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Analyzed from 1671 words in the discussion.

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#don#apology#song#world#more#article#image#bieber#others#always

Discussion (48 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

mwillisabout 1 hour ago
This 3 minute song creates a fleeting portrait of a man, not necessarily Bieber, who we cannot know. The song captures the mindset of a character who, one might infer, cynically knows what he’s trying to do. It’s possible he has no interest in a heartfelt, meaningful apology. In fact, this character - who lives only within the song and the liminal world it creates - may be operating exactly to his own moral preference. We don’t know enough to say more. It’s like asking if a singer of “happy birthday” truly wishes their subject to be happy.

In short, you Kant analyze pop music with confidence.

mc32about 1 hour ago
Of course one cannot in all sincerity know. Today, and even yesteryear, are composed to entertain others, not oneself. They are seldom personal or about the singer, with exceptions like the well known songs by Carly Simon and others. In any event songs today are often written by others, passed around till they find a “home.”
stonyrubbish9 minutes ago
From a Hegelian perspective, the concept of the apology inherently is contradictory: for an apology before the act of harm has occurred is always "too early," yet an apology after the act has occurred is always, in some sense, "too late," ie, the harm has already been caused. We can see from this point that the apology is therefore never-on-time, always a spectre in the realm of human temporality. Also, I've never read Hegel (not that this disqualifies me from being a Hegelian.)
BubbleRingsabout 2 hours ago
Funny. Take a simple pop song about apology and make an academic treatise on what a heartfelt apology looks like.

On the other end of the spectrum would be to summarize it in the shortest form with the simplest words, instead of with many and multi-syllable words. How about this (not mine, I’ve heard this in addiction recovery rooms, where apologies and amends are often discussed):

In the sentence “I’m sorry I did x, but you did y”, the word “but” means “disregard the above.”

Waterluvianabout 2 hours ago
I agree with the sentiment.

But,

Whenever I catch myself reaching for “but” I recognize it is because I need to feel heard. What I did was unacceptable. But I didn’t do it in a vacuum and I need my grievances to be recognized. My belief is that omitting the “but” phrase is an act of faith. You need to trust that the other party cares about your feelings and side of the issue, too. Accepting an apology is just as delicate an act as giving one.

“I’m sorry I hit you with the blue shell.”

“I appreciate you saying that. I know you were in last place and that must have felt awful. I don’t want that for you either.”

hmokiguessabout 1 hour ago
I find you can almost always replace “but” with “and” in situations like those and end up more heard by the other side.

I understand the urge to feel heard AND whenever we bring something that may contrast we risk the disagreement connotation that “but” carries to trigger the recipient’s defensive reaction (even if unconsciously)

galangalalgol24 minutes ago
Depending on the relationship involved, asking the person why they think I behaved as I did often helps. Sometimes the reason they think I did what I did is more correct than what I would have put after but or and. And sometimes the answer they give shows they are modeling my motivations completely incorrectly.
Waterluvianabout 1 hour ago
First rule of relationships: adhere to the first rule of improv!
repeekadabout 2 hours ago
So, you don’t agree with the sentiment?.. /s
xrd41 minutes ago
Bieber was clearly trying to use the word "butt" here; it just does not come across in a vocal and was obviously transcribed incorrectly.
henrydarkabout 2 hours ago
Song also proves Bieber is a dualist

"cause I'm missing more than just your body"

What else does she have that he misses?

andaiabout 2 hours ago
Dank memes. She has dank memes on her phone.
srveale32 minutes ago
Bieber in this case refers to body as in "corps", the subject's collective professional or military associations. He laments the loss of power he enjoyed stemming from the subject's erstwhile allegiance.
tclancy36 minutes ago
You're not clocking it?
wjabout 1 hour ago
That brought to mind this examination of Taylor Swift's Shake it Off:

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/taylor-swift-a-socratic-...

stillpointlab18 minutes ago
The irony is, as I read the OP I thought it was very much in the style of McSweeneys and then there is this.

It is a pretty obvious humor device so I assume the ideas are independent. And the Socratic dialog framing adds another layer of humor since this is closer to a juxtaposition, lampooning both Swift's vapidity and Plato's writing style.

cyanmagentaabout 3 hours ago
Justin Bieber is a utilitarian rather than Kantian. From a UChicago economics view, he is behaving rationally.
nmzabout 1 hour ago
If utilitarianisms only interest is the consequence of the action and whether it resulted in a positive outlook. the consequence that we care about is "your body" and if "sorry" is uttered in time, then we can receive the reward, If in the relationship you say sorry and there is an expectation of all actions being forgiven, then, this is the ultimate get out of jail free card. it is infinite because you can always use it, therefore although there is recognition of wrongdoing (at first), there is no need for a preventative measure to take place, because the recognition only looks at the consequence of reverting the status of "wronged" to "righted", not about the causes of the status "wronged" to have happened. This leads to an infinite loop of wrongful actions. What would happen if we constantly said "sorry" unnecessarily at a set interval, which we'll call the canadian way, there would always be our desired consequence and no wrongdoing to ever take place!

Without the recognition and admittance of wrongdoing, the wrong action itself will repeat forever in the relationship because its tolerable. making it an infinite get out of jail free card. If this was a system, fault tolerance would be at 100%, the error rate is probably the highest in any system that could exist, if it was code, then there wouldn't even be such a thing as bugfixes, the only recourse is "have you tried rebooting it?" method of recovery systems. Of course if the fault tolerance was not 100% then everything would be different.

hliyan29 minutes ago
Surprised this article didn't explain the categorical imperative before appealing to it. Here's my interpretation of it, although some would say that (4) is a utilitarian interpretation(even though it's globally utilitarian) and therefore it is not truly categorical.

(1) We all know that doing what's best for oneself does not count as doing something "good" or "right". Even the worst psychopath or monster will do what is best for themselves. "What benefits me" is not a principle on which to decide how to act morally.

(2) The most basic moral principle might be "do no harm", i.e. you are free to do whatever you want as long as you do not cause others harm. This is something that most normal human beings instinctively recognize as a valid way to decide between good and bad actions. This is the absolute minimum moral compass you must possess in order to participate in civilized society.

(3) One level up is the golden rule, or "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or treating others the same way you would want to be treated. This is generally recognized by many religions as the gold standard for what it means to be a good human being.

(4) Kant goes one level further. He says, basically: "before you do something, ask yourself: if everyone else in the world did what you're about to do as a matter of course, will it make the world better or worse? If it makes the world worse, then don't do it". This is a very basic formulation of Kant's Categorical Imperative.

daymanstep26 minutes ago
> Kant goes one level further. He says, basically: "before you do something, ask yourself: if everyone else in the world did what you're about to do as a matter of course, will it make the world better or worse? If it makes the world worse, then don't do it".

This is not the Categorical Imperative. What you're describing is more like Rule Utilitarianism. Kantian ethics is deontological, not consequentialist.

hliyan18 minutes ago
Hence my qualification at the start. My problem with deontological ethics is that the justification of it abruptly hits an impenetrable wall, i.e. the rule or the duty, unless you appeal to some benefit or prevention of harm to rational beings. Even in the Metaphysics of Morals, the whole concept of duty would be arbitrary if not in reference to rational beings. But happy to be corrected.
num42about 1 hour ago
Good article! Off topic, It reminds me of this:

https://www.bensparks.co.uk/talk/the-sacred-geometry-of-chan...

xenaabout 1 hour ago
This is AI generated.
droidjjabout 1 hour ago
Is it? I couldn’t tell and I’m pretty sensitive to machine generated text.

Also, the author claims:

> No AI was used to generate the text for this article. The cover image and the voiceover in the audio version of the article is AI-generated. The cover image is made using Google Gemini’s latest image model while the voiceover uses OpenAI’s tts models.

odo1242about 1 hour ago
I would like, personally, if the image was a stock photo. It being AI feels in poor taste.
shrubbyabout 2 hours ago
After spending most of today circling around maxims I appreciate the application.

Though I must state that the pic almost had me closing the tab before reading.

Here's another venting out, somewhere near Categorical Imperative https://kohlbergs7.org/epm/

KPGv2about 2 hours ago
> After spending most of today circling around Maxims

a sentence i have't heard since middle school at the local corner store with my bros hesitant about buying a lad mag

stcgabout 1 hour ago
Fun read! I love the depth in seemingly superficial texts. Sometimes I similarly ponder claims or questions in advertisements.
Advertisement
kundiabout 1 hour ago
Good. We can move to Bruno Mars now
m-hodgesabout 1 hour ago
An Aristotelian Critique of “The Lazy Song”
aeve890about 2 hours ago
>No AI was used to generate the text for this article

Damn. Please never stop writing

andaiabout 2 hours ago
The slop art gave me the wrong impression. I did enjoy the read even thinking it was AI though.
neogodlessabout 1 hour ago
I'm sorry we're getting so off topic here but...

I suppose it helps to focus on the core of someone's strength, and the core of the content they are sharing.

You could be a great engineer and a great blogger, but have no skill in making graphics. If you made the artistic choice to add AI-generated art to an excellent engineering blog post, I would forgive it -- assuming it wasn't detracting in some important way.

Overall, the human skill of editing - particularly excluding that which is not additive - does remain key though.

I will say in this case, I don't know the pop song well enough to know if the AI-generated image is super relevant, or just random.

EDIT: I'm guessing it's "Kant"[0] in the image, listening to modern music. Ah... at first I thought it was like, George Washington.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

aeve890about 1 hour ago
You're absolutely right! jk. I hate this situation of "everything is slop until proven otherwise" and the author doesn't have to be good at writing and drawing just to share their thoughts. But generally you don't expect a Michelin star level meal after having a turd sandwich entrée. It's just a natural pavlovian response at this point to see slop and expect slop. Totally unfair, I agree, but really hard to get rid of it.
stronglikedanabout 1 hour ago
It's not an art piece, it's a writing piece. The illustration is just there for support, not the central focus or even the topic of the article. The author is obviously a decent writer, but I don't see how they should be expected to pay an artist for a simple illustration when this article has nothing to do with said illustration. Life isn't black and white, and you'd do yourself a favor by noticing the shades of gray.
leni536about 1 hour ago
I don't think the illustration adds anything, it could simply be left out. I did enjoy the writing.
odo1242about 1 hour ago
They don’t have to pay an artist for the illustration, just use a stock photo (lots of which exist). Or leave it blank (nobody needed an illustration). Having an AI image for filler seems to be in poor taste.
aeve890about 1 hour ago
Yeah me too. While reading I keep thinking "ok this might be ai generated but it's not slop. Good job funny man". I owe the author an apology.
therealjasonabout 1 hour ago
Aside from the other links in comments, any where to read more of this? I need more.
b--labout 1 hour ago
I need to stop using this website.
pipeline_peakabout 1 hour ago
Neil Hagerty (Royal Trux, Pussy Galore) Talks Justin Bieber’s Purpose

https://talkhouse.com/neil-hagerty-royal-trux-pussy-galore-t...

m-hodgesabout 1 hour ago
I would thoroughly enjoy an entire podcast of this genre.

...

A Cartesian Critique of "Fireflies" by Owl City

...

A Humean Critique of "I Gotta Feeling" by The Black Eyed Peas

hmokiguessabout 3 hours ago
Great, now do Apologize by Timbaland from the lenses of Schopenhauer
jambalaya8about 2 hours ago
I was going to say for "What Goes Around Comes Around" by Timberlake, or maybe "F--- it, I don't want you back" by Eamonn, myself. Schopenhauer though. Great minds.
jubilantiabout 1 hour ago
Yeah yeah Schopenhauer, but Nietzsche's eternal recurrance is just sitting there!
ignoramousabout 3 hours ago
> from the lenses of Schopenhauer

Ha! Analysing (deconstructing?) poems was part of primary schooling in middle eastern traditions wherein Philosophy & Cosmology were considered to be the highest form of Knowledge (informed by Avicenna's ideas on pedagogy & education): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/399623059_Islamic_E...