NPC meme & simulated thinking

In the last few days the NPC (non-player character) meme has broken free of social media and made its way into the mainstream. Why has it spread so fast, and how does it relate to Jordan Greenhall's concept of 'thinking vs simulated thinking'.

Relevant links:

[mutantdog.]

The NPC meme works so perfectly because everyone intrinsically knows what it means. And that the perpetually offended segment of the population are, of course, offended by it just completely demonstrates the very point of the joke itself.

[Varlwyll]

The only people who are mad about the NPC meme are the people who think that it applies to them

[Smegead]

The russian bots seem to create really good memes.

[NPC-jmxb]

Orange man very bad
Orange man very very bad

[sailgoal]

404 error: internet frowns on people thinking for themselves in liberal land.

[thatguy]

Your content is always interesting, thank you for the discussion! I think the NPC meme is hilarious, I wish Twitter would stop deleting the accounts.

[niilopatrickcollin]

Me angry, rassists everywere! #resist

[mostlypeacefulrowan]

NPC meme cracks me up. It’s really funny how some people don’t get it. Well I guess that is the life of an NPC.

[aja]

It gets under their skin because it is accurate.

[Tohlemiach]

I think the main issue that people have with Jordan and his Kavanaugh comments is this:

The "win so as to maintain the integrity of the system" paradigm doesn't seem to work when you're in a war. It's a brilliant concept when applied to relationships between two people, in small groups of like minded people, and in other scenarios where you can actually deal with people as individuals.

But what Peterson doesn't seem to realize is that we are not in a scenario in which individuals can talk most of the time. It's important to keep having these conversations of course, but the Kavanaugh hearing was a very clear case: it was a political Pearl Harbor. It was unprovoked and calculated. There is a point at which someone can go to far, and we reached that point a long time ago. This was a case of a political entity launching an air raid on another political entity. That is no longer a relationship. It is a battle in every sense of the word.

I've been reading Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind recently, and one of the most fascinating bits of research he references is an experiment surrounding game theory. It's the one where you can choose to put in token into a system knowing that it will give more tokens to everyone else in the game, but you can't see them and their decision before making your own decision. It plays out fairly simply. Most people start out by generously giving up what they have and everyone reaps the benefits of getting resources from everyone's collaborative sacrifice. However, some people decide not to give anything at all, and they just get free stuff from everyone else. What happens is that this causes the system to slowly deteriorate and eventually no one will give up their tokens because they've been taught that other people will just benefit off of your sacrifice.

What's brilliant about this experiment is that halfway through, they introduced a new rule: now you can pay a few tokens to punish a player that decides to be a free rider. Within only a few rounds, the system had regained its equilibrium because people overwhelmingly chose to punish those people. Eventually everyone was back to trusting each other to all chip in.

What made the difference? When people know they can be caught, they are less likely to cheat. When people do cheat, people will only trust the system again once they know that the system can competently find and punish the cheaters.

This is simply how human psychology works. The Democrats are cheating, and they need to be punished. We punish them by not giving a single fucking inch on Kavanaugh and holding the House and Senate in November. They have shown and actually outright stated that they don't want a relationship. Peterson seems totally unable to comprehend this fact. We're not in a relationship anymore. We're in a war, and there are people cheating who are not getting punished. That alone will collapse the system of it is not addressed, and Peterson's strategy is not appropriate for the situation.

[TatianaF-cl]

the NPC meme is not dehumanizing, it's simply making fun of the groupthink. The people who started it also made ones of trump supporters.and making fun of themselves. it makes fun of those who can't or refuse to think for themselves. It's a joke..it's funny. people need to get a sense of humor!!

[elitefitrea]

determinists are literally complaining that others are denying that they have free will

[AndrooUK]

A really great video. You used clips to make your points effectively, and then discussed them in a helpful way. You didn't waffle or throw in redundant clips for 'amusement' (although there are some great NPC memes out there).

I had no idea about debates and using scripted/passive thinking instead of active thinking. That's very interesting, and I'll keep a look out for it now.

[migueld]

The left is running malware lmao. Thats gold.

[ericbriggs]

That debate explanation is pretty spot on with the first Sam Harris / Jordan Peterson Waking Up podcast. Jordan came on wanting to think through things with Sam, whereas Sam just seemed to want to win in debate fashion and then move on. The more they talked things over the more the needle moved toward the thinking man, Jordan Peterson. Hopefully that trend continues and eventually enters into the political world

[immrnoidall]

one letter more than MOB
M-N
O-P
B-C

[markgreen]

While the NPC meme has recently entered into the mainstream, the question of "Do we really have free will" has been an active discussion within the philosophical community for many years now.

[michaelroberts]

Woah, this video absolutely blew my mind. This video will wake people up alone!

[WexMajor]

An NPC is a non playing character; as it comes firstly from the world of ROLE PLAYING.
The dungeon master controls the behavior of the world and all of the NPC, while the players have agency in that world.
This makes the meme even better: a MASTER is controlling all NPCs.

[daneracamosa]

The NPC meme is just a restatement of Jung..."ideas have people"... weaponized and personalized of course... the notion of collaboration is lovely but assumes we all want the same things and that individuals are approaching the conversation honestly...there are fundamental differences that simply cannot be reconciled between individuals so what then is the appropriate strategy of interaction?