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The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

coryzue.com

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Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#301

Post by badpun »

robertlagrant wrote: post #295
jihiggins wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would argue that capitalism implicitly values... capital? just as socialism values... society also, you're conflating markets with capitalism

Come on. Arguing from names is really silly. I'd say almost everything but capitalism values authoritarianism. E.g. socialism in the end by "society" means "the state". Society in capitalism is generally separate to markets, e.g. your local community, or charirites, or churches, or sport, or schools. Not bureaucrats taking your effort and doling it out (or not) as they see fit.

In capitalism's case, the name is really informative. At the heart of capitalism lies capital and the ability to invest it, which gives people who own it power to get stuff without doing any work. People without the capital do work for people with capital, so that the may survive (and do more work).

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#302

Post by JohnFen »

compiler-guy wrote: post #175
function_seven wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> irregardless is not a word. Lots of dictionaries disagree. But not me! I'll join you on this hill, regardless of what those dumb dictionaries say. The misuse of "literally" and the common use of "irregardless" are the red pills that have turned me into a crotchety old ... prescriptivist .

Linguists call this usage, “the emphatic literally” and the best writers of the past 300 years have used it. So if it’s good enough for Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Vladimir Nabokov, and David Foster Wallace, then it’s good enough for me. Literally. https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/the-300-year-history-of-using...

I wouldn't mind that use of the word if there were a different word available that meant "literally literally".

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#303

Post by bilater »

Can empathize. I use the F word a lot in my Tweets because its my natural unfiltered voice but it got me shadow banned. Now that my Twitter growth is just atrophied I'll often find myself thinking about engagement and I hate it.

Anyway if anyone cares for raw unfiltered takes about AI and also hacky projects check out my profile :)

https://twitter.com/deepwhitman

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#304

Post by pixl97 »

goostavos wrote: post #217
Kye wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmarts are full of broke, burnt out people clinging to survival, so it's like bumper cars with buggies due to already stretched attention spans. If you can afford Costco and have a place to put the bulk savings, you're probably a little better off and less harried.

"less harried" is not how I'd describe Costco. Just getting into and out of the one in Seattle is like visiting a theme park. Once you manage to find parking, you give up your personhood. You're now just part of the slowly moving mob with carts.

This very much depends on the stores location. When I lived close to a Costco in one of the fastest growing towns in the US it was like you described. Now that I live in a slightly faster growing city it's not so much of a menagerie and just more of an event.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#305

Post by jodrellblank »

robertlagrant wrote: post #295
jihiggins wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would argue that capitalism implicitly values... capital? just as socialism values... society also, you're conflating markets with capitalism

Come on. Arguing from names is really silly. I'd say almost everything but capitalism values authoritarianism. E.g. socialism in the end by "society" means "the state". Society in capitalism is generally separate to markets, e.g. your local community, or charirites, or churches, or sport, or schools. Not bureaucrats taking your effort and doling it out (or not) as they see fit.

> "Society in capitalism is generally separate to markets, e.g. your local community, or charirites, or churches, or sport, or schools"

Are you saying that sports are not profitable in America? That schools and colleges in America are not run for profit? That churches and charities are not formed primarily for financial/tax benefits? Or that people can't play non-profit basketball in their local park under socialism? Or that capitalism hasn't done a work on the 'local community' by replacing third-places with places that require you to spend money to hang out, for example?

> "Not bureaucrats taking your effort and doling it out (or not) as they see fit."

This is exactly what my employer does? They take value I add, and dole it out (or not) as they see fit.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#306

Post by pixl97 »

ragazzina wrote: post #140
jklinger410 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as people seek more engagement, their content gets worse. What’s going on here? This is a well observed trend where appealing to a broader audience makes the content worse. People, as individuals, are unique and therefore interesting. Appealing to more than one person relies on what those people have in common. The more people you try to reach, the less in common they all have. If the content is going to speak to w…

I am very interested in your take. When Michelangelo sculpted the Pietà, the pain it expressed was a feeling that many people had shared, so it became culture. But when a teenager makes a tiktok about the pain of being rejected by their crush, and it's a feeling many people have shared, and many people like it, that's basic, vague and shallow.

How many times can a joke be told before it gets worn out?

How many times have you seen an 'old tired' joke that's been told by an expert storyteller and it's funny yet again?

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#307

Post by pixl97 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #295
jihiggins wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would argue that capitalism implicitly values... capital? just as socialism values... society also, you're conflating markets with capitalism

Come on. Arguing from names is really silly. I'd say almost everything but capitalism values authoritarianism. E.g. socialism in the end by "society" means "the state". Society in capitalism is generally separate to markets, e.g. your local community, or charirites, or churches, or sport, or schools. Not bureaucrats taking your effort and doling it out (or not) as they see fit.

You seem to be conflating "systems values" versus "People in the systems values"

Capitalism works best with a non-authoritarian government, but that leaves a lot of different options for implementing how that is handled.

Individual capitalists will almost always push for some of authoritarianism as they become more successful because they will seek to minimize competition.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#308

Post by gosub100 »

kortex wrote: post #267

Maybe this is my own neurospice speaking but...What even is authenticity? Do we even see authenticity in public? Any awareness that we are being observed introduces some amount of Hawthorne effect. Probably the most genuine folks are the introverts and socially averse. Regional burns are espoused to celebrate "radical self-expression" , and unlike the Big Burn, their smaller size seems to promote authenticity to a gr…

> I'm sure the Ryan in front of the camera is different than the Ryan I'd meet at the bar

I draw the opposite conclusion: I think talking to him at the bar about tanks and war would sound virtually the same as him on youtube. I would only expect him to check his facts and make a mental model of what he intends to say on cam instead of free-handing it (I think this is what Ward Carroll does because he has a different style).

Regarding "what is authenticity", what it makes me think of is everyone whining and moaning on Twitter about having to pay a few bucks for membership. If you were authentic enough to truly believe in what you say, then paying $8/mo is a great investment to get your message out and have a more official platform. However, if you want to enter a proverbial playground and play king of the hill (the game) and shove people around with your views and snide remarks and tribalism, then of course you're not going to pay to use the playground! It's for fun and recreation pretending to follow trends and ideologies.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#309

Post by pixl97 »

sebastos wrote: post #132
the_snooze wrote: post #26

>And yes, on the surface this incentivizes people to create better content. The better your content is, the more it gets seen, and the more money you make. And yet, my felt experience of this change is the exact opposite—as people seek more engagement, their content gets worse. What’s going on here? It always tickles me when terminally online people realize that human connection doesn't scale . It's valuable precisel…

Authenticity online USED to come somewhat naturally by virtue of just... starting communities. The reason was that the web was small, and discovery process was more random - that is, less systematic. As a consequence, you almost couldn't help but start forums or blogs or content platforms with hundreds to low thousands of participants. And because those communities were smaller, you were that much more engaged. You r…

>But the interesting thing is that there's still nothing that makes it fundamentally impossible to start a relatively small forum nowadays.

I would disagree. There are a few things that make it exceedingly difficult (though not impossible)

1. Other platforms breathing up all the air in the room. No one's going to be giving your attention if they are being rage baited on twatter all day.

2. DDOS, and attack tools make it easy to blast your site totally off the internet the first time a troll gets pissed at you for one reason or another. You'll end up having to be behind CloudFlare or paying for some service to even exist.

3. If your site does gain the smallest amount of popularity the spammers and the bots will come, and you will spend a lot of time and effort to get rid of it. Eventually you are a worn out husk of a human being as you spend more and more time, money, and effort figuring out what is and isn't authentic on your forum.

Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy

#310

Post by spacecadet »

bee_rider wrote: post #241
medstrom wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you not remove it from your own resume?

I assume there exist people out there for whom that would leave a couple years gap, unfortunately.

I have tons of gap years, Id rather struggle and fail at my own idea the given in. These experiences ultimately impress employers and clients more than any employer name I list.
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