to be wrong. Very few have the temerity to accept their faults. Let's not throw stones lest they hit our own glass houses.

api•43m ago

I’ll admit to having done that before. Sure.

When people say you’re wrong it triggers cognitive dissonance and social threat brain stem stuff that had to be consciously mediated. Even if you’re someone who makes an effort to do this it can catch you off guard.

trgn•4m ago

it's instinctive, people will readily be accept to be told they're wrong by an authority rather than a peer. people cant cast judgement without having earned to position to do so. similarly, people will not receive judgement when it doesnt come from a valid position of authority.

the answer is not to try and change human psychology, it's to reintroduce the hierarchies and structures where correction and judgement flows through the correct channels.

Configure0251•48m ago

No need to do a drive by on Predator Badlands like that, it's a perfectly enjoyable film in its own right. I agree with the author though, there's nothing nearly as emotionally deep or socio-politically engaging as One Battle After Another, and so it would make for poor choice as a double feature to run second in the pairing.

api•45m ago

One thing you learn growing up is that there, in a sense, are no such thing as grownups.

Nobody knows what they are doing in the sense we think they do when we are kids.

tormeh•38m ago

Some adults try a bit harder to live up to the ideals of being an adult than others. They are toddlers inside like anyone else, but there's a layer of restraint on top that evidently not everyone has.

SomeHacker44•29m ago

I agree to a large extent. Yet, what we see going on in US political leadership truly is beyond my belief of what reasonable adults should do and act like, even as an (precocious, sharp) ex-child.

donatj•45m ago

I have genuinely put a lot of thought into this lately. I have the sensation like older media was more expressive and thoughtful, there's at least more... interesting flavors there generally...

I am happy to ponder and willingly accept this is probably just my perception.

I have a couple of theories. The creators of the media are becoming more and more my age. Do they have nothing interesting to say to me as our experience is shared? Is this something experienced by previous generations as their generation took over media, or is our zeitgeist as "digital natives" so newly shared that this is a new experience?

I know people who would blame "ensh*tification" and move on, but I really think that there is more to what is happening.

What I do know is it's exceedingly rare for me to watch a movie or show made after about 2015 and to find myself thinking about it days later. There are of course exceptions.

Esophagus4•40m ago

Weird analogy, but it feels similar to the way old music differed to new music.

Old music had more variation in volume - volume rises and falls to add nuance to the piece. New music is produced differently and has a more “flat” sound due to everything being louder and variation being reduced by compression.

Seems like some parallels to other forms of media.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

megaloblasto•29m ago

I strongly disagree. Just because compression is common in pop music (and perhaps overused in some genres) doesn't mean new music isn't innovative and dynamic. When I listen to music say from 1920 to 1950, it is so often so incredibly lame (not always). It's basic ideas and chord progressions and simple melodies with lyrics that don't say much.

Music is a way for people to express themselves and relate about how they see the world. People didn't stop doing that recently. In fact, I'd say people have been emboldened to say even more and push what music really means.

donatj•29m ago

Music is interesting to me, because I've experienced the opposite.

What I've encountered is if you get outside the top 100, a lot of like TikTok and SoundCloud famous people are actually doing some really interesting music. Things that play with the sound in ways you would never hear on the radio.

I feel like music is the one area where I still genuinely find interesting modern stuff regularly.

rowanG077•3m ago

I agree. I feel there is not a time in history where such a huge diversity of music was produced.

bee_rider•16m ago

Is the loudness war still going on? I kind of assumed it died out with streaming. Music apps are smart enough nowadays to normalize loudness anyway, and there are better ways of getting attention, right?

delichon•40m ago

> The creators of the media are becoming more and more my age.

I'm a boomer so the opposite is happening to me. The people in media look more and more like children to me. So I can't tell if the fact that they seem to be speaking more childishly is real or just the expected bias from an old fart. I should experiment with getting AI to put the same words in Walter Cronkite's mouth to see if it changes them.

tormeh•36m ago

Betting on "it's me that has changed" has rarely been false throughout history. Humans have mostly been the same throughout the ages.

hnthrow0287345•37m ago

Similar to how music changes perceptions of movie scenes (it's usually silly but the effect is there), newsrooms have been decorated to look like a crisis center with the choice of colors and words.

People are naturally prone to pointing their attention at sources of alarm. And attention is important for advertisements which pay the bills.

News was not produced or directed back then like it is today.

PLenz•23m ago

Risk management kills any attempt at bold choices, decisions are steered at the modelable and the low risk. There space is thus shrunk. When there were fewer media behemoths there were more variations on the risk models and the pattern was less descernable.

Geste•12m ago

Its care. Us humans can feel when something was made with care vs when it’s made to check some lists people with ties made. Same with music, food, books, art, software, hardware, design, houses. Most stuff today is made to avoid some risks instead of being what it ought to be. Not trying to please anyone is the best way to make great things. Or maybe it is my hate of focus groups who spoiled it all (and I used to be a game user researcher…)

dyauspitr•7m ago

It’s definitely not the only reason but it is a big reason in my opinion. All new movies are stripped of grit and edge. They have no gravitas. There are no rapes, purely objectified women, any sort of implied CSA, truly hero tier “alpha” men etc. Everyone in movies these days seem like mild mannered office workers. I feel like filmmakers are bound by many rules that turn everything into mass accessible milquetoast.

ranyume•2m ago

Interesting thought-provoking movies still exist. They're just far away from regular people's comfort zone. I'll recommend you three post 2015 movies that will get you thinking:

Wandering (2022)

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Monster (2023)

But I'd concede that maybe making movies nowadays is harder because things are turning more and more expensive and there's too much pressure into producing profitable movies. So Art is relegated in movies that look for profit.

alecco•42m ago

The effects of Idiocracy are much worse than we appreciate. I believe it's hidden in part by technology (as a cognitive crutch) and part by top skilled immigration (people previously suppressed in their undeveloped countries). And education is much, much worse almost everywhere by leaning more to memorization and catering to the lowest common denominator. Student A is bad at math and good at language, student B is the opposite, both get the worst education for both subjects.

I think we haven't felt yet the true consequences of this. Worldwide.

marxisttemp•35m ago

Idiocracy really seems to appeal to eugenicists. Is “stupid people breed too much” really an issue we think is worth propagating?

mchaver•30m ago

Really the issue is about cultivating a culture of caring and willingness to learn. That generally threatens the powerful so it is always an uphill battle to protect said values.

throw310822•25m ago

There can be also a softer version of it, which is that cultural richness and focus on education are easily transmitted within families. A society that doesn't value culture and education is going to produce less educated families with even less educated children.

rayiner•14m ago

It’s also true that IQ is both real and highly heritable. The military uses what’s essentially an IQ test to screen out the bottom 15% or so of the population: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/after-service/201801.... The military has found that people with aptitude test scores below the cutoff can’t be trained to competently perform any job in the military.

IQ is also highly heritable: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5985927.

bee_rider•23m ago

The movie did have an unfortunate eugenic implication, which is doubly unfortunate because it wasn’t even necessary for the plot. Society can just get dumb due to people not valuing education.

Genetically we’re not that different from cavemen, so the floor (without any weird eugenic theories about dumb people breeding too much) is “tamed caveman.”

iinnPP•11m ago

Education is still very much present in Idiocracy (Brawndo blah blah). It's the lack of value in logic and thought process that causes the problem. When people value winning an argument on a logical fallacy, there's a severe issue. Education is oft used as the fallacy itself.

Much like today on all sides of every significant debate. Where the loudest most emotional rise on feelings over logic.

If a person doesn't immensely value learning they're wrong, they exist as part of the problem.

BobbyJo•56s ago

Depends on the timescale you care about. It is, objectively, a very big problem over larger timescales (assuming we aren't killed off and don't engineer our children's genes).

econ•32m ago

Education is a weird field with perhaps a few thousand years of very good unimplemented ideas.

Imagine training an llm by putting it in a room with other untrained LLMs? All that knowledge is sure to rubb of!

ACCount37•6m ago

A big part of the problem education systems are solving is not "how do we get knowledge to children", but "how do we get masses of children to learn without coercion of the ugliest kind".

Some children are innately motivated to learn. Some are motivated so strongly you could give them a smartphone and watch them learn all they need to learn in life. But those children aren't the norm - they're the freaky 1 in 1000 outliers. And education has to work with everyone.

Thus, peer pressure. That's what putting a whole bunch of students in the same room accomplishes.

keepamovin•31m ago

Please don't post comments saying that the World is turning into Idiocracy. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

mikkupikku•24m ago

You can find a lot of ancient people saying it was happening. They were obviously wrong, right? Things are better now than then, so they were wrong. Nevermind that many of them were speaking of real social decline, not of humanity altogether in the long run but of their own society in a less global sense. When Socrates was bitching about "kids these days", Athens was peaking and a long period of uneven decline was starting. So really, he probably wasn't wrong.

beardyw•19m ago

Perhaps some folks don't get the reference.

Forgeties79•10m ago

They capitalized “Idiocracy” so it seems pretty likely they’re unfortunately, whether they know it or not, endorsing the eugenics-based thesis of the movie.

DangitBobby•6m ago

We don't have to support Eugenics to understand there's probably a real effect.

ffsm8•2m ago

Memorization is pretty much the single largest undervalued thing in the west which has a gigantic impact on the mental capabilities of people.

I mean I get that rote memorization of eg. The multiplication table (7x7=49 etc pp) feels pointless, but it is training your brain. And a growing person whose brain is still developing who continuously memorizes new things will be smarter by the time they're 20 then the same person that didn't, only put in minimal effort because everyone around them talks like intelligence is mostly genetics.

I mean genetics definitely plays a role given the same circumstances - but your effort - including memorization - is massively more impactful.

skyberrys•30m ago

Is this an attack on Captain Underpants of the silly novels? Or are we arguing that the global leaders are immature and don't think through their decisions? I admit I've only just started reading Captain Underpants but it doesn't seem like George and Harold are willing to do pranks to the extent of harming anyone. I do recognize childness in leadership occasionally. When I directly have to interface with it I adapt my response as though it actually is a child. That tends to help moderate the results somewhat. Children for the most part have good intentions and pure hearts, when things go wrong it's through inexperience not malice.

Does Tom Clancy think the novels are literary trash? The books are made for children, it's about following your dreams and using your imagination in the face of grown up resistance.

saaaaaam•12m ago

I didn’t read it as an attack on the novels. I think it’s meant to be about Trump. Or football. Or something. I couldn’t really tell.

ranyume•10m ago

The author seems to like the books, but somewhat downplays the children's world and nature. From my understanding of the author's article, It's a nature he believes adults shouldn't have and yet powerful people do. So he's bringing this up, comparing the children in Captain Underpants with these powerful people. And also he's reflecting on how media is created with a "childish mind".

Personally, I don't think there's anything to downplay or wrong about children or being childish as adults. That's not the problem. The problem's the insensitivity and shamelessness of powerful people.

est•29m ago

idk if this was the exact quote but:

H.R. McMaster: Trump’s knowledge was like a series of islands. He might know a lot about one specific thing, but there were no bridges between the islands, no way to connect one thought to another

blitzar•28m ago

Those who can do.

Those that can't become politicians.

rayiner•27m ago

What’s childish is thinking that calling the Department of War by a euphemism changes what it is and always has been. The Department of “Defense” killed a bunch of people Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and countless minor actions. These bubbles of civilization we enjoy are built on adults killing a bunch of people, as necessary, to establish the order that allows more childish people to build social media websites.

6510•15m ago

if it was my idea I would call it the department of death.

giaour•10m ago

Are you saying there is no difference between the aggressiveness shown by the Department of War since it was renamed vs the years prior to the renaming?

Because it sure looked to me like they renamed the department and immediately started bombing fishing boats, then affirmatively decided to start a war with Iran, all while the guy who came up with the new name goes on TV and screams about how we're free to kill more people now.

some_random•25m ago

I was totally with it until they started talking about the real world again. The Department of War was called that up until 1947 when it was renamed to the euphemistic Department of Defense (or more specifically merged with the Department of the Navy which was previously separate). It has nothing to do with the right to self defense, the undermining of which would make a great paragraph here comparing modern self defense law the world over with schoolhouse rules.

jrmg•14m ago

Just because something was done before doesn’t mean it’s good (obviously?)

The purpose of the Department of Defense should be to defend America and Americans. Waging war is an unfortunate necessity that stems from this sometimes. War is not the only threat that can require a military response, and should never be a goal. No matter how you swing it, having a ‘Department of X’ definitely gives the impression - to people within and without it - that ‘X’ is a goal.

Even if you think about it amorrally, calling it the ‘Department of War’ is myopic.

dudefeliciano•4m ago

Sure it may have been a euphemism, but the reasoning of this administration for trying to change it back is just childish and stupid: “We won the first world war, we won the second world war, we won everything before that and in between,” Trump said at the signing. “And then we decided to go woke and we changed the name to the Department of Defense.”

ericmcer•23m ago

The author framed this as if "One Battle After Another" was some adult work and they couldn't watch "Predator" afterwards because it was so childish.

I had the opposite reaction and could barely make it through 15m of One Battle. The movie opens with women in skin tight dresses and mini skirts with automatic weapons robbing banks and breaking into migrant detention centers while yelling "this is what real power looks like". That feels like childish nonsense to me but then it is wrapped in this "radical chic" that is supposed to force me to take it seriously. Rather than movies like Predator which are intentionally dumb and fun the author should look at how vague political messages and sex are used to take extremely shallow work and make it "adult".

bethekidyouwant•21m ago

a meta question about this. How is a short sort of musing current political landscape blog post the top on hacker news?

DoneWithAllThat•5m ago

At the risk of sounding very old:in partial response to the nonsense starting around the 2015/2016 era I decided it was a good time to start mining the cultural vault and catch up on classic movies and books (especially) that I’d always been meaning to get around to, and kind of immersed myself in it more and more over time. Lots of older science fiction, fantasy, and just random movies I’d heard of but never got around to experiencing.

Subsequently, trying to return to consuming modern media has been quite the shock to the system. In many ways, but maybe the most startling is the storytelling. Books and movies lauded for being modern classics are so brain-numbing stupid (sorry but there’s no other accurate way to describe them) abound. Just absolute paint by numbers stories, messaging so on the nose you almost need a new phrase to describe it because the standard one didn’t do it justice, small-minded and petty characters being portrayed as heroic or brilliant - it’s incredible. I know there’s already comparisons to Idiocracy in this thread, and yes I’m well aware of the term selection bias so there’s no need to point it out - of course classics are classic for a reason. But I’m talking the most celebrated stories of our modern age here, the supposed next generation of classics, and all I can think is… really? Really? Have you all gone insane?

randallsquared•1m ago

The "silver dollar" change isn't -- it's the dime. The design was in the works before the current administration [1], and is only intended to be for the 250th anniversary [2].

The Dept of Defense was only created in the late 1940s. Before that the US had the Dept of War, the Dept of the Navy, and other organizations. The point of calling it "defense" was not because "everyone has the right to defense", but because the US was promoting the United Nations and waging a Cold War, and wanted to pretend that it would never do anything proactive or aggressive. That is, it was propaganda, as the current preferred name "Dept of War" is now for a different posture with regard to America's adversaries.

If you're going to call people stupid or immature for making certain decisions, maybe take a couple minutes to find out who made the decisions, and/or what the history of those and similar changes has been.

[1] https://www.ccac.gov/system/files/media/calendar/images/Semi...

[2] https://www.usmint.gov/coins/coin-programs/semiquincentennia...

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