anon_
2d ago
The Algorithms are not providing some unique functions that isn't available elsewhere, and the content they're 'curating' is, as stated, nearly infinite.
Sure. Neither is a gas station or a grocery store or any other service. The fact that you can go to Whole Foods doesn't mean Albertson's isn't providing value. And I guess it's hypothetically possible to contract with General Mills to buy your Lucky Charms directly, just about as impractical as viewers and content creators figuring out how to interact directly without TikTok or Instagram.
Which of these should I be sending money to 'thank' for acting as an intermediary for my awareness of some creator and their content?
With the exception of TheMotte, they all already have very solid business plans. And FWIW, I doubt most of them are basing it on curation or discovery as a fundamental source of value. If anything, their only metric when deciding what to show is whatever scores the highest engagement when they A/B test, which I think you already grok.
Its practically hostile design, and I return that hostility with hostility.
You're only burning your own soul, being angry at the world like that. Especially for something that you can very well live without (live everyone pre-2010).
anon_
2d ago
I'd rather give money to the creator directly, and not to the platform that is honestly a minimal value-add, but leverages its network effects to continue to act as the middleman between creator and viewer whilst pretending to be the reason this connection happened at all.
But platforms are the reason that creators and viewers can match each other at all. It's not a minimal value-add, it's a necessary (but not sufficient) piece of the entire transaction.
anon_
2d ago
Never was ejected. /r/TheMotte is still there. Every month /u/naraburns bot still posts an (empty) QC thread.
anon_
3d ago
It can still drag the war out for two more years and inflict hundreds of thousands more Russian casualties.
This is always the thing though -- does something else happen in those two years that changes the reality.
anon_
14d ago
Oh I fully agree. But if the GOP can field a +5 candidate they can win in a D+3 state. That how Youngkin won.
anon_
14d ago
Candidate quality matters more when the fundamental lean is against you. Virginia is D+3, but Jones ran 4 points behind Spanberger. In a closer State, that would have cost him the election.
anon_
19d ago
Western protection of Israel was explicitly cited as a motive for both September 11
I tend to think that bin Laden was more insulted that Saudia Arabia chose protect itself from Saddam by having HW Bush set up shop rather than invoke his Mujahideen who were fresh off defeating the Soviets. That seems more salient in a lot of ways -- it was infidels setting up military bases in the holiest of Islamic countries and it was a personal slight. Moreover, the fight between Islamic Arab states and the secular pan-arabism of Saddam and Nasser was still in full flight.
anon_
19d ago
come out as gay and go on a left wing podcast tour denouncing how toxic right wing ideology kept him in the closet.
Or come out as gay and go on a right-wing podcast tour that if we keep important immigrants, they'll start throwing the gays off roofs. Look at the Hammtramck/Dearborn socialists lamenting the pride/trans flags coming down after they dutifully voted for the brown guys.
anon_
19d ago
By trying to offload one of their pet murderers onto some dank corner of the internet right, they wound up publicizing a relatively niche character. Who has played his moment in the sun pretty well so far.
Man, I need to frame this.
anon_
19d ago
From a realpolitik perspective, I think this is bad.
This is bad for American conservatism in an even more fundamental nature. For a brief period around 2025, you had Trump come in and detached right wing rhetoric from explicit[1] Christianity from the Robertson/Buchanan era. This created room in the nascent Trump coalition for people that wouldn't join if it was explicitly Christian even if they would happily compromise on a number of policies. And the religious wing did indeed get a good number of policy goals (within reason, obviously the anti-IVF folks were gonna be told to STFU). Detaching the rhetoric didn't result in abandoning all their priorities.
Ultimately this is how coalitions evolve -- when they are out of power, there's no sense in fighting because anything is better than 4 more years of Biden/Harris. Now there is a real battle for how holds the reins and who can be in the tent.
[1] Although I think one important piece that doesn't follow here is "blue policies mistreat Christians and need to be stopped" but I distinguish that quite a bit from the movement here.
anon_
20d ago
Yeah. I do wonder how many were productive auto mechanics or bartender or whatnot vs being non-productive.
We used to have jobs for those people that didn’t require reforming them wholesale to let them contribute to society.
anon_
20d ago
Is not having to uselessly prosecute a lifetime felon for the umpteenth time worth some fractional enabling of a more tragic scenario? What's the optimal ratio?
Forgetting the optimal ratio, what is the actual ratio? Like what fraction of individuals killed in what was ultimately judged to be self defense fall into the bucket of "basically OK guy, got in a fight with his neighbor over a dumb thing" vs "hot-headed asshole who nevertheless mostly had his shit together and contributed somewhat to society" vs "degenerate/parasite/criminal that never held down a decent job or did anything for anyone else"?
I'm not sure whether if these three categories are really the right dividing point, but they seem like at least a good start at "lifetime felon" vs "bad neighbor".
anon_
20d ago
Oh I agree, I'm not particularly partisan anyway. But Republicans (or conservatives generally) should probably root for the wing of the Democrats (or liberals generally) that are somewhat less than completely insane.
Even if they are rooting for them quietly.
anon_
21d ago
They warned about it because they considered any possible policy that they didn't like authoritarian.
anon_
21d ago
I'm not sure why would you be antipathetic towards the only part of the Dem apparatus that produces something least resembling nonsense? What purpose could that possibly serve? To elevate the AOC weirdos?
anon_
23d ago
Oh come on. China ended 1988 with a GDP of $325B as compared to the US $5.XT
Almost all of China's growth and power has accrued after 2000.
anon_
23d ago
But will Democrats become double-negative-polarized in his favor then?
I can see it, especially with the Abundance bros.
Dankest timeline, etc...
anon_
23d ago
How would the situation be different, if the House GOP simply couldn't get its shit together? Aren't they generally unable to get their shit together and isn't Trump generally exceeding limits on executive power faster than they can be enforced?
"The House GOP" isn't a singular entity with a cohesive purpose and rational preferences. It is an agglomeration of representatives, and even if they are each individually cohesive and rational, Ken Arrow already told us that this doesn't translate to the aggregate.
anon_
23d ago
Is this what it seems like to me — just more lefty pearl-clutching and crying wolf — or is there something to the arguments James Bruno and Tonoccus McClain are making?
There is lefty overreaction/derangement to actual issues. Just because they would complain at anything doesn't mean everything they complain about is nothing.
An unreliable source crying wolf doesn't actually give you a lot of information on whether there is a wolf one way or the other.
anon_
23d ago
I'm quite sure I can find a shock collar on eBay or FB marketplace.
Not that I think people are scheming to conceal these purchases, but the principle is bonkers.
anon_
24d ago
I agree that the tranch setup distributed risk as advertised. The problem was that much of market (including CDO sellers) believed in their models that used a gaussian copula, which vastly underestimated the tails as compared to a power law.
This wasn't "sellers pull a fast one on buyers" -- that's too simplistic a model. They got into the business because they convinced themselves of an overall model that didn't put enough weight on the tail risks. Then they kept the most junior tranches because of that belief in the low overall risk.
[ There's a related problem which is that gaussian models are extremely sensitive to parameter changes in ways that power laws aren't. When you get to the CDO-squared (a CDO of CDOs) then you the output of one model being fed as an input to another, with the expected impact to accuracy. ]
See, e.g., this excellent summary: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/mrcbg/files/Barnett-Hart_2009.pdf
Grocery stores have put trashy magazines, Diet Coke and candy bars in the checkout aisle since time immemorial.
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