cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
1mo ago
And here's mine: it would look much like the weekly thread on /r/blockedandreported, only better because the quality of commentators here is higher.
Or it would eventually look exactly like that thread or worse, because:
- The higher quality of commentators would leave
- Everyone would put in less effort.
- And we don't have a popular podcast that draws in a stream of new and active users.
Dude, this whole discussion started because a "rather well-written" effort post received a warning. You are definitely setting the bar too high.
A well-written thing that is not a discussion is still not a discussion. The bar is not high. In this case they went and climbed at a neighboring gym and put in a bunch of effort, but the bar we were monitoring which is much easier to reach was left empty.
cjet79
1mo ago
No I think my model is pretty similar to yours.
Specifically:
My model is a different one: quality posts happen because a poster gets inspired by an ongoing discussion.
My model is only different in that I strongly emphasize that last word. Bare links do not count as discussion. A story that amounts to "people I don't like did a bad thing" is not a discussion.
We specifically ask that top level posts start a discussion. It does not have to be a high quality post. It just has to start a discussion. I've said before and given examples that it is possible to start a discussion here in three sentences.
Context. Interpretation. Opinion.
We ask that people not clog up the board with non-discussion.
cjet79
1mo ago
Also cult like experiences can be really awesome for a lot of the participants. In fact it can be so awesome that they end up doing crazy things with the cult. A semi controlled environment where you can join a temporary cult sounds great.
cjet79
1mo ago
Lots of things were different back then. We were on reddit and the culture war was red hot and banned in a bunch of other places. And there are also places like culturewarroundup that allow bare links and they are far deader than theschism. If anything the comparison suggests theschism strategy is a better viable long-term option. Neither us or them can compete with X in terms of sheer content of bare links and subjects being discussed. But we can compete on enforcing some minimum quality standards.
Look, I know this is a lost cause. But I wish you guys would at least acknowledge the point about low effort top posts leading to high effort comments.
I feel like I've never disagreed with this point. I might have even said somewhere that it is easy for bad quality comments to generate good discussion. But I also feel it suggests that you are entirely missing the point I am making.
I think our actual disagreement is on the effect of permissive top level comments. You seem to think it's positive sum. I think it is neutral sum, or possibly a little negative sum.
We are generally getting a similar number of high quality comments each month. And that amount is limited by the number of users.
The people that write quality comments have told me before that they like having their comments read and discussed. I also share that preference. Its rare for me to want to type out a quality comment that is just going to get buried and read by only one person.
The place where you get the most attention and discussion is at the top level. That attention is limited by how many top level comments are above you, and how recently that thing has been discussed. Bare links fill up the top comment slots and bury posts faster. And you can easily get your topic sniped before you finish writing a quality comment.
I don't even understand your mechanism for how permissive top comments increase the number of quality comments. I understand how it increases total comments, but that isn't something I care about.
cjet79
1mo ago
Its news you find interesting. But if others find it boring or distracting then a conversation about it doesn't add to their enjoyment of the site. For example I am interested in tech news but very uninterested in foreign policy. The whole war in Gaza is less interesting to me than Amazon's return to office policy. If this thread was 10 times bigger with the same quality writing but all about foreign policy then it would be no better for me.
We don't have unlimited people producing unlimited content like X does. Every time I read your complaints that seems to be a built in assumption, that the lack of top level content holds people back from the total amount they post. I just don't see it personally. I'm limited in how much quality content I can write. Probably only a few good comments a day.
I would love to have more people here posting more quality content. If we as mods got overwhelmed with moderating we would add more moderators as we've done in the past. An unlimited amount of low quality content is useless.
I don't buy your point that it is a conflict of interest. As a user I also hate low quality content, because it's crap that I have to filter through to get to the good stuff. X and Facebook and YouTube are all unusable to me. Too much crap, not enough gold. And I'm only a user on those websites, not a moderator.
cjet79
1mo ago
I am also sounding like a broken record, but people often miss the point of the rule against bare links:
Interesting discussion is why we are here. Dictating the particular topic of discussion is a privilege and a benefit that we like see awarded to those who also bring interesting discussion.
Certain things can generate interesting discussions without actually being interesting discussions.
Low effort bare links are one of those things. Posting things that amount to "Can you believe what Those People did this week?" is another one of those things. Recruiting for a cause is one of those things. A brand new major news item is one of those things.
It is in fact not hard at all to generate interesting discussions when you try and make the main purpose of a forum be a place that allows for discussion. Getting other people to generate a discussion here is not hard. Writing quality stuff that other people want to read is hard. We are not trying to reward generating a discussion, we are trying to reward people that make the effort to write quality stuff.
One of the few levers we have for that is saying that 'only people that are trying to do the hard thing of writing quality stuff get to pick the topic for discussion'.
Or in cases where there is definitely going to be discussion about a major news item, but maybe only one threads worth, there is some value in being the first poster because you get to set the tone and focus of the discussion. We would again rather award someone with an effortful and thoughtful take on the issue than the first person to copy and paste the link from X.
I'd rather us die as TheMotte then live on to just become a crappy version of every other social media platform out there.
cjet79
1mo ago
I'm aware and agree that metoo often removes female agency.
I'd say I was aiming my disagreement at users on this forum that think this is a terrible practice. So it's not a given that they support me too or don't believe in female agency.
cjet79
1mo ago
I have a female cousin that lives in the south I could easily imagine going through this and being highly successful at it. In the sense that she will excel at the fashion, the making friends, and the finding a marriage partner before she leaves college. She won't be forced into this type of situation, it will likely be because she strongly desires it. She has an older sister who went the route of "super nerd goes to college early for physics and math, and immediately gets high paying job right out of college". So its not the family pressuring her into it either.
The reactions of other posters here describing this as hellish and horrible (@quiet_NaN and @Stefferi) kind of confuse me. I see this as a quintessential human activity. Its a socially competitive and cooperative activity, forming tribal bonds, creating a larger group culture through fashion, searching for mates, and navigating a different world as you grow into full adulthood and autonomy. I also understand that I would be bad at this activity, or at best just mediocre. I'm a guy so that certainly puts me at a major handicap for sororities. But I skipped out on greek life and most parties in general while in college. I was never a social butterfly and struggled into my mid twenties with conveying and receiving proper social ques.
The restrictions on sexual promiscuity seem designed to overcome "race to the bottom" situations. Which is something that girls might want. If two girls are going after the same guy, and one girl puts out first, then she might easily win a close competition. The incentive turns towards putting out as fast as possible. Before the girl herself is ever comfortable doing so. But if all girls put out too easily then guys might not have a reason to settle down. The standard set of rules in any situation like this is to ban behavior that encourages the race to the bottom, and then punish defectors. The punishment here is social ostracization.
As someone who has "done the time, but not the crime" when it comes to social ostracization I don't get the big deal. It sucks in the moment to be socially ostracized, but long term you can find new social groups and ultimately move on. Its certainly better than the punishments in what I'd consider "backwards" civilizations where they might throw acid on your face, stone you to death, shove you into a religious sisterhood organization against your will, or some other form of heinous community execution.
Ultimately I think the voluntary or involuntary nature of this activity is where people get hung up. If its fully involuntary it does indeed seem hellish. But to consider it involuntary you have to basically remove all assumptions of agency from these young women. That they had no other college options, that they could only pick from the sororities that strictly enforce this social competition, and that they cannot slightly pull back once inside the competition to a level where they are comfortable. I think it is either voluntary every step of the way, or its a learning experience for them about the dangers of allowing the expectations of others to dictate your life decisions. There are far worse ways to learn that lesson.
cjet79
1mo ago
I was reminded of an old Scott Alexander post about how to handle the culture war. It was basically have two different elections, one election is just for the culture war and one election is just for hard policy stuff. And don't allow people to vote in both.
It was one of those "out-there" ideas that get tossed out so you can just think about things from a new perspective. But it seems it was prescient in a way. What we have with this latest election is almost that exact division. Where the presidential candidates are almost pure culture war outgrowths. And the Vice presidential candidates are these policy oriented wonks.
cjet79
1mo ago
This isn't a very good comment on multiple dimensions.
All it really adds to the discussion is a negative sentiment towards leftists. Which the previous comment already has, but expresses it in a more interesting way and adds additional detail.
Its a mix of building consensus, low effort, antagonistic, and waging the culture war. Next time just upvote the comment you like and move on.
cjet79
1mo ago
I haven't been single in over a decade. I remember the norm being to split the bill, I'd sometimes pick it up as the guy. If I picked it up though there was more of an expectation that something physical was happening later. I also tended to date professional working women. It was a point of pride for them that they did not need me to pay for their date.
The other thing I remember was going on "reverse dates" basically one of us went to the other's place first, did some fun activities, then we went out to dinner. I might have picked up those checks more often, but I can't say with any certainty.
In terms of who asks out who, generally it was just men because they had more interest. I don't see anything wrong with a woman asking someone out.
A woman doing a marriage proposal feels very wrong. But I suppose in some specific circumstances it could make sense. Typically men are the more reluctant ones to get married. For the sake of both involved its better if the reluctant party enthusiastically signals that they are over their reluctance and ready to get married. Maybe if a man asks a woman to marry him, and the woman says no, but they continue dating then the ball should be in her court to ask him to get married. Describing and thinking of that kind of scenario doesn't feel nearly as icky as a woman just proposing first.
cjet79
1mo ago
Ya for sure, I don't think my school pizza was an international chain! Don't be ridiculous man.
cjet79
1mo ago
I mean if you want to get all hoity toity about pizza. Sure you can go high end with Papa johns, but I didn't realize we were talking rich people pizza.
cjet79
1mo ago
He probably means something as good or at least a little better than Little Caesars
cjet79
1mo ago
I'd just like to thank google for being such a responsible company. Specifically youtube.
Today I was mindlessly watching videos, and saw that some new movie trailers have come out. I'll normally get sucked into watching half and hour of movie trailers pretty easily, even if I've seen half of them already.
Well google has finally managed to break through adblockers with server side delivered advertisements. I had a minute long advertisement about a specially designed earwax cleaner in front of the video that I was going to watch which was basically entertaining advertisements for movies. It took me ten seconds to realize what was happening, three seconds to get disgusted at the pictures of earwax they were showing me, and another 5 seconds to decide I didn't want to wait for the advertisement to end. I closed youtube and had no desire to open it back up.
It is really touching that in this day and age that a large tech company like google would be willing to help me break any addiction I have to their products by forcing a disgusting minute long advertisement in front of what would otherwise just been some mindless video watching on my part.
cjet79
2mo ago
Food addiction is very real.
I've gone cold turkey on things before. Alcohol, sex, masturbation, porn, internet, reddit, video games, etc. Of all of them going cold turkey on sugar was the absolute hardest thing I've ever done. And unlike quitting most of those things it remains difficult to continue.
I found with most addictions there there is a one to two week hump where your brain is resetting and still craving the thing you want. If you can make it through that one to two week hump you are usually fine. With sugar that hump was more like a month. Probably because my body can still produce it from other things I'm eating, so unless you are literally starving to death for two weeks you can't go full cold turkey on sugar.
The other unique difficulty I've had is what I call "food depression". Its usually when I start getting a little bit hungry, but not hungry enough to desire any of the foods I'm supposed to eat. Or it happens when I'm shopping and go down an isle with a bunch of forbidden foods. I get overcome with an extreme sense of sadness and loss. I've been on the verge of tears.
I always have to just wait it out. Its either real hunger, and I'll be hungry enough in an hour to eat the healthy thing. Or its just a craving and it will go away and I won't be hungry in an hour.
One oddly helpful thing is having young children. I can usually see in real-time how much hunger and food impacts their moods, and its made me far more aware of my own hunger and mood connections. Especially when that connection is negative and harmful.
cjet79
2mo ago
Men tend to have a lot of superstition around gambling and sports teams. The cryptozoology and xenology "researchers" also tend to skew male.
I do wonder if there is a similar effect with women where enough social approbation will make people hide their magical beliefs. But people are much more ready and willing to make fun of men, so the magic beliefs get repressed harder.
I think it's tied in a bit with the neuroticism trait, which does skew more towards women.
cjet79
2mo ago
Yeah I almost added "cats" to my list of witch shaped hole things, but I think the more accurate one would just be "familiars" aka deep spiritual connections to household pets.
cjet79
2mo ago
I feel like I encounter it less since I got out of the dating game. I don't really meet many young women anymore, and they were the main source of astrologists in my life. The comedians I've heard joke about it also tend to be young and single guys.
Are you suddenly more exposed to young women for some reason?
I'm pretty sure it's a phenomenon for most women, not just young ones. Its just that the young ones haven't picked up on how men think it is silly. My mother was really into astrology stuff, but the level of eye roll my dad gave off when she brought it up meant she preferred to talk to her children about it. My mom is also religious, and a microbiologist PhD. I've asked her about conflicting internal beliefs before, they don't seem to bother her.
Not a god-shaped hole. There is a witch-shaped hole. Its filled with astrology, seance, ghosts, crystals, etc. Its a common quirk among women, if you are straight I'd suggest making your peace with it and trying to ignore it.
cjet79
2mo ago
Henry Cavil is 41. But he has also shown his colors as a die hard nerd and loyalist to original material. I think it has gotten him kicked out of / mutually left roles that have strayed to far. His participation in a project is kind of like a stamp of approval for me.
The mods all talk. Netstack ask us to come by and check this. And noticeably Netstack only said not to do it. Which is basically the minimum level of "mod action" that we can take. It is impossible to be softer.
I don't think as many people would be apprehensive about it if every time this came up there wasn't a cadre of posters making it sound like we have super strict requirements for top level posts.
Doing it after we have warned you not to do it isn't treated very well, but same with most rules.
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