this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024
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Why are we so concerned with impressing each other? (leminal.space)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by infinite_ass@leminal.space to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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"How impressed everybody is" is the basis of money, law, self-worth and our models of reality. But that's a pretty shabby basis if you ask me.

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[โ€“] infinite_ass@leminal.space 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Excellent. An opportunity to elaborate my thingy.

By impress I mean that the thing looks big. People are impressed by big strong stuff.

Stuff that has big value is worth a lot of money. Thus money is based on people being impressed.

For good and ill, one's self-worth is generally based on how much attention you get and how much nice things people say about you. Thus self-worth is based on people being impressed.

Law is based on impressive arguments, impressive authorities, impressive force, impressive majorities.

Models of reality are likewise. Arguments, axioms, authorities, experiments, observations.Somebody is impressed and the hypothesis gets promoted to theory or whatever.

That's where I'm going with that. People are being impressed. Majorities are getting impressed. Impressive people are being impressed.

[โ€“] kinship@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Reality is unfathomably complex. We can use our pre frontal cortex and think everything critically or we can learn patterns that are good enough.

Why is white sinonimous with purity and peace? Why we can have a somewhat coherent consensus on beauty? Why rockstars fabricate ludicrous stories to be seen as bad boys?

Telling an archetypical story impresses and dazzles other people. Again, reality is too complex.

What I have been learning to do, since I struggled with what you are asking a lot. How can I have substance and at the same time tell a compelling story?

[โ€“] kinship@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

Why do we like being fooled by magicians? Why do we like being fooled by some branding or propaganda? It is our nature, you realized that. Now how do you not suffer internally with that fact? How can you turn this knowledge into wisdom? By using it for good

[โ€“] howrar@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm not sure if "impressed" is the right word for what you're trying to describe. I'm just going to address the first example to try and figure out what you mean.

Stuff that has big value is worth a lot of money. Thus money is based on people being impressed.

This sounds tautological. Is "big value" not synonymous with "worth lots of money"? I'm reading this as saying "Something that is worth a lot of money is worth a lot of money, and people are impressed by things that are worth a lot of money, so if people are impressed by something, it will be worth more money."

[โ€“] infinite_ass@leminal.space 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes, big value is synonymous with worth lots of money