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Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

theguardian.com

231–240 of 267 posts

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#231

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It's because film is a visual medium, and in these movies the protagonist always looks cool . He may be doing terrible things, but he's wearing hip clothes and driving a gorgeous car while he does them. The visual language is all screaming "this guy's great!", and it ends up overwhelming the message the story is trying to tell. If you want to know what most people will think of a character in a movie, watch the movie…

> It's because film is a visual medium, It happened with books too: See "Liar’s Poker", by Michael Lewis. He says that he wrote it "so that fewer idealistic college kids would dream of working on Wall Street. ... Somehow that message failed to come across ... They'd read my book as a how-to manual." http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~pel/misc/The-End-of-Wall-Street... https://danwang.co/liars-poker-by-michael-lewis/ Michae…

I wonder what that says about people. I remember being extremely impressed/infatuated with Matt Damon's character in The Talented Mr. Ripley when I was 18 or 19. So impressionable I was!

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#232
post #109

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Buffett's field of study is the finance and economic system. It should be easy to see that one of the things that separates Warren Buffett from the rest of us is that he has a unique perspective of the financial world – he sees all of the dynamics and intricacies of the financial world in a way that few others do. It took years for him to build the mental framework that led to his deep understanding and unique view o…

It should be easy to see that one of the things that separates Warren Buffett from the rest of us is that he has a unique perspective of the financial world – he sees all of the dynamics and intricacies of the financial world in a way that few others do. And it doesn't hurt that he can get special deals that most people can't. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/08/no_y... On the Bank Of America deal…

He didn't start out getting special deals. This is an example of the Pareto Principle [1] / Matthew Principle [2], which appears to be a natural law, an organizing principle like gravity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#233
The number of layers of meaninglessness at play in being a fraudulent media influencer who pretends to be rich so they can make a buck off of selling artificial bets against the abstract perceived value of companies which employ the people who (in some cases) spend their time doing actual real things is staggering.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because film is a visual medium, and in these movies the protagonist always looks cool . He may be doing terrible things, but he's wearing hip clothes and driving a gorgeous car while he does them. The visual language is all screaming "this guy's great!", and it ends up overwhelming the message the story is trying to tell. If you want to know what most people will think of a character in a movie, watch the movie…

I don't know if it's a matter of the protagonist looking cool. When Breaking Bad was on the air, I had a surprising number of friends who identified with Walter White. He did not look cool, he did not act cool, and the writers of the show did everything in their power to communicate "This man is a moral monster and a horror of a human being." Yet some people that I otherwise respected still identified with him. They…

The actress playing Heisenberg's wife was so good portraying depression and melancholy I disliked her too.

The dinner scene with her, Heisenberg and Jessie makes up for it though.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#235
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because film is a visual medium, and in these movies the protagonist always looks cool . He may be doing terrible things, but he's wearing hip clothes and driving a gorgeous car while he does them. The visual language is all screaming "this guy's great!", and it ends up overwhelming the message the story is trying to tell. If you want to know what most people will think of a character in a movie, watch the movie…

I also think having that a big part of it is that at least the characters had a high point, even if they paid the price. Like Jordan Belfort eventually loses his wife and access to his kid in The Wolf of Wall Street. But that can happen to any Joe on the street anyway, and he didn't get to have drug fueled orgies like Jordan did. Walter White descends into chaos and death in the pursuit of using his singular skills.…

I don't know. My biggest frustration in season one was "why the hell doesn't Walt have life insurance if his family depends so much on his income?!" I bet Joe Six-pack working middle management at a life insurance firm has some form of life insurance, so his family is still financially fine without anyone having to resort to cooking meth.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's because film is a visual medium, It happened with books too: See "Liar’s Poker", by Michael Lewis. He says that he wrote it "so that fewer idealistic college kids would dream of working on Wall Street. ... Somehow that message failed to come across ... They'd read my book as a how-to manual." http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~pel/misc/The-End-of-Wall-Street... https://danwang.co/liars-poker-by-michael-lewis/ Michae…

I wonder what that says about people. I remember being extremely impressed/infatuated with Matt Damon's character in The Talented Mr. Ripley when I was 18 or 19. So impressionable I was!

Maybe it says they have a innate ability to not simply do as they are told. Instead they gather in lots of details from the movies and books, but don't necessarily trust the spin put on them.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#237
post #213
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Washington kill civilians? He was a slave owner. Not sure mass murderer is on the money like it is for Stalin and Mao. Don’t know enough about Che.

Does destroying houses and food supply so that civilians starve or freeze to death count? If so, yes. See the Sullivan Expedition.

During the Revolutionary War both sides committed a number of acts that would be recognized as war crimes today. Washington destroyed Iroquois villages, true, but keep in mind that the Iroquois supporting the Loyalists were outright scalping and murdering civilians. I think you would find little argument that destruction of property, while a bad thing, is a lesser crime than actual murder. Nobody played clean in that war.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such movies should not show the person until the very end, just a series of shorts of the victims lifes becoming worser by one phone call. Absence of moral should be depicted as the absence of a person and decency it is.

I probably would not pay to see movies directed by you.

Well, nobody going to step between America and its love-in-denial obsession with its outlaws.

Al Capone may have murdered a small town- but hey - at least he didn't bow to the man, working 9to5...

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's because film is a visual medium, It happened with books too: See "Liar’s Poker", by Michael Lewis. He says that he wrote it "so that fewer idealistic college kids would dream of working on Wall Street. ... Somehow that message failed to come across ... They'd read my book as a how-to manual." http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~pel/misc/The-End-of-Wall-Street... https://danwang.co/liars-poker-by-michael-lewis/ Michae…

The original is Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther causing so many to emulate the titular character and commit suicide.

Monkey see, monkey do.

I’m increasingly suspicious of the idea that humans are independent and rational, because so much humam behaviour can be explained as uncomplicated animal mimicry.

Re: Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because film is a visual medium, and in these movies the protagonist always looks cool . He may be doing terrible things, but he's wearing hip clothes and driving a gorgeous car while he does them. The visual language is all screaming "this guy's great!", and it ends up overwhelming the message the story is trying to tell. If you want to know what most people will think of a character in a movie, watch the movie…

the problem lies deeper than film. america at its core is obsessed with wealth, and it's always been this way. the ethics of how the wealth is acquired and spent matters very little. we idolize drug dealers, mobsters, serial bank robbers, bookies, counterfeiters, etc.

America is obsessed with competitive narcissism.

No one makes movies or TV shows about people who are heroically kind, empathic, or generous.

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