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gog  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   6433 thread views

Where are the people smarter than us hanging out?

In Paul Fussell’s book on class (I think), he says that people are really worried about differentiating themselves from the class immediately below them, but largely ignorant of the customs and sometimes even existence of the classes above them. When I found SSC, and then The Motte, and stuff like TLP, I was astonished to find a tier of the internet I had had no idea even existed. The quality of discourse here is . . . usually . . . of the kind that “high brow” (by internet standards) websites THINK they are having, but when you see the best stuff here you realize that those clowns are just flattering themselves. My question is, who is rightly saying the same thing about us? Of what intellectual internet class am I ignorant now? Or does onlineness impose some kind of ceiling on things, and the real galaxy brains are at the equivalent of Davos somewhere?

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the old blog had good comments, substack comments seem to be a notch down

The current blog still has some good comments. I think a couple of Scott's "Highlights From the Comments ..." collection posts have recently highlighted higher quality than the latest AAQC threads on the Motte. As an additional plus, the range of topics covered is more versatile than the Motte, which is mostly just CW politics.

However, there are more low-effort posters that makes signal-to-noise ratio worse, especially in Open Threads, and Substack comment UI is actively hostile.

2 factors I think explain this: lower readership, and failure to improve users lives. Smart people are going to learn more quickly where their efforts are wasted, and they probably moved on, since I haven't heard of anyone or any movements becoming successful out of his teachings.

I enjoyed what I read, and I think they made me a more rounded out person, but they clarify high level trivia like 'why is advertising that way' rather than building a fundamental skillset (eg. A class on marketing) or worldview (eg. Economics or communist texts), which let's people actually get things done IMO.

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