20 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
badrabbitApr 2023Strongly recommends
I wholly distrust anything freudian. Every major claim he made I keep finding serious flaws in it. Freud did not popularize the unconscious or thinking about how you think. Basic children's sunday school at a Church even talks about how you think. Major religions from Christianity to Buddhism talk about how the thought life of a person affects everything and the split and conflicted nature of humans. They just don't use post-freudian terms like conscious and unconscious. What freud popularized was a secular way of coping with how humans think, analyzing it in a purely secular context and considering thousands of years of knowledge on the subject as childish fairytales and defining a framework by which a modern secular world can explain the actions of people and respond to them. Socially, I have seen horrific impacts of his work from criminal punishment to people attempting to understand and help people who have chosen to be evil (worst examples being child rapists, school shooters,etc... not sick, evil! But evil has no place in a freudian context). This documentary shared on HN a while back was eye opening for me, how almost every aspect of modern capitalist life was influenced by freud: ▶ this video (Century of the self). Worth watching the whole thing. I don't discount psychoanalysis as quackery but I am very hostile to it. I would need to filter any attempts of psychoanalytical thinking with a ton if critical analysis, taking it with buckets of salt!
in “The Cult of Sigmund Freud” · View on HN
mistermannApr 2020Strongly recommends
The documentary Century of Self (re: Sigmund Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays) gets into this type of thing , and many, many others. [link] Full: ▶ this video 10 minute trailer/summary: [link] 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.
in “Anatomists of Melancholy in the Age of Coronavirus” · View on HN
stevewillowsDec 2017Strongly recommends
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] ▶ this video
in “IKEA Effect” · View on HN
urzaNov 2016Strongly recommends
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: ▶ this video
in “Is democracy a failure? (1861)” · View on HN
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ixtliAug 2025Recommends
Correct. The car industry intentionally socially engineered the US to associate the giant individual and social burden of car ownership with freedom. A great documentary called Century of the Self covers this and other related things ( ▶ this video )
in “In Defense of Car-Centered Society” · View on HN
LinuxBenderSep 2023Recommends
There's even an old BBC documentary on this called Century of the Self [1] created by Adam Curtis that covers how businesses and governments were taught to make people desire things they don't need. [1] - ▶ this video [video][4 hours][996 MB]
in “Norway wants Facebook behavioral advertising banned across Europe” · View on HN
c23gooeyAug 2023Recommends
The documentary "Century of Self" by Adam Curtis [0] certainly opened my eyes to the damage that Bernays has inflicted on society in general. [0] ▶ this video
in “Many temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer” · View on HN
wizardforhireJul 2019Recommends
“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. ▶ this video
in “Six Degrees of Separation at Burning Man” · View on HN
musha68kJun 2019Recommends
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: ▶ this video Hypernormalization [link] Adam Curtis: [link]
in “I’ve Picked My Job over My Kids” · View on HN
compcoffeeSep 2018Recommends
> The Century of the Self: ▶ this video I think all of Adam Curtis' documentaries are worth a watch: [link] Some others favourites off the top of my head: 808 (about the drum machine): [link] Scratch: [link] Hoop Dreams: [link] Startup.com (a classic!) : [link] The Fog of War: [link]
in “Ask HN: What are some of the best documentaries you've seen?” · View on HN
seltzered_Feb 2017Recommends
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: [link] The century of the self on youtube: ▶ this video Other films of his are also on archive.org
in “HyperNormalisation (2016) [video]” · View on HN
BenderMay 2026Cites it
There's No Reason to Fear an Invasion of Chinese Electric Vehicles Fear is an emotion. People need not make purchasing decisions based on emotions. See documentary Century of the Self... [1] I consider logic such as who is going to repair my vehicle and where am I going to get parts , how long will parts be available and how safe is this thing . Perhaps these are answered questions for the cheaper EV imports but I have not seen this articulated anywhere in a confidence inspiring level of detail especially given the current tension between China and the US. The common answer I hear is "but EV's are simpler" which tells me these people have not actually tried to work on one. They are not simple at all and the parts are quite unique and have to be ordered from China . Build out factories in the US and stock up on all the parts first. Show me the USA tested crash safety data, remove all the drive-by-wire nonsense, make the battery packs user serviceable, remove all dial-home telemetry and maybe we can talk otherwise I see this as future throw-away toys that will flood the landfills. [1] - ▶ this video [video][4 hours][b&w documentary]
in “There's No Reason to Fear an Invasion of Chinese Electric Vehicles” · View on HN
sgu999Oct 2023Cites it
> you’d have much of your individuality grinded out of you That doesn't seem too bad now that Adam Curtis ruined it for me. [0] [0] ▶ this video
in “The Magical Japanese Art of Luggage Forwarding” · View on HN
EGregFeb 2023Cites it
Kids overdiagnoses, while both parents work in corporations and stick them in a school to sit down and shut up for 10 hours a day: ADHD - prescribe amphetamines (Ritalin, Adderall) Gender Dysphoria - prescribe hormone blockers Autism spectrum - Abilify and Risperdal [link] [link] Teenager and College Student overdiagnoses: Depression - prescribe SSRIs Diabetes - prescribe Meglitinides Obesity - prescribe diets [link] [link] [link] [link] Adults: Men - Opioid epidemic since 2008 Women - One in four on antidepressants in middle age Internet Addiction - companies need to boost "engagement" ADD - notifications and multitasking 24/7 is normal now [link] Elderly in nursing homes: Too many to list We need to realize that these "epidemics" and "rises in incidence" have more to do with the capitalist industry and government working together, than individual incidence. They have women vs men, black vs white, so people are distracted from the real causes: [link] Big Tech is a big part of the problem, and much of the unhealthy habits and emergent depression come from the influencer industry. In other demographics, unhealthy influences were specifically pushed and promoted until they became normalized. It takes hold easier when you are young and impressionable: Gangsta rap, Drill music - music industry, corrupts Black youth Instagram and TikTok - influencer industry, corrupts adolescent girls Most of the cartoons you watched, down to the "programming", was based around merchandising oppor
in “The Teen Mental Illness Epidemic Began Around 2012” · View on HN
lm28469Mar 2019Cites it
> and will subtly lose free will and never notice they did. Isn't that happening for decades now ? ▶ this video > the people not doing it will be more and more excluded from the regular system. Same with cars, phones, internet
in “Boston Dynamics’ new robot stacks boxes [video]” · View on HN
throwaway7312Jan 2019Cites it
Open borders / illegal immigration from poor / brown countries is a Republican position. They've pushed it since before Reagan's amnesty to benefit corporate special interests. [1] Democrats are late to that game, but now both parties agree: more cheap immigrants for their corporate masters. The Republican party vehemently opposed Donald Trump during the elections of 2015/6 and throughout his first year in office in large part due to his ambivalence toward immigration. There are some opposed to mass immigration among the elected officials of both parties (growing among the Republicans, shrinking among the Democrats), but they remain a minority. Never mind that large majorities of both Republican and Democrat electorates want less immigration [2]... the corporate sponsors want more, thus so do the representatives. This is how politics works in the United States. The Parties put on a puff show of differing over hot button social issues that whip the electorate into a frenzy. Meanwhile the elected representatives of both parties go to great lengths to satisfy their corporate and international donors, who are the same for the representatives of both parties. The plebes fight over the kabuki theater of climate change and transsexual bathrooms while the rulers work together on issues of substance without the interference or awareness of the common man. Perhaps it's better that way? Edward Bernays certainly thought so. [3] [1] [link] [2] [link] [3] ▶ this video
in “Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype” · View on HN
Mathnerd314Jan 2017Cites it
Warning: rambling comment. A rambling post deserves a rambling answer, particularly if the rambling is in the wrong direction... [link] > 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: [link] . 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 ( [link] )? (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 secon
in “I Am Writing a JavaScript to Rust Transpiler, So Please Just End My Suffering” · View on HN
dredmorbiusAug 2016Cites it
Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television [link] (Mander was himself an ad executive.) Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly [link] [link] Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self [link] ▶ this video While we're at it, A Thousand Clowns [link] [link]
in “Can Facebook really make ads unblockable?” · View on HN