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Hyperbole is bad
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This isn't a new phenomenon brought on by The Algorithm though. Producers since the dawn of cinema have seen franchises as an easy way to guarantee viewers, right? And perhaps more to the point: all your examples are content that is being decided by human producers in the human world of Hollywood -- these aren't decisions being made in Netflix or YouTube's spheres of influence.
There are maybe specific versions of this argument that are good (e.g. I've heard people complain YouTube penalizes creators if they produce too slowly (though an explicit Google search about this today suggests this is not the case)), but leveraging a brand to get views is a tale as old as viewership.
(Also it a bit tangential, but I really doubt the guy who originally had the idea for "Joker" actually wanted to tell a story about an ordinary guy driven to madness. They wanted to tell a story about the Joker, in the same way that the person who wrote "Wicked" wanted to tell a story about a specific popular villain, not a generic coming-of-age story about a social outcast in a magic school).
Could you clarify how “the algorithm” is contributing to this?
It seems to me that the algorithm is predicting what you want way better than TV execs in the 90s, and if you don’t like what you see then that’s on you.
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9mo ago
While I don’t see any evidence of govt. efforts making J6 worse, I do concede the idea that just a few individuals can whip up a crowd. I think crowd dynamics are somewhat conformity based- At a given protest every member of the crowd has a particular proclivity to jump a police barrier, for example. As soon as one or two people with little restraint do that, it makes it much more acceptable
I've been thinking about these dynamics lately, though not in the specific context of crowds. More in the context of social norms.
There is a team of engineers who work on a product and they're all genuinely invested in bettering the project. Then one engineer (or manager) joins and everyone can kind of tell his priority is his career. He oversells and self-credits a bit too much. Then he gets promoted and somebody else decides he's going to start prioritizing his own career over the project. And now there is a cascade.
One can imagine a similar dynamic in academic honesty, charity for one's outgroup, cheating on taxes, not paying for the subway, bribes, etc.
The million dollar question is: in what situations is the state stable, and in what situations is there a cascade?
Consider f(x) -> y, where x is the percent of people currently defecting and y is the percent of people who would see nothing wrong with defecting if at least x% of other people were defecting.
Here the answer is immediately clear: when f(x) > x the group will tend towards defecting and when f(x) < x the group will tend towards cooperating.
This model leads us to the conclusion that the groups whose norms are the most affected by a small group of defectors are groups where f(x) is roughly equal to x. In fact, when f(x)=x exactly, an arbitrarily small shift can cause the group to cascade to either extreme!
Groups where f(x) is typically far from x will automatically tend to one of the extremes and will tend to be more stable (for better or for worse).
we know that the gerontocratic party leadership did eventually appoint a younger reformer of “merely” 54 years of age, when the economic and social crisis of the system became obvious.
I feel like this narrative is very forced.
First, the fact that the USSR was already actively headed towards an economic and social crisis before Gorbachev is not exactly a glowing endorsement of the abilities of the gerontocracy to balance their decades of experience with the modern needs of their country.
Second, isn't the main lesson of the old USSR that totalitarianism and the destruction of markets was awful? Gorbachev may have rocked the boat, but it's hard to imagine that more experience of his friends and family going to gulags and and dying of starvation would have increased his tolerance for totalitarianism or command economies. I admit you could argue that glasnost reflects Gorbachev drinking the kool aid, but increasing transparency and allowing government criticism could just as easily be argued to be Western influences.
Third, the fact that Republicans also have several key, very old politicians suggests that any woke/left-only explanations are, at best, incomplete.
The idea of the mainstream American Male Sports Fan had declined so far that I couldn't even buy one issue, I had to specifically subscribe to that niche if I wanted it.
How does this make sense when you lay the blame for the decline in Sports Illustrated on the Internet?
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Hyperbole is bad
10mo ago
Back when I used Tinder in the Midwest probably half of profiles had a Snapchat or Instagram link in their profile. If you’re in a big city I’d guess it’s higher than that (if you’re trying to be an influencer or sex worker you’d presumably target bigger cities, even if you didn’t actually live there).
Alternatively maybe you’re trying an approach women don’t like — trying to be too sexually overt, not showing commitment by using short messages, etc.
But I maintain that, since I didn’t have this issue with a bad profile or with a good profile, I don’t think this says much about how attractive women find you.
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10mo ago
If you’re sad for your general misfortune I wholeheartedly agree.
If you think this meaningfully reflects your attractiveness to women (or, alternatively, the attractiveness of your profile to women), then I disagree.
I don’t the girls thinking “he’s attractive enough to message and give my number too, but I’m not going to go on a date him” is really a thing.
For reference I’ve gone from a bad profile (iirc 1-2 matches a week? to a decent one (maybe a dozen?), so I feel like I have a decent amount of experience on both sides.
IMO if a girl is flaking I think by far the mostly likely reason is she isn’t on the app to find dates.
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Hyperbole is bad
10mo ago
I apparently replied to the wrong person but here are my arrow keys.
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Hyperbole is bad
10mo ago
It’s interesting because this happened once to me and it was a girl with a Snapchat in her bio. I pretty religiously avoided girls with some sort of social media (eg a instagram) in their bios since I expected they were just hunting for followers, so maybe that’s the difference?
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Hyperbole is bad
10mo ago
I'll repost my comment from two years ago. None of this is meant to be a bible. This is one approach
In the midwest I got a disproportionate amount of attention on Tinder (vs other apps). In the Bay my tinder match rate is lower but my Hinge match rate is higher (despite identical pictures). Moral of the story: the best app for you depends on different factors, including location; try every app at least once per locale.
In the midwest my match rate on tinder was awful when I used bad photos and great when I used better photos. My current photos are: a picture of me on a ski trip, a picture of me shirtless (tripod), a (bad-quality) picture of me in New Zealand, a picture of me reading (tripod), a (bad quality) picture of me hiking, and a picture of me playing the piano (tripod)
Some random tidbits I've picked up from a few months of online dating:
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A surprising number of people (including women) think it's bad for me to have the ski-trip picture because you can't see my face. It's important to have some pictures where your face is clear, but absolutely not required for all of them.
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TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES and only post the best. This is completely normal and not dishonest – women do this all the time. (Side note: I've never been catfished – I'm increasingly convince that most men who claim to have been catfished simply don't appreciate that women strategically select photos – if you can't tell if she's fat... well, there's a reason she isn't making it obvious)
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If you're going to use a shirtless pic, do it immediately after running or lifting. Again: take many pictures with many different types of lighting.
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Buy a tripod. It also helps to be confident/mature/social enough to ask a friend take pictures, but a tripod can be more comfortable than asking a friend to take 100 shirtless pictures. Avoid selfies.
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Every picture should be in a different location. (though I have two pictures in the same building, but you can't tell). Multiple pictures from the same location suggest your pool of "interesting hobbies/events" is small. Yes, your profile is a highlight reel, but you need to leave the impression that there is plenty more you could have chosen from.
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Don't put your height unless it helps sell you (this is probably around either 5'11" or 6 ft)
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Dogs are good; cats are mixed (I haven't tried either, but iirc this is from OKCupid)
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I think many nerds really hate the idea of presenting a false version of themselves, but normal people (including the people you match with) will overwhelmingly not consider posting (e.g.) vacation highlights or flattering angles to be misleading – it's just (unfortunately) part of the game. Part of using OLD apps for me was letting go of my pride – I had spent my whole life never overselling myself and getting by just fine because I was top of my class, etc. That kind of honesty is, unfortunately, not compatible with dating apps. It's worth noting that if you're underselling yourself compared to others, that's also a kind of dishonestly.
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It may be helpful to know that probably half the reason you're not getting many matches isn't because women are rejecting you, but simply because women don't swipe (in either direction) nearly as much as men. To this end buying super swipes can be helpful (I did this before I re-ramped my profiles). For most people on this sub, $500 on dating apps in exchange for 40 years of happiness is cheap at twice the price.
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If you think your hair doesn't look attractive, you're probably right (compare my first picture to my other two; I'm no top 2%, but at least I'm not bottom 50%). If you think your clothes don't look attractive, you're probably right. If you think your glasses don't look attractive, you're probably right. Trust your intuition. I'm a nerd interested in Lotr and statistics, who majored in math and CS, and spent my entire time as a student wearing t shirts. I still know unattractive when I see it (on me).
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A great, customized opening message and an average, canned opener probably aren't that different in terms of response rate. Response rate (after matching) is basically ~50% for me no matter what, so I usually just send canned messages. 2 canned messages are better than 1 custom message.
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If a woman matched with you and is talking to you, she is interested. You don't need to be suave or even have a decent segue to ask for her number or ask her on a date. Just ask "out of the blue" for either (I usually ask for a date then ask for a number to "work out the details"). I usually do this on the 3rd or 4th message (edit: though I usually sent pretty long messages when I was dating. YMMV, this is one approach that worked for me and is intended as an example more than as a bible).
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Hyperbole is bad
10mo ago
They believe it though. The illusion of censorship is that hiding something makes it disappear, like a hand in front of a baby.
If somebody at your job, church, or hobby shouted out people's attractiveness ratings, do you agree that would make the community a worse place, regardless of whether they believe it?
If you think it was bad before, wait until the packers fans get mod powers.
I trust our mods not to do that, so I don't think the generic "stop mod overreach" arguments really work on TheMotte.
I don’t think it’s possible to create an Internet community where everyone engages charitably but people are also free to call each other or their outgroup stupid, evil, or faggots.
To the extent such a community does exist, it’s living on borrowed time as one group leaves due to asymmetry in hostility (if your community is 80% Packers fans and 20% Bears fans, then Bears fans are going to see a lot more hostility than Packer’s fans).
TheMotte itself began its existence due to a one-time infusion of quokkas. who had the miraculous ability to tolerate their outgroup. I support an increase in moderator effort to preserve this, since it is ultimately why TheMotte works at all.
If you find a place with weaker civility norms and better quality discussion I’m happy to be proven wrong. As it is, the only places I’ve seen higher quality discussions (about politics) are places with stricter civility norms, and at this point I think that’s just an unfortunate reality that stems from human nature.
It’s doesn’t matter what I think. “The group of people who don’t like gay people” is a valid set of people to talk about. Referencing that group is allowed, and people are welcome to argue how large it is.
Referencing that group in a deliberately inflammatory way should not be allowed.
I’m sure there are awkward edge cases you can catch me up with, but the existence of edge cases doesn’t justify ignoring the non-edge cases.
“Tranny” exists as an inflammatory way to say “transgender person”. It is not an edge case and not defensible.
The people who use it are using it to demonstrate their disdain for transpeople which is not “writing like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion”.
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Hyperbole is bad
10mo ago
Bad word. "Doesn't like gay people" communicates the exact same thing but with less heat.
My rebuttal is that such a level of word and tone-policing also drives away people who prefer free speech, or at least those who are dismayed by the Treadmill sweeping them off their feet. It is not a costless tradeoff as you imply.
It's not costless, but is absolutely a requirement for hosting a space with diverse viewpoints that people treat each other politely. It's a contradiction to want a place with diverse viewpoints, but also a place that wants to accommodate Englishmen who just can't help themselves when they see an Irishman.
When avoiding a derogatory term makes discussion more difficult you will have a leg to stand on. “Tranny” doesn’t, yet you insist on sheltering under free speech.
So I ask: how is this specific usage of Free Speech (allowing people to say “tranny”) helping us achieve our terminal value?
All of the community's rules must be justified by this foundation.
Yes, it takes judgement to decide what speech to allow. But here’s a simple heuristic:
If a word drives some people away and is unnecessary for communicating ideas, then modding its usage helps one aspect of the foundation and doesn’t hurt the other.
“Tranny” drives away certain perspectives and makes no ideas easier to communicate. So how is allowing it helping achieve the foundation?
I completely agree that you (and most mods here) strongly value free speech. I think that explains why their moderation serves two masters, rather than the single foundation that they're supposed to serve.
The purpose of this community is to be a working discussion ground for people who may hold dramatically different beliefs.
...
All of the community's rules must be justified by this foundation.
If the purpose of TheMotte was to be a place where the English and the Irish can have peaceful discussions, there's no reason to let the English call the Irish "Micks". It's completely unnecessary to discuss any meaningful ideas and only serves to increase tension. If you do allow it then you are sacrificing your purported mission for some other value (e.g. free speech). If you start with 80% English and two years later you have 95% English I think it would be fair to ask why you're still letting the English call the Irish "Micks" when you say you want to encourage peaceful discussion.
Free Speech is cool. There are other communities that prioritize free speech and I have nothing against them. But in this community our purported foundation is not "Free Speech", so "I strongly value free speech" is not a valid justification for a moderation decision.
Given that our terminal value is purportedly fixed, Free Speech is merely one tool to achieve it, so I ask: how is this specific usage of Free Speech (allowing people to use slurs) helping us achieve our terminal value?
I don’t think your explanations contradict the mod-hating of your irrespective (?) comments.
I do think your explanations contradict each other’s explanations. I expect if a post that calls people trannies and also makes the 10,000th run-of-the-mill advocacy for conservative values, @raggedy_anthem will mod it and you will not.
That’s fine, I’m not looking for perfect consistency between mods, I was just remarking that this seems like a change in direction to our moderation.
As somebody who thinks it’s mind numbingly obvious “the foundation” has only eroded since we were founded, I’m just happy there’s a mod willing to up civility standards, since I’ve long been clear that I think that’s a requirement for the foundation, since shit-flinging is detrimental to minority views.
This was very unexpected to me. The last time somebody was modded for saying "trannies" was more than a year ago, despite many people having used the word.
Moreover just 7 days ago the @self_made_human said (while mod-hatted)
I don't even particularly care that you call them trannies, I'm not one to police vocabulary where the word is entirely synonymous with more polite equivalents, even if it's pejorative.
(To be clear, I like the "write like everyone is reading" rule and wish it were actually enforced, and do think using pejorative is just needless heat. I'm just surprised there's a mod who actually seems to agree)
Mechanics and process aside, the end result is a San Fran full of growing compassion and ever more unhoused
The alternative hypothesis is that the homelessness in San Francisco is driven by a very brutal housing market.
For example, this paper finds that "a 10% reduction in housing costs is estimated to lower homelessness rates by around 4.5%". The median rent in SF is $3275 and $1434 in Kalispell, MT (i.e. 130% higher in SF).
It always kind of confuses me that people think treating the homeless a little bit meaner or nicer will have a meaningful effect. Being homeless really, really sucks. I don't think it is the lack-of-sucking that enables the homeless to keep being homeless.
Seriously think about it: you've homeless for 4 years, have no education, references, or work experience. 2/3 long-term homeless have mental health issues and 2/3 have drug issues, so tack on one of those.
Would somebody shooting paintballs at you actually motivate you to get a job? Would you be successful at finding one if it did? Would you still be looking for a job a week later?
(This isn't to say that typical "compassionate" solutions are effective either)
This would be fine if he had anything to back it up, but his only "evidence" is complaining that there are no Chinese Feynmans... but there aren't any Feynmans in the 21st century.
Incidentally, by my count 7 of the last 50 Nobel laureates in Physics and 3 out of 16 Fields Medal winners were Asian.
It's worth noting that this is roughly inline with Asian representation at Harvard today (14%) and most Nobel laureates were born before 1950 -- research labs weren't really accessible to a billion Asians then. So not sure how meaningful those numbers are in either direction.
(Side note: interestingly, Fields Medal winners cannot be older than 40).
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Hyperbole is bad
10mo ago
There’s not as much research as one would like, but from what I have found, the children of widowed mothers do not tend to differ much on outcomes from the children of biological, two-parent households, so “growing up without a father” doesn’t seem to be that important net of other factors.
The whole point is to estimate the causal effect of single motherhood, not correlational.
Looking at widows makes more sense than looking mothers who are single because of a break up, since the relationship of the latter with life outcomes is presumably more confounded by more variables.
If that were true it would change the calculus. It isn't true, so it doesn't.
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