HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

“The Century of the Self” by Adam Curtis.

https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s

It goes through each decade of the 1900s and explains how Freud’s psychology and the new field of marketing completely reshaped society. For the first time in my life I feel like I understood the “why” of how things work in American society. This film is probably best if you’re age 40+ and actually remember some of the events.

⬐ sirsinsalot

Amazed given the site we are on nobody mentions "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" by Curtis.

I loved it, even being in the industry at the center of the topic.

However the narrative is judged, it at least has a spark I find has died in our own.

⬐ educatedkoala

I was really pleased to find this on The Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-...

⬐ lilsoso

Adam Curtis is great.

I recommend even looking into his older material, such as The Mayfair Set (won a BAFTA Award in 2000). Another older documentary of his that I recommend is The Way of All Flesh (1997) which is a rather remarkable story on HeLa cells with a depth I hadn't encountered before. To give you an idea of the subject matter, here's a quote from Wikipedia:

"HeLa cell contamination has become a pervasive worldwide problem – affecting even the laboratories of many notable physicians, scientists, and researchers, including Jonas Salk. The HeLa contamination problem also contributed to Cold War tensions. The USSR and the USA had begun to cooperate in the war on cancer launched by President Richard Nixon, only to find that the exchanged cells were contaminated by HeLa."

Some of his material is viewabled on BBC iPlayer if you have access to that. His older material can be challenging to find. You can download his complete collection via torrents.

⬐ denvaar

I really enjoy Adam Curtis’s documentaries, including “Can’t Get You Out of My Mind” but I always have to be careful watching any of his content because it tends to make me feel depressed.

⬐ jefc1111

I don't mind a bit of Adam Curtis, largely for the soundtracks. Still hugely enjoy this though https://www.tomscott.com/infinite-adam-curtis/

⬐ bloqs

https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg obligatry response whenever anything by Adam Curtis is offered up. Sorry, I'm largely of the opinion that it is (well made) boomer-aimed catastrophe porn designed to give the viewer a smug sense of having "esoteric knowledge".

⬐ bmitc

Nearly anything can be parodied in such a way to apparently diminish thentarget of the parody.

⬐ ethbr0

> boomer-aimed catastrophe porn designed to give the viewer a smug sense of having "esoteric knowledge"

I'll just balance it out with some TED optimism porn.

⬐ itronitron

opens arms

⬐ woleium

https://youtu.be/_ZBKX-6Gz6A

⬐ ckw

Adam Curtis likes the parody.

⬐ agumonkey

I thought I was the only one feeling this way.

⬐ memonkey

Yeah, I tend to agree.

I've watched a couple and they ask pretty good questions if the answers he gives require some additional research/critical thinking/knowledge of history.

The last documentary I watched, Hypernormalization, seemed to give platform to and justify the need for _more_ individualism via Trump-esque critique on Leftist ideologue. That is totally fine, but I can see how people can watch his documentaries accept many of the leaps in logic.

⬐ ZeroGravitas

https://arquivo.pt/wayback/20151114022454/http://laurenceten...

Is a much more worrying link that should be obligatory when he comes up.

Curtis is heavily linked to the "Living Marxism" crowd, who started as the journal of the "Revolutionary Communist Party" in the UK which mutated into "Spiked" the extreme right-wing libertarian clique that pop up everywhere in the UK press. And appear to be some kind of personality cult around a guy who co-wites some of the documentaries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Furedi

He appears to be some weird Tony Blair/Jordan Peterson hybrid.

> George Monbiot has elicited an admission from the managing editor of Spiked Online that they have received $300,000 in funding from the Charles Koch Foundation,[11] a fact not declared on their website.[12] He has accused Furedi of overseeing extreme right-wing libertarian campaigns "against gun control, against banning tobacco advertising and child pornography, and in favour of global warming, human cloning and freedom for corporations". Monbiot also accuses him of leading entryism of ex-RCPers into "key roles in the formal infrastructure of public communication used by the science and medical establishment", to pursue an agenda in favour of genetic engineering.[13] The journalist Nick Cohen has described the RCP as a "weird cult"[14] whose Leninist discipline, disruptive behaviour and selfish publicity-seeking have remained unaltered during the various tactical shifts in the face it presents to the wider world.[15]

Someone should make a documentary about them, how do you go politically from actively celebrating the deaths of British soldiers to pushing for Brexit? There's got to be some amazing back story in that, and there's loads of "No way" moments.

⬐ colordrops

There is some truth to this parody, but there is also a lot to learn from Century of Self, if you weren't already aware of, say, Edward Bernaise and his role in American society. Now his doc HyperNormalisation, I took nothing away from it, but oh boy was it an amazing way to spend the evening. The music and imagery is fricking amazing.

⬐ nyolfen

i think you should watch it again. i feel like it has become significantly more relevant since it was released.

⬐ wyclif

I have to put in a word for Kenneth Clark's series called Civilisation. There's also a book. You can find all the episodes on YouTube with a simple search. They have almost all of them in a playlist but for some weird reason the first episode was deleted from the playlist, but exists separately on YouTube so you can still watch all the episodes.

⬐ kranke155

I watched it when I was 20 and it changed my life.

⬐ Theory42

This is a work of art--I must say though that I remember thinking of his subject as a bit of a mirror for his work: in the first episode he remember him talking about propaganda in its many forms, and then getting the impression that he was using those exact techniques on the viewer within the documentary itself.

⬐ SteveDR

This would only be hypocritical if he claimed in the doc that the techniques weren’t effective or were unethical. Honestly I haven’t seen it recently enough to know if he does this, just saying.

⬐ alcover

I like it but frankly don't get a solid 'revelation' out of it. Hypnotic, that's about it (for me).

⬐ bartimus

I thought how individualism is just something that was marketed uppon us was pretty powerful. Also how medical science became more about grouping symptoms than understanding where those things originated from.

⬐ alcover

  individualism (...) was marketed uppon us

Maybe but I tend to favor materialistic explanations before anything 'concerted'. So I'd say individualism was always here but blossomed fully when abundance came.

⬐ samstave

One should immediately watch “Human Resources” after this one.

Be prepared to feel rage and depression, but it’s so damn informative.

⬐ nickdothutton

+1 for any Curtis documentary. They aren't something you necessarily need to agree with to enjoy. Most of them involve him attempting to stitch together an over-arching narrative for events of our time.

⬐ 2OEH8eoCRo0

Yup. Curtis does a great job of explaining unintended consequences, humans being wrong, the world is far more complex than you know.

⬐ skinney6

Same here. I love watching them. They are very entertaining but don't care if his theme is sensible or not.

⬐ type0

Also see The Loving Trap for explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

⬐ woleium

Haha, came here to post this. it's a short explaier about Curtis, less than favourable. It does make you laugh though:)

I think I first heard about this form Adam Curtis’s 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s&feature=youtu.b

> Another way to consider this is that people find it easier to divert themselves than to exert themselves only to be dissappointed.

This is an exceptionally succinct description of the problem, thank you. A societal shift from exertion to diversion. Creation to consumption. Scary stuff.

> the illusions of Bernaysian manipulation [2] certainly can

What do you mean here, in reference to Bernays? For context, I’m familiar with his work and legacy — the documentary ‘The Century of the Self’[1] is still perhaps the most important piece of media I’ve ever consumed.

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ heresie-dabord

Hello friend ^_^

By "Bernaysian" I mean much of what is discussed in that documentary by Adam Curtis. The out-sized notion of self in pursuit of the baubles, bangles, and beads of a glorified pageant of passion and love.

When two such highly-conditioned specimens meet, they probably will reject each other. Or if not, they will test each other's endurance in the illusion.

Interesting BBC documentary from 2002 that I came across last night... about the influence of Freud and modern psychology in consumerism and politics.

Full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ twox2

I liked this series. Pretty eye opening stuff.

You might like "The Century of the Self" as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

Agreed and your comment reminded me of an old documentary about Edward Bernays the nephew of Sigmund Freud that heavily influences companies around the world in marketing and PR opaganda. [1] The video is black-and-white and long but I would suggest the first hour or so is worth the watch. It makes many cases describing how people are convinced they must buy the thing they don't need.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s [ video ]

Century of the Self:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

The Century of The Self [1] Apologies, it is in black and white and 4 hours long, but at least the first hour is very much worth watching. The documentary helps understand the psychology behind corporate and government influence and control.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

I would not be surprised if that were a thing. One real world example I know of was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays. Edward received all of his uncle's writings, studied them and had some serious take-away's that led him to becoming a consultant for the U.S. Government and many private companies. He influenced the minds of millions of people and even after passing, his work is still influencing billions of people today. There is a great documentary that covers this called The Century of the Self. [1] Apologies, it is in black-and-white, but it is very much worth the watch in your spare time. This isn't about ESP or hoaxes, but rather controlling the masses during peace time through psychological means.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ ncmncm

Bernays was very proud of his student, Josef Goebbels, the Nazis' propaganda minister.

Bernays's opinion was that government could not be trusted to voters, so voters must be managed like livestock. His methods have been very successful, persuading generations of voters to vote against their own interests. Fully half the population of the US recently voted for an out-and-out con man, twice! But his opponents mainly represent hedge funds.

Propaganda never stops when a war does. If you would like a great documentary on this, look for Century of the Self [1]. It explains how Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, taught governments and companies how to control people in peace time. Apologies in advance, it is a black-and-white film.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ therockspush

Good recommendation.

I would add most of the stuff by Adam Curtis to this list. Been pretty eye opening for me.

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

The documentary Century of Self (re: Sigmund Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays) gets into this type of thing, and many, many others.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self

Full:

https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s

10 minute trailer/summary:

https://youtu.be/D_0g1RUQMVQ

If someone wants to check out the above political aspect, fast forward to the 3 hour mark or so.

Fair warning, this would be typically filed under conspiracy theories / propaganda by most people, but even so, it is by far one of the most compelling ones I've seen. It very much advocates for the common man, and I believe makes a decent case. It certainly has had a major effect on the way I view how the world works, but YMMV.

For those wishing to watch this, it's all on youtube here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

While dated by now, it's rather disturbing how clear the lineage is from where the show ends to the current "social media" era. The breadth and efficacy of public manipulation is arguably greater than ever, and it's a clear threat to democracy IMHO.

⬐ lihaciudaniel

It is a constant and universal truth that irrationality of the masses exist. And then there are those who think that they can manipulate through propaganda

⬐ AndrewBissell

Given the way they are pushing the systems they control to the breaking point for the sake of ever-more-marginal gains in their already staggering wealth and power, it's harder and harder to view elites as any more rational than the masses.

⬐ nikofeyn

i think it's less a threat to democracy and more that it's already ended democracy (what little was implemented in the first place) in the u.s. (i'm just repeating your use of the word democracy, as there's an implicit assumption there that democracy is a cherished thing being destroyed.)

adam curtis' other documentaries build upon similar ideas, converging to the (relatively) recent hypernormalization.

This documentary is on that exact topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

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

---------------------------------------------

The Century of the Self is a 2002 British television documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis. It focuses on the work of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud, and PR consultant Edward Bernays.[1] In episode one, Curtis says, "This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy."

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, changed our perception of the mind and its workings. The documentary explores the various ways that governments and corporations have used Freud's theories. Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays, who was the first to use psychological techniques in public relations, are discussed in part one. His daughter Anna Freud, a pioneer of child psychology, is mentioned in part two. Wilhelm Reich, an opponent of Freud's theories, is discussed in part three.

Along these lines, The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of consumerism and commodification and their implications. It also questions the modern way people see themselves, the attitudes to fashion, and superficiality.

The business and political worlds use psychological techniques to read, create and fulfill the desires of the public, and to make their products and speeches as pleasing as possible to consumers and voters. Curtis questions the intentions and origins of this relatively new approach to engaging the public.

Where once the political process was about engaging people's rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their needs as a group, Stuart Ewen, a historian of public relations, argues that politicians now appeal to primitive impulses that have little bearing on issues outside the narrow self-interests of a consumer society.

The words of Paul Mazur, a leading Wall Street banker working for Lehman Brothers in 1927, are cited: "We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. [...] Man's desires must overshadow his needs."[7]

In part four the main subjects are Philip Gould, a political strategist, and Matthew Freud, a PR consultant and the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud. In the 1990s, they were instrumental to bringing the Democratic Party in the US and New Labour in the United Kingdom back into power through use of the focus group, originally invented by psychoanalysts employed by US corporations to allow consumers to express their feelings and needs, just as patients do in psychotherapy.

Curtis ends by saying that, "Although we feel we are free, in reality, we—like the politicians—have become the slaves of our own desires," and compares Britain and America to 'Democracity', an exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair created by Edward Bernays.

---------------------------------------------

It "seems" like an outlandish thought, but if the claims Curtis makes in this documentary are even partially truthful, might it be that this psychological manipulation of the public is actually still going on, and might it then also explain some of the inexplicable human behavior we see all around us?

I mean...how the hell would a person even guess at what the long term (decades) effects might be of simultaneous, multi-vector psychological manipulation of people at massive scale? Just look through history at the atrocities that people have been persuaded to commit, motivated by a fundamental belief system that is inconsistent with actual reality? We know these things have happened in the past, is there a logical reason why something similar cannot be happening now? There is no shortage of people (some even here) who believe with absolute sincerity that a significant percentage of Trump supporters are hold beliefs extremely consistent with literal Nazis. Ok, fair enough. But if significant numbers of people can and do believe such obviously outlandish things as this, does it seem all that outlandish that something is causing large numbers of people to believe other things that are literally not true?

In a sense, the specific belief is largely irrelevant - to me, the fundamental question seems like something along that lines of:

> Is it technically possible (or at least plausible) to modify the beliefs of the general public via psychological means, using various communication vectors (distorted / ambiguous/ misleading news broadcasting, TV, talk shows, statistics, internet, radio, podcasts, forum "trolls" (not sure the word) or state of the art bots in internet forums, etc) - and if so, is this happening today, and if so, to what degree.

All things considered, this is one of the more logical explanations I can come up with. "People are just idiots" stopped being believable to me over a year ago. The magnitude of obvious mass delusion (in the literal sense of the word) is just too large. If "people are idiots" is the explanation, one then has to explain why so many people have simultaneously become so increasingly idiotic, and we're right back where we started.

But then, as depressing as that sounds, if this theory actually holds some legitimate truth, therein also lies the solution (partial, at least) to what currently ails society in this regard.

I find it interesting too and really don't understand it.

I really feel like they learned everything from Bob and the family. He sold junk mail and was able to pay for their great lifestyle. So the kids learned that they can sell junk, but were able to take that to the next level with strong marketing and design.

GOOP is junk with great marketing and design. WeWork is similar, they market it as something that its not.

The marketing idea made me think of the documentary: The Century of the self (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

The interesting question is how those values are to be regained after the Boomers. Perhaps the half-century of the self has broken the chain for passing these values through to future generations cast adrift in a sea of self-obsessed narcissism.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

“Probably” doesn’t do it justice. If you haven’t seen this documentary it’s worth checking out if you’re curious to see how sinister and deep the rabbit hole goes.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ toss1

Indeed!! Hell, just the first three minutes indicates where this is going...

Your short comment rings very true to me and reminded me of Adam Curtis' "Century of the Self" theory which in his latest documentary "Hypernormalization" gets developed even further. I guess you might know it but for those who don't - both freely available on youtube.

Century of the Self: https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s

Hypernormalization https://youtu.be/F8YqRaZSZWo

Adam Curtis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis

It's been linked before on HN but The Century of the Self is very eye-opening in this regard and available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

Apparently the very first act of Public Relations was in renaming Propaganda to Public Relations.

> and will subtly lose free will and never notice they did.

Isn't that happening for decades now ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

> the people not doing it will be more and more excluded from the regular system.

Same with cars, phones, internet

Having recently discovered Adam Curtis (from other HN posts), I'd highly recommend watching his documentaries. All of them. Absolutely riveting stuff.

HyperNormalization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU

Bitter Lake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRbq63r7rys

The Trap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y97Ywl7RtUw&list=PLsGiHTmHVD...

The Power of Nightmares: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTg4qnyUGxg&list=PLtPP_-rkrT...

The Mayfair Set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuqYbohCLFM&list=PLtPP_-rkrT...

The Century of the Self: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ petermcneeley

You have more adam curtis to discover https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-lov...

⬐ cronix

Thank you, I missed that one. Another is Dr. Jordan Peterson. I found this very interesting as well, and is another piece of this puzzle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQCTeGKHsVc

⬐ petermcneeley

Its interesting but you should know that Adam Curtis and Jordan Peterson are opposites in their conclusions. Curtis attacks negative liberty and individualism birthed in the 80s. Curtis suggests that we should still try to change the world (positive liberty and collective action). JP is very the polar opposite to this. He is almost purely negative liberty (libertarian) and is the inheritor of the 80s individualism.

The Century of the Self: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

The Mystery of the Gnome Homes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLoBWpiOczQ

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2xz5fs

⬐ lofo

Another great Adam Curtis : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation

⬐ bartcobain

Do you know any other documentary as good as this one? Any suggestion?

⬐ Dowwie

Requiem for the American Dream

⬐ c0nducktr

Sticking with Adam Curtis, I greatly enjoyed The Power of Nightmares.

⬐ compcoffee

>The Century of the Self: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

I think all of Adam Curtis' documentaries are worth a watch:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL617BE1DB723DB1D6

Some others favourites off the top of my head:

808 (about the drum machine): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2268622/

Scratch: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0143861/

Hoop Dreams: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110057/

Startup.com (a classic!) : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/

The Fog of War: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317910/

Not the OP, but there's a long history of evidence that powerful corporations get away with a whole lot of things-- including murder. There is a great documentary by the BBC called The Century of the Self[0]. It isn't explicitly about this-- it's much broader-- but it does tangentially serve as sources for this kind of claim. Well worth a watch regardless of your views.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ tptacek

It's not that you aren't the original commenter, but that you're not making the same argument. I'm interested in an answer to the question I actually asked.

⬐ christophilus

My answer is in the linked video, and doesn’t fit into a sound bite. If I understand your question, you are asking for evidence that corporations get away with things that normal citizens wouldn’t. The answer is that history provides ample evidence to back up this claim, and my link is one such piece of evidence.

⬐ tptacek

No, you don't understand my question. My question is: is there some legal basis for the idea that a corporation serves as a liability "buffer" for the actions of its employees?

⬐ eximius

If corporations can get away with things individuals can't and, as someone above said

> companies aren't people; they are run by people. "Monsanto" can't do anything. The people running Monsanto have agency.

Then that implies there are individuals using companies to get away with things they otherwise wouldn't be able to.

⬐ tptacek

It’s fine if you don’t have an answer to my question. You weren’t expected to.

⬐ tripzilch

Sounds like your question has now moved the goal posts on what you imagine to be "that whole buffer argument".

What matters is whether corporations routinely get away with stuff that individuals don't, in practice. Not whether there's a "legal basis" for it.

And this is wide spread, plain obvious and readily admitted by most Americans.

Your framing of the question edges on the disingenuous because it really doesn't matter, even if there was legal basis to this or to the opposite, it would be selectively applied to large corporations any way. So many things for which there actually is a legal basis when it concerns individuals, corporations get away with in practice so frequently, that most individuals (of modal income) don't even attempt and try to get their right. Because they'll lose or bleed an unknown amount of money into it, which they probably can't afford.

Right. And I don’t trust the author has such a poor understanding of this topic as he claims. Trust in the traditional sense is a very expensive operation. If delivered on the level of a local storefront small business, for example, it might be worth asking whether the result of corporate practice justifies it’s own means. In this statement, I might be discounting the innovation allowed by organizations of such power and scale, or maybe not. That’s a separate conversation.

I have worked on numerous advertising campaigns focused on “building consumer trust” in the client. That’s what they called it, anyways. There is no shortage of literature and other media on what this involves. See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s for starters.

Public relations does not build trust. It steals trust.

Our commercial enterprises are in a deep debt of trust to their own society. But, the truly sad part is how much further we can go before we bottom out. Advertising steals trust much like how finance steals capital, but the absence of numbers makes the damage even more difficult to count.

⬐ tmpz22

My inference is that trust is sectarian. In America people trust the politicians in their own political party almost implicitly. We trust our own family and social groups. When presented with an outsider we often mistrust them to some degree, at least initially.

Companies that wish to appeal to broad demographics can't play this game because they can't pick sides. The companies that do pick a niche, i.e. a torrent website that advocates a free and open internet, crypto, whatever, can gain a strong following but pays a steep price in the process.

Facebook and Google can never be trustworthy companies because they must appeal to advertisers and consumers at the same time.

⬐ None

None

⬐ extralego

Interesting and well said.

The thing about how Facebook and Google have to be neutral is super interesting. I still don’t think I completely understand why it is the case that they have to be so incredibly bland but it sounds like you’re onto it. We can remember when Facebook was the elite social media site and MySpace was the ghetto.

I am inclined to suggest that the sectarian/cultural alignments you’re referring to are largely superficial; they are the product of and the content of advertising. I don’t think this takes anything away from your point, though. The heights of national comradery always align with the heights of opposition to an enemy nation. Advertising generates abstractions of this phenomenon a million times over, invoking emotions and activating sales in the name of us and them whether it’s brands, sports teams, subcultures, politicians, etc.

There is a great BBC documentary that talks about this war on the brain called "Century of the Self" [0]. It's four hours long, but the first hour covers the gist of it. It goes into the want vs need and how businesses have been taught to utilize this part of our mind.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

I love building IKEA furniture. For me, there is a certain controlled fear that comes with opening the boxes. I know it'll go together, because.. well, its not difficult, but there's always that lingering fear that it won't.

In regards to the egg in the instant mix (pancakes, cakes, etc), this is mentioned in Adam Curtis' 'The Century of the Self'[1], which is a fantastic documentary, and definitely worth a watch.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ jotm

Take it a step further and design your own stuff - find a hardware store that will cut everything to your specs and you can assemble it at home. It's very satisfying, higher quality and may even be cheaper if you already own some power tools. I remember Stock Vermeersch and Bauhaus fondly :D

⬐ JSONwebtoken

I have never felt this fear. If the furniture doesn't go together then it's IKEA's fault and I'm sending it back. They've failed in their UX design. IKEA furniture needs to be easy enough for the common denominator to assemble, it's a significant part of their brand value.

⬐ ijidak

I've felt a different fear. I'm always afraid that a piece will be missing or not fit correctly. Nothing frustrates me more. I've never had the problem with Ikea, but I have with other furniture. You don't want to disassemble it, because if assembling it was a waste of time, disassembling it is makes my eyes bleed.

And replacing the missing or I'll fitting part is always more difficult than originally buying it. Plus the whole delayed gratification thing.

I do enjoy the end result though. Even though I know in reality I've done no great thing. :) But then I just sit down an write a program, and I feel better. :)

⬐ whatusername

I find that ikea designs their furniture for the build process as well. I dread putting together any non-ikea assembly — but ikea has actually put thought into the process - and it all just works.

⬐ stevewillows

A month ago I put together a six-drawer dresser. Ikea was kind enough to gift me with two extra dowels.. which had me concerned at first... and still somewhat concerned.

⬐ taneq

I believe they bias the packing process towards having extra pieces rather than missing pieces, since a few extra parts cost less than returns or sending out replacements.

⬐ matthewmacleod

I can put your mind at ease - every IKEA product I have ever assembled (and I’ve done houses full of them) is supplied with two extra dowels. I’d guess they occasionally split or something, and the cost must be so low it’s worth including them.

⬐ stevewillows

well, that's fantastic news. I do wish that they'd mark them down as spares or something.

⬐ nsgi

Why don't you check the parts against the list before you start putting them together?

⬐ 2muchcoffeeman

Always be knolling!

Adam Curtis's Century of the Self is another:

Entire programme (4h) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

Chunked:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEsPOt8MG7E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub2LB2MaGoM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VouaAz5mQAs

If you haven't seen it, watch The Century of the Self [1]. It's largely a documentary about the emergence of PR as an application of propaganda to control the population in times of peace, revolving around Edward Bernays. [2]

Viewing the modern situation through a lens informed by the history put forth in the documentary, there's nothing surprising in the least going on - it's the logical progression, and exactly what Bernays would aspire to do had the technology been available.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

Really interesting documentary. I've heard good things about Adam Curtis's documentaries.

He works, or at the very least use to, at the BBC and I remember reading a post if his on his blog where he saved something like 50 terabytes of rare unedited video of Afghanistan that was decades old, before and during it's Marxist revolution starting in the late 70's.

Probably the most interesting of his documentaries that I've seen is on the rise of propaganda and the public relations industry in his documentary "Century of the Self".

Link here: https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ krmboya

> Probably the most interesting of his documentaries that I've seen is on the rise of propaganda and the public relations industry in his documentary "Century of the Self".

Yeah, I liked that too, the fact that PR is war-time propaganda repackaged for the corporate world.

⬐ eternalban

Fear porn designed to induce feelings of helplessness in guise of revelations.

⬐ hellbanner

That's what you took from it?

(paraphrasing) US Gov, terrified by how an entire country unified with violent hatred (Nazi Germany), hired Freud's nephew for white-picket fence propaganda to keep "the beast" in American psyche buried.

Or how cigarette companies hired him (Bernays) to turn women smoking cigarettes from huge social taboo to "sexy" -- look at recent movie, pop icons etc on how this one marketing stunt has impacted American culture.

Sorry if you felt helpless after watching it. I found it informative and feel it contributed to my awareness of insidious advertising.

⬐ aluhut

He is a documentary artist in my opinion. I love the way he combines pictures and sound in such a unique way while delivering those fantastic connections.

⬐ frgtpsswrdlame

When I watch Adam Curtis I always feel like he's so close to getting to something really good but never quite makes it. They are well produced docus though, you can tell that he has incorporated quite a few lessons from his study of propaganda.

⬐ digi_owl

I think its because he never sets out to be prescriptive, only descriptive, if that makes any sense.

Adam Curtis has a history of making these films. Worth also checking out his 2002 film 'the century of the self'.

Wikipedia on Adam Curtis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis

The century of the self on youtube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

Other films of his are also on archive.org

⬐ orasis

The Century of the Self is the most reality changing information I've ever been exposed to. This is my #1 top recommendation for any intellectual to consume.

⬐ nosuchthing

More films available from OP's website: https://thoughtmaybe.com/by/adam-curtis/

⬐ cyberpunk

I had no idea these were freely available. Thanks and then doublethanks to whoever is behind thoughtmaybe.com...

⬐ guitarbill

You can see the videos on thoughtmaybe are BBC watermarked. AFAIK, the BBC never released them outside the UK, although this is mainly due to copyright and the special provisions the BBC has inside the UK that enables them to produce such high quality material. So while they may be "freely" available, I doubt it's legal. I'm not sure how much the BBC cares about enforcement.

⬐ digi_owl

Last time i looked into it, the thoughtmaybe site seems to pull the actual videos from archive.org.

⬐ astronautjones

adam curtis has implied (in the chapo interview linked in this discussion, i think) that he encourages the bbc to/has an agreement with them to avoid taking down uploads of his films

⬐ seppin

Power of Nightmares is a Bush era film that first got my attention, IMO his best to date

⬐ hurbledr

I'll second that. The part about Russian PR tactics is especially relevant to Americans today.

⬐ digi_owl

The Trap, particular part 1 questioning the validity of Game Theory, is highly interesting.

⬐ justatdotin

yeah, this is far from his best imo

⬐ jamesmiller5

"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" is another excellent documentary by Adam Curtis that I found particularly interesting for it's focus on the history of silicon valley.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_o... Documentary: https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-lov...

Warning: rambling comment. A rambling post deserves a rambling answer, particularly if the rambling is in the wrong direction... http://xkcd.com/386/

> Every morning, I wake up, drink a glass of Soylent and recite the following: “Today, I will solve challenging problems. Tomorrow, I will also solve challenging problems. Every day, I will solve challenging problems, and then the robots will take over, and I will die a fulfilled man, and someone will post my obituary on Hacker News.”

That's this guy: https://alexvermeer.com/life-hacking/. Pretty sure he occupies a unique niche in the world though.

> I am creating

This statement is clearly false, as writing blog posts is in no way related to writing a transpiler. Typically all coding posts are post-mortems.

> a JavaScript to Rust transpiler in Haskell,

I guess this is a takeoff on the C-to-Rust translator (https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode)? (and all the compile-to-JS projects such as GWT, emscripten etc.). But those have actual use cases, whereas going from front-end to deep back-end / systems programming seems like a stretch.

It's true there are a lot of programming language and toolkit posts / flames on HN, and I admit they're often kind of shallow. But a small discussion is better than none at all, and it occasionally gets someone knowledgeable to contribute. But there's a qualitative difference between lots of people spending a little time on a subject versus a few people spending a lot of time on a subject. The first is often productive in a wisdom-of-the-crowds sort of way, while the second is only worthwhile if it's some kind of meeting or contract negotiation with external resources at stake. If you're exerting large amounts of energy arguing on HN then I would venture to say that you're using it wrong.

> will I be able to have conversations with normal human beings again?

I take offense at this. There is no reason you would want to talk to "normal human beings"; they are fundamentally disassociated from their internal desires. See https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s?t=4107 (Century of the Self, part 2, Anna's project to create normal human beings). There are strong elements of this thinking in recent news surrounding the elections, so it's not surprising you would have been swept in. But the fact is that "normal human beings" are a phantom: http://ijr.com/2015/06/354635-epa-administrator-says-half-am.... Best you can do is segmentation, e.g. http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/dema.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/Me....

> put an end to the godforsaken monotony day after fucking day > Will I be able to feel? If you cut me, will I bleed? > Please Just End My Suffering > Please save me

Sounds like a metal/rock band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NZsCYOM4j0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2okd9UHLExY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XblNnon-XTc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZg-72u-QpI. Maybe that was the point of this post, as some sort of experimental art.

> Be on the lookout for a stable release soon.

Software doesn't have stable releases: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-infinite-version/. It has stable channels and (occasionally) pinned versions. But a transpiler is developer-oriented so would never have a stable (product) channel at all.

> I see clouds in the sky, and green grass. It has been fifty years and I am sitting in the park with my dog, feeding ducks and watching the local children at play. I haven’t uttered the phrase “type-safety” in years. All the startups are gone. I am free.

The Matrix Revolutions ending is better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTnBVDKuNdI

⬐ jsrmath

Looks like you got me, buddy.

⬐ Mathnerd314

Well, deconstruction is easy. The hard part for me has always been figuring out what to build up.

Indeed we should be afraid of modern advertisers. They exploit the nature of human mind, to manipulate us into decisions that are often not in our best interest.

Politicians then use advertisers to manipulate masses to ensure power for themselfs.

In my country people in last elections elected an Olygarch, multi billionair, who controls whole agriculture, all main media, medical and other industries and now he is writing laws that suits his needs and stealing billions in "donations" from us. How is this possible? How was he elected in democracy? How is it possible that he has support of majority of people? Because he has very good PR, advertisement and propaganda team.

Anyone who hasnt seen "The Century of Self" documentary, please watch it, it will open your eyes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ andrepd

Which country are you referring to?

⬐ urza

Czech republic

There was a big change to consumerism around the second WW. I cant recommend this doc enough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s&feature=youtu.be

⬐ nyolfen

incidentally, the director of this film released a new film last night which is relevant to the topic at hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFtsrjlsclQ

(if it's yanked off youtube before you can watch, the title is 'hypernormalisation')

Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television

http://www.worldcat.org/title/four-arguments-for-the-elimina...

(Mander was himself an ad executive.)

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly

http://www.worldcat.org/title/amusing-ourselves-to-death-pub...

http://www.worldcat.org/title/technopoly-the-surrender-of-cu...

Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self

http://www.worldcat.org/title/century-of-the-self/oclc/86087...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

While we're at it, A Thousand Clowns

http://www.worldcat.org/title/thousand-clowns/oclc/748574510...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AGeq3aMQpbU

⬐ JakeAl

Great list. I'd add this one.

Billy Corgan Warns of Weaponized Zombies - Full Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojAXUqL--mY

⬐ dredmorbius

Infowars? Seriously?

Though you create the opportunity to mention that there is a non batshit-insane lying-for-attention Alex Jones out there worth reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones_(journalist)

And the usual reference to Adam Curtis' history of consumerism, based around Edward Bernays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

Here is another great learning resource on human group and individual behavior. Sorry, I know it is a long documentary. This covers in great depth how fears and wants affect people.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

⬐ sridca

I remember seeing this documentary a few years ago.

When one considers ill effects of fear, often stuff like PTSD and phobias come to mind. But normal people too are adversely affected by fear on a daily basis. As this documentary shows the masses are easily influenced (via fear) by propaganda/ public relations to make decisions that are not in their own best interest.