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How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

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Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#41

Post by Joe-Z »

aub3bhat wrote: post #16
hprotagonist wrote: post #9

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kin…

Meh DFW is the last person you ought to listen to for advice. [1] It's just demotivational-speak paraded around as if it were some profound wisdom, just to assuage ego of your average reader with Liberal arts degree. So that she/he can fool herself by believing that they are better than others because they "truly care"... “truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them” is just meaningless babbling that y…

I get why you're being downvoted, but I fully agree with you. When I was still in college and read 'this is water' for the first time it felt like an epiphany. Now, a few years down the road, it just seems pretentious to me.

Also, I don't mean any disrespect here, but the fact that he killed himself kind of taints these sort of speeches for me also. How much better is his proposed lifestyle/world-view really, if it didn't even work for the master-mind himself? (Assuming that the goal is to be happy of course.)

EDIT: Just to clarify, I know he was probably battling depression, but should a person fighting such a severe mental illness really be the one, one listens to for live-advice then?

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#42

Post by matt4077 »

aub3bhat wrote: post #16
hprotagonist wrote: post #9

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kin…

Meh DFW is the last person you ought to listen to for advice. [1] It's just demotivational-speak paraded around as if it were some profound wisdom, just to assuage ego of your average reader with Liberal arts degree. So that she/he can fool herself by believing that they are better than others because they "truly care"... “truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them” is just meaningless babbling that y…

I wouldn't be so quick to say that Wallace' intentions are only commercial, i. e. "to sell empty wisdom[..]".

That's mostly because he's been dead for 10 years. Also, if you're trying to sell empty philosophy to "average, depressed liberal-arts majors who lack power and knowledge", it strikes me as a particularly bad idea to start with a 1,076-page tome? I mean–he could've at least made it a 12-part series, right?

You're also short-changing those liberal arts majors. After all, many of them go on to law school, with the result that Congress is about 2/3 liberal arts majors. And it's not like the liberal arts have nothing useful to teach. Most graduates would, for example, consider the idea that "in reality power [..] is essential if one aims to enable true change" a tautology in need of an editor.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#43

Post by rosser »

astrobe_ wrote: post #28
laretluval wrote: post #10

The narrative that information distribution was more accurate in the past because of "traditional journalism" has always struck me as self-serving. > Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda — has become the biggest casualty in this algorithmic war for our attention. Is the best solution really to fight propaganda by leaving our information distribution to a selected elite that we have to trust to follow som…

> Is there a trustless way to implement journalistic standards such as sourcing? That's kind of what HN and a few selected subreddits are for me.

That's not trustless, though. It's just ... call it "distributed" trust. The communities in question have, in whatever way, earned (or at least been granted) your trust.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#44

Post by anigbrowl »

gmarx wrote: post #37

I noticed his violent crime graph stopped around 2013. Convenient. Yes violent crime is down by the standards of the previous 50 years but I'm pretty sure it has been inching back up over the previous two, at least in cities. Nothing to panic about yet but also nothing to be dismissive about. Also, though I too long for the old days of journalistic standards, let us a remember one of the side effects what creating th…

That's a bogus objection that ignores the yawning gap that opened up between perception and reality around the turn of the century, which is the author's point.

As for the argument about there being so such thing as bias-free reporting, you're extrapolating from that to a position of epistemological abdication where you use that narrow fact as a justification for believing whatever you want to believe. While bias is inevitable, it is also to a large extent measurable, and the quality of news reportage can be measured in terms of its predictive power by comparing contemporaneous reports with knowledge gained in hindsight and ranking news sources by their reliability over time.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#45

Post by [deleted] »

laretluval wrote: post #10

The narrative that information distribution was more accurate in the past because of "traditional journalism" has always struck me as self-serving. > Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda — has become the biggest casualty in this algorithmic war for our attention. Is the best solution really to fight propaganda by leaving our information distribution to a selected elite that we have to trust to follow som…

[deleted]

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#46

Post by anotherbrownguy »

>Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda 

"The good old days", except that never existed. Journalism has always been the tool for the powerful to paint a positive picture of themselves to the general public via "unbiased agents" called journalists who are "free to write anything" as long as it serves their masters.

Now that almost anyone can publish their opinion and share it with everyone, the ones who have been doing their thing for hundreds of years are being exposed.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#47

Post by sqeaky »

aub3bhat wrote: post #16
hprotagonist wrote: post #9

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kin…

Meh DFW is the last person you ought to listen to for advice. [1] It's just demotivational-speak paraded around as if it were some profound wisdom, just to assuage ego of your average reader with Liberal arts degree. So that she/he can fool herself by believing that they are better than others because they "truly care"... “truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them” is just meaningless babbling that y…

That seemed pretty motivational to me. The message I got was to try as hard as possible not to just "go with the flow" and choose what I can in life.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#48

Post by rosser »

Joe-Z wrote: post #41
aub3bhat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh DFW is the last person you ought to listen to for advice. [1] It's just demotivational-speak paraded around as if it were some profound wisdom, just to assuage ego of your average reader with Liberal arts degree. So that she/he can fool herself by believing that they are better than others because they "truly care"... “truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them” is just meaningless babbling that y…

I get why you're being downvoted, but I fully agree with you. When I was still in college and read 'this is water' for the first time it felt like an epiphany. Now, a few years down the road, it just seems pretentious to me. Also, I don't mean any disrespect here, but the fact that he killed himself kind of taints these sort of speeches for me also. How much better is his proposed lifestyle/world-view really, if it d…

Depression is orthogonal to critical thinking skills. Suggesting otherwise is ad hominem.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#49

Post by gnaritas »

gmarx wrote: post #37

I noticed his violent crime graph stopped around 2013. Convenient. Yes violent crime is down by the standards of the previous 50 years but I'm pretty sure it has been inching back up over the previous two, at least in cities. Nothing to panic about yet but also nothing to be dismissive about. Also, though I too long for the old days of journalistic standards, let us a remember one of the side effects what creating th…

It is totally something to be dismissive about because violent crime is firmly in a downtrend, that a year here or there has a slight uptick does not change the trend and is entirely irrelevant. To say violent crime is up at all is to be dishonest and nothing more than an attempt to incite fear.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#50

Post by tdb7893 »

Joe-Z wrote: post #41
aub3bhat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh DFW is the last person you ought to listen to for advice. [1] It's just demotivational-speak paraded around as if it were some profound wisdom, just to assuage ego of your average reader with Liberal arts degree. So that she/he can fool herself by believing that they are better than others because they "truly care"... “truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them” is just meaningless babbling that y…

I get why you're being downvoted, but I fully agree with you. When I was still in college and read 'this is water' for the first time it felt like an epiphany. Now, a few years down the road, it just seems pretentious to me. Also, I don't mean any disrespect here, but the fact that he killed himself kind of taints these sort of speeches for me also. How much better is his proposed lifestyle/world-view really, if it d…

You can be wise and have mental health issues. In my experience often my friends with depression are wisest on this stuff because they have to deal with it all the time. Also, I don't think underlying health issues diminish it that much as you don't generally have much control over those issues
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