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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3718 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 24, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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How do you go about evaluating the competence of someone in a field that you yourself don't know?

One thing I've noticed about my city is that all of the best Asian restaurants have reviews more in the 4.2-4.6 range on Google. Every Asian restaurant that I've been to in the 4.7-4.9 range has been consistently mediocre. This still holds true even accounting for higher variance with lower total number of reviews. This is likely because the majority of reviewers have preferences near the median American palate, which means that Americanized Asian food is often rated higher. Most Americans would find actual Japanese food a bit bland, actual Sichuan food too spicy, etc. I've seen people give negative reviews to hotpot restaurants because they thought the natural numbing sensation of mala flavor was giving them an allergic reaction. I've seen a Vietnamese restaurant with multiple non-Vietnamese confidently exhorting the "authenticity" while several reviewer with a Vietnamese name commented how the food was "barely Vietnamese". (I'd be interested to know if this trend holds in the reverse, but I've never gone to European/American restaurants in Asia because I'm mainly US based, so why would I waste money and satiety like that)

Anyways, returning to the main point: Most reviewers don't know anything and don't realize they don't know anything. But with restaurants, I can just go there and try it for myself. At worst I'm out 30 dollars and I know to go elsewhere next time. How do I know my mechanic/doctor/accountant/dentist/etc. aren't making basic mistakes or misses? If I can't trust public reviews, is there even anything I can do?

In the case of online restaurant reviews I just look at the names of the reviewers and use those by people of whatever ethnicity's cuisine it is to judge authenticity and those by people with white surnames to judge their customer service; you can also try out the 3.5 star rule instead.

As far as other topics goes, a little bit of background goes a long way (the Pareto principle strikes again). Simply familiarizing yourself with the basic vocabulary of a field makes a potential swindlers' job much harder, as does paying attention to their behavior e.g. are they willing to explain things or are they obfuscating? Diversifying your friend group career-wise is also a good idea; I remember the first time I was in a room with a bunch of medical students and residents and they began discussing which hospitals in town they did not want to be sent to in an emergency because the doctors there were incompetent and I realized I should have been asking them about such things sooner.

That guy has some good points but I'd argue Japan is an outlier. Japanese service on the whole is amazing and I'm spoiled for anywhere else. This is tempered by the general assumption that service in restaurants abroad is shit, so I am not sure about their reviews. Japanese people (in general!) are not going to rank anywhere at the top or the bottom.

Probably he's more accurate about continental Asia, I don't know. Then again if you find actual Japanese people in a Japanese restaurant abroad you're batting 1000. Japanese are notoriously picky about sushi, rice, ramen, etc. served outside Japan.

In the case of restaurants, I'm not sure having different priorities, other than authenticity, is a mistake. Unless people are getting food poisoning, people are allowed to like what they like, whether or not it's the same as the preferences of the people in the cuisine's country of origin. Restaurant owners should go ahead and optimize for that, offering enchiladas at their Chinese buffet or whatever if that's popular. Unless the reviews literally say "this is extremely authentic!" I wouldn't read any opinion on the authenticity into the review.

I would expect Google reviews of various other businesses to mostly be about their customer service, there probably isn't any way around that.

The restaurant I have in mind had reviews that literally used the word "authentic" and yet the Banh Mi I ordered was basically an Italian Beef with some pickled vegetables.

(I suppose I should have avoided using the term "best" in reference to restaurants, given the inherent subjectivity.)

I generally prefer social media review systems to be simple like/dislike for that reason, either you like something or you don't. 5 star systems lead to too much confusion over what different ratings mean. Then ideally people are allowed to sort the results of a search by any metric they like, such as best like:dislike ratio, most total likes, best like:views ratio, etc. based on whether they want a guaranteed good experience or if they want to try to find a more niche product that they'd personally love or whatever else they're looking for. And if something does well along every metric you can be very confident it'll be excellent.

My only reservation with a binary system would be that it fails to capture things that resonate strongly with a small subset of the population (like cult classic movies).

I forgot about the method I like for that. For that, I prefer a system like reddit gold. Let people spend money(or some other form of limited rating) on their favourite works. I really miss the days of reddit silver, gold, platinum, it was great for spotting under rated works on /r/anime and /r/manga that only got a few upvotes but managed to impress someone so much it they'd spend money on the thread.

Even a layman's understanding of cars, money, and dentistry are enough to catch bullshit.

The average person holds these people in high esteem, considers them almost mystic witch doctors who understand incomprehensible mysteries. This is almost entirely a matter of fear, convenience, and social momentum.

An ICE car isn't really all that complicated. You can figure out the basic underpinnings of an engine, suspension, and drivetrain components in a 30 minute youtube video, for instance. A great mechanic is going to be able to explain these things to you in a way that is understandable.

And that is the key. If you're reasonably intelligent, and this supposed expert can't make a problem extremely clear to you, then chances are extremely high that they're a grifter. This applies to software, HVAC technicians, plumbers.... the whole 9 yards.

Something like this. I've been binge watching a guy who grew from a construction worker into the owner of a remodelling company on YT, and he's not shy about explaining everything he knows in his videos. Bathrooms? Here's ten videos on sizing them correctly, arranging the appliances, waterproofing the floor, laying tile, using the right fittings, and so on. His value proposition is, basically, "after watching these videos you'll never trust the random brown guys you picked up at the same place you bought the plaster from ever again, so either do everything yourself or just hire my company to remodel your flat".

Do you mind sharing a link to his channel?

https://youtube.com/@zemskov

I hope the autogen subtitles work.

Thanks. You know, for some reason, it didn’t even occur to me that the channel wouldn’t be in English.

I guess "the random brown guys" in question were Uzbek instead of Mexican

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