Although it might be good to be aware that you shouldn’t remove a weapon from your mental arsenal just because it’s labeled “dark arts”. Sure, you should be one heck of a lot more reluctant to use them, but if you need to shut up and do the impossible really really badly, do so—just be aware that the consequences tend to be worse if you use them.
After all, the label “dark art” is itself an application of a Dark Art to persuade, deceive, or otherwise manipulate you against using those techniques. But of course this was not done lightly.
That’s why they’re called “black arts”, because you’re not supposed to learn them.
Is that why? I wonder, sometimes.
Given our merry band’s contrarian bent, it occurs to me that calling something a “dark art” would be a pretty good way of encouraging its study while simultaneously discouraging its unreflective use. You’d then need to come up with some semi-convincing reasons why it is in fact too Dark for school, though, or you’d look silly.
On the other hand it doesn’t seem to be an Eliezer coinage, which would have made this line of thinking a bit more likely. “Dark Side epistemology” is, but has a narrow enough meaning that I’m not inclined to suspect shenanigans.
Well, yeah, my point exactly to reiterate from elsewhere
[I’m interested in] spreading dark-art antibody memes, but you can’t do that without taking a sample of the dark arts most prevalent at the moment, much as they must round up viruses every year to develop the yearly flu shot. So I wouldn’t be looking for “the best” dark arts but rather the ones one is likely to encounter. E.g. a good source would be Newt Gingrich’s “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control” memo (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4443.htm) EXCERPT:
“In the video ‘We are a Majority,’ Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning. As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates we have heard a plaintive plea: ‘I wish I could speak like Newt.’ That takes years of practice …”
This introduces the famous word list: a list of smiley-face words to use when describing your own positions, and nasty-face words to use when putting words in the mouths of your opponents (or do I say ‘enemies’?). Or there is the Paul Wyrich farewell letter which did much to propagate the meme “political correctness is cultural Marxism”, or the Weyrich-inspired “The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement” (http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2011/02/integration-of-theory-and-practice.html), a document Lenin might have been proud of.
I’m all about blunting the effectiveness of certain tactics that reduce the possibility of our thinking clearly (and by “our”, I mean not that of LW, or the Second Foundation, but of the whole mass of people whose votes determine who we get to have as President, etc.)
ASIDE: One place where Thomas Jefferson was one of the least small-gov’t-ish founding fathers was education, and he was also all about disempowering religion memes
NOTE: I don’t mean to get onto politics per se—just practices that tend to turn it into a struggle between hidden conspiracies, but I think it’s hopelessly abstract to try to discuss that without the aid of current examples.
Please don’t learn anything from the black arts threads. That’s why they’re called “black arts”, because you’re not supposed to learn them.
Although it might be good to be aware that you shouldn’t remove a weapon from your mental arsenal just because it’s labeled “dark arts”. Sure, you should be one heck of a lot more reluctant to use them, but if you need to shut up and do the impossible really really badly, do so—just be aware that the consequences tend to be worse if you use them.
After all, the label “dark art” is itself an application of a Dark Art to persuade, deceive, or otherwise manipulate you against using those techniques. But of course this was not done lightly.
Is that why? I wonder, sometimes.
Given our merry band’s contrarian bent, it occurs to me that calling something a “dark art” would be a pretty good way of encouraging its study while simultaneously discouraging its unreflective use. You’d then need to come up with some semi-convincing reasons why it is in fact too Dark for school, though, or you’d look silly.
On the other hand it doesn’t seem to be an Eliezer coinage, which would have made this line of thinking a bit more likely. “Dark Side epistemology” is, but has a narrow enough meaning that I’m not inclined to suspect shenanigans.
Well, one could certainly learn from the dark arts threads what not to do and what to be aware of to watch out for.
Well, yeah, my point exactly to reiterate from elsewhere
[I’m interested in] spreading dark-art antibody memes, but you can’t do that without taking a sample of the dark arts most prevalent at the moment, much as they must round up viruses every year to develop the yearly flu shot. So I wouldn’t be looking for “the best” dark arts but rather the ones one is likely to encounter. E.g. a good source would be Newt Gingrich’s “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control” memo (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4443.htm) EXCERPT:
“In the video ‘We are a Majority,’ Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning. As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates we have heard a plaintive plea: ‘I wish I could speak like Newt.’ That takes years of practice …”
This introduces the famous word list: a list of smiley-face words to use when describing your own positions, and nasty-face words to use when putting words in the mouths of your opponents (or do I say ‘enemies’?). Or there is the Paul Wyrich farewell letter which did much to propagate the meme “political correctness is cultural Marxism”, or the Weyrich-inspired “The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement” (http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2011/02/integration-of-theory-and-practice.html), a document Lenin might have been proud of.
I’m all about blunting the effectiveness of certain tactics that reduce the possibility of our thinking clearly (and by “our”, I mean not that of LW, or the Second Foundation, but of the whole mass of people whose votes determine who we get to have as President, etc.) ASIDE: One place where Thomas Jefferson was one of the least small-gov’t-ish founding fathers was education, and he was also all about disempowering religion memes
NOTE: I don’t mean to get onto politics per se—just practices that tend to turn it into a struggle between hidden conspiracies, but I think it’s hopelessly abstract to try to discuss that without the aid of current examples.