Minimum Viable Personality (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Minimum Viable Personality (2011)

#81

Post by blotter_paper » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:11 PM UTC

geodel wrote: post #80

morgancmartin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate, I have worked shitty jobs in the fast food industry. Two and a half years at McDonald's and then another two and a half at Longhorn Steakhouse. I never witnessed a single incident of physical harassment against any of the girls I worked with, not even once. There was one guy that pushed the line a little too far sometimes but the girls weren't afraid of or offended by him so much as they too…

Of course chain restaurants will have strict anti-harassment policies else they would on hook for multi-million dollar lawsuits. The kind of abuse that above comment mentioned is most common at standalone places.

Yeah, I agree with this and also believe the parent is responding in good faith. I've never worked at an established franchise, and I'm sure there are ma-and-pa shops that actually care, but what I've seen has been abysmal.

Re: Minimum Viable Personality (2011)

#82

Post by belorn » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:20 PM UTC

jpfed wrote: post #67

supernova87a wrote: post #28

I love that marketing works, and that people want to believe in values, and will band together over those values. However lately, I've felt that especially in the US, values -- or more accurately -- symbols of values have become more important than actual tangible outcomes or functional real achievements. For people as individuals and as groups. I guess of course that I'm especially thinking about our politics and so…

MeToo is an interesting example. I suspect that Facebook and Twitter have their own linear algebra models of who is interested in what, and that factors into their choices of what content from your friends makes it into your stream. After the wave of MeToo posts on Facebook and Twitter had died down, I asked my friends on Facebook to characterize how many MeToo posts they'd seen. Liberals reported seeing far more MeT…

I would say it is both a mostly symbolic movement and a collection of real personal stories that most people know a victim that is either have a friend or friend to a friend.

Lets imagine we had a movement like metoo here in Europe talking about violence from immigrants. You would get thousands of personal stories documenting people being robbed, beaten, threatened, raped or target of other forms of crime. The people behind the movement would highlight the over representation that those immigrants have in the crime statistics, and the crimes would be very concrete. What would the conclusions be drawn about the initiative by the broader society? I predict that the difference between conservatives and liberals would be a mirror image of the same difference conservatives and liberals has over metoo.

Re: Minimum Viable Personality (2011)

#83

Post by jpfed » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:36 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #82

jpfed wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MeToo is an interesting example. I suspect that Facebook and Twitter have their own linear algebra models of who is interested in what, and that factors into their choices of what content from your friends makes it into your stream. After the wave of MeToo posts on Facebook and Twitter had died down, I asked my friends on Facebook to characterize how many MeToo posts they'd seen. Liberals reported seeing far more MeT…

I would say it is both a mostly symbolic movement and a collection of real personal stories that most people know a victim that is either have a friend or friend to a friend. Lets imagine we had a movement like metoo here in Europe talking about violence from immigrants. You would get thousands of personal stories documenting people being robbed, beaten, threatened, raped or target of other forms of crime. The people…

I would be very surprised if these situations would be mirrors of one another. The way MeToo played out in my social media, I never saw friend A sharing an experience that friend-of-friend B posted. Rather, friend A shared their direct experience. Re-shared stories would have no doubt caused an inflated sense of actual prevalence... but that's simply not what I observed.

I have many friends that reported their own direct experiences with sexual harassment and assault. I would actually be pretty shocked if anything like that number had directly experienced violence from immigrants.

Re: Minimum Viable Personality (2011)

#84

Post by oftenwrong » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

asdgionbionio wrote: post #5

What are we doing to ourselves? If you were in the market for a new pair of shoes, what would be the sensible thing to do to get the best pair? Would you look at the glitzy ads, or would you try to choose something that is durable and comfortable for its price? Would you compare celebrity endorsements or spec sheets? There's no one in their right mind who would say the right way to buy a computer is to look at advert…

Economics 101 teaches us that markets are supposed to be based on “informed consumers making rational choices.” If we had a market system like that, then a television ad would consist of, says, General Motors putting up information saying “here’s what we have for sale.” But that’s not what an ad for a car is. And ad for a car is a football hero; an actress; the car doing some crazy thing like going up a mountain or something. The point is to create uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices.

Re: Minimum Viable Personality (2011)

#85

Post by coldtea » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

jackpirate wrote: post #35

grecy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're all symbols of the most extreme cases, and we latch on to them because they're recognizable, inflammatory, and get us riled up to want to do something Having moved from Australia to the US then Canada and having spent over and month in more than 50 countries around the world, I can tell you the US does this more (better?) than other countries. The entire US system and political discourse is setup as right/w…

you can bet your bottom dollar nobody would ever listen to someone from the other side and perhaps learn something. One problem with listening to the other side is that most people are so ridiculously misinformed about issues (on all sides), that listening to the average person of the other side is unlikely to make you learn something. You have to actively seek out the smartest people from the other side and listen t…

>One problem with listening to the other side is that most people are so ridiculously misinformed about issues (on all sides), that listening to the average person of the other side is unlikely to make you learn something.

That's the very mindset that prevents people from listening to other sides.

Instead of focusing on the "misinformation" of those on the other side on a matter (which could even be misinformation on one's own side attributed to the "enemy"), it's best to try to understand their point of view.

Especially on issues where there's no hard and fast right and wrong (as is the case in hard sciences), but are more a matter of moral values, culture, personal experiences, etc.

Re: Minimum Viable Personality (2011)

#86

Post by coldtea » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

blotter_paper wrote: post #71

supernova87a wrote: post #28

I love that marketing works, and that people want to believe in values, and will band together over those values. However lately, I've felt that especially in the US, values -- or more accurately -- symbols of values have become more important than actual tangible outcomes or functional real achievements. For people as individuals and as groups. I guess of course that I'm especially thinking about our politics and so…

>Men at work are not harassing every female employee. Ever work a shitty job in the food industry? Not all men are harassers, but anecdotally it seems like maybe 10-25% of men at these jobs will systematically harass every female employee below the age of 30. Unsolicited back-rubs, ass-grabs, the whole shebang. It's, like, really bad, and when the owner/manager is involved there's not much you can do. I do feel like…

>Ever work a shitty job in the food industry? Not all men are harassers, but anecdotally it seems like maybe 10-25% of men at these jobs will systematically harass every female employee below the age of 30.

10-25%? So, in all probability less than 1 in 4, and even close to just 1 in 10?

If only in all areas of life people (men and women) were jerks with merely those odds...

Re: Minimum Viable Personality (2011)

#87

Post by blotter_paper » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #86

blotter_paper wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Men at work are not harassing every female employee. Ever work a shitty job in the food industry? Not all men are harassers, but anecdotally it seems like maybe 10-25% of men at these jobs will systematically harass every female employee below the age of 30. Unsolicited back-rubs, ass-grabs, the whole shebang. It's, like, really bad, and when the owner/manager is involved there's not much you can do. I do feel like…

> Ever work a shitty job in the food industry? Not all men are harassers, but anecdotally it seems like maybe 10-25% of men at these jobs will systematically harass every female employee below the age of 30. 10-25%? So, in all probability less than 1 in 4, and even close to just 1 in 10? If only in all areas of life people (men and women) were jerks with merely those odds...

10-25% of people not saying "thank you" is acceptable. 10-25% of people spitting in your face would be totally unacceptable. Let's not brush off sexual assault as if it were a minor inconvenience.

Re: Minimum Viable Personality (2011)

#88

Post by stephenbez » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #50

supernova87a wrote: post #28

I love that marketing works, and that people want to believe in values, and will band together over those values. However lately, I've felt that especially in the US, values -- or more accurately -- symbols of values have become more important than actual tangible outcomes or functional real achievements. For people as individuals and as groups. I guess of course that I'm especially thinking about our politics and so…

Think about any movement out there at present -- MeToo, conservative agenda, liberal agenda, organic produce, gentrification, almost any major movement. If you really get into the issue, you find that the symbol of the thing is actually a very, very small almost non-representative case of the situation as a whole. Also, sometimes the symbol becomes the focus, instead of the actual underlying value. https://www.youtub…

> Here's how ordinary, regular people can help. When people start being extreme and a bit divorced from reality and engaging in violence, unsavory almost-violence, and untruthful agenda pushing, people need to call it out, and also call it out from their own sides.

I've done this before on Hacker News (on a different account). I've pointed out that an asserted fact was untrue and linked to a PDF compiled by a government agency and pointed out which data table to look at. I agreed with the conclusion the original poster had, but not the facts he used to support the case, and I didn't mention what my political views were.

All I ended up with was a lot of downvotes and lots of comments accusing me of supporting evil policies and that I should read certain books and I'd get my eyes opened. No one even discussed what I said. The funny thing is that I had read the book that was recommended and had it with me in my bookshelf. I was thinking of taking a picture of me holding the book and posting it with the comment saying: "Hey HNer, I'm on your side! But when people use incorrect facts to try to push an agenda, it causes the whole side to lose credibility. There are enough reasons to support policy X that we don't need to make stuff up".

It opened my eyes that people don't engage with the actual content. They just make assumptions of a posters point of view, and then argue against stereotypes.

Re: Minimum Viable Personality (2011)

#89

Post by rabidrat » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 10:19 PM UTC

stephenbez wrote: post #88

stcredzero wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about any movement out there at present -- MeToo, conservative agenda, liberal agenda, organic produce, gentrification, almost any major movement. If you really get into the issue, you find that the symbol of the thing is actually a very, very small almost non-representative case of the situation as a whole. Also, sometimes the symbol becomes the focus, instead of the actual underlying value. https://www.youtub…

> Here's how ordinary, regular people can help. When people start being extreme and a bit divorced from reality and engaging in violence, unsavory almost-violence, and untruthful agenda pushing, people need to call it out, and also call it out from their own sides. I've done this before on Hacker News (on a different account). I've pointed out that an asserted fact was untrue and linked to a PDF compiled by a governm…

I wish you had done that :) But in actuality I agree, I don't think it would have helped. In today's climate, disagreeing with your 'side' signals that you are on the other 'side' and makes you a bit more of a pariah each time.

Re: Minimum Viable Personality (2011)

#90

Post by jackpirate » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 10:19 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #85

jackpirate wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can bet your bottom dollar nobody would ever listen to someone from the other side and perhaps learn something. One problem with listening to the other side is that most people are so ridiculously misinformed about issues (on all sides), that listening to the average person of the other side is unlikely to make you learn something. You have to actively seek out the smartest people from the other side and listen t…

> One problem with listening to the other side is that most people are so ridiculously misinformed about issues (on all sides), that listening to the average person of the other side is unlikely to make you learn something. That's the very mindset that prevents people from listening to other sides. Instead of focusing on the "misinformation" of those on the other side on a matter (which could even be misinformation o…

That's the very mindset that prevents people from listening to other sides.

I don't think it is, and I have a personal example to "prove" my point.

Personally, I'm a pacifist. The average non-pacifist knows nothing about things like middle eastern geopolitics or nuclear weapons policy. If I want to understand these topics better in ways that challenge my pacifism, I should be reading/listening to experts like David Petraeus or John Bolton, not my mom. My mom shares a wordview with Petraeus and Bolton, but she's simply not as educated or influential as these people and so is unable to give me the best arguments to challenge my beliefs.