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Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

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Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#121

Post by tsukikage »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #80

I kind of hated this essay. Not because I really disagree with the conclusions, but it seems to lump all forms of "shamelessness" into the same bucket. I'm fine with "shamelessness" if it's just bucking societal norms and conventions that have often been there so long that we've forgotten what they were ever about in the first place. But I find it deeply, deeply sad when we see so much shamelessness these days that i…

You suggest there is an important difference between "just bucking societal norms and conventions" and "treating other people like shit", but in practice all too often the entire difference is whether or not you are one of the people getting screwed over by the behaviour in question.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#122

Post by 3D30497420 »

overfeed wrote: post #83
aanet wrote: post #30

This is perhaps the best articulation on the rise of certain cantankerous people... in social media / politics / The metaphor of the game is a good one for general understanding (though the Signaling / Counters-signaling paper is a TIL for me) I was hoping that there would be a "solution" of sorts to tackle / handle this issue of when EVERYBODY seems to use this strategy, but perhaps there isn't one...? (My own way o…

> I was hoping that there would be a "solution" of sorts to tackle / handle this issue of when EVERYBODY seems to use this strategy, but perhaps there isn't one...? We're overdue for a major war, which will be reset on how we treat other humans by the end of it. Humans killing humans on an industrial scale between near-peers is followed by periods where people realize that maybe being dicks to each other isn't the id…

I'm not sure history bears out that major wars lead to peace. WW1 led pretty directly into WW2, and after WW2 there were plenty of conflicts by major powers. That major powers didn't start WW3 (to date) probably has more to do with the potential consequences threatened by nuclear war than an increase in human aversion to widespread industrial war.

There's probably an argument for European countries specifically not wanting to return to the near-constant warfare across its history. But I'm not sure that holds for US v USSR (which came perilously close to open warfare several times), or conflicts elsewhere.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#123

Post by cjs_ac »

gadders wrote: post #113
rao-v wrote: post #5

This generally is a version of what economics and game theory knows as countersignalling. A classic paper is “Too Cool for School” https://host.kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/cs-randfinal.pdf Always worth pondering when it works, and when, for whom, and how it fails.

Rory Sutherland had a good description of this: "If you’re a top executive, turning up to work on a bicycle is a high-status activity because it was a choice and not a necessity. But if you work at Pizza Hut, turning up on a bike means you can’t afford a car."

Other examples include the clothes that Rory Sutherland wears during interviews, the ways that Rory Sutherland sits on chairs during interviews, and the ways that Rory Sutherland rambles over others during interviews.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#124

Post by ryandv »

stinkbeetle wrote: post #76
aanet wrote: post #30

This is perhaps the best articulation on the rise of certain cantankerous people... in social media / politics / The metaphor of the game is a good one for general understanding (though the Signaling / Counters-signaling paper is a TIL for me) I was hoping that there would be a "solution" of sorts to tackle / handle this issue of when EVERYBODY seems to use this strategy, but perhaps there isn't one...? (My own way o…

Shame has always been used to establish and maintain social structures and norms. Is there some sudden rise of it? All my life I've been told by politicians and media corporations and others that I should be ashamed of various things that I think and do and am, as a poorly veiled effort to gain power by controlling people. And before my generation it had been going on a long time, with women wanting independence, bla…

Bang on the money. This trend is really just a recognition that compassion, empathy, shame, etc. have been weaponized in service of sociopathic attempts to control people and society.

Too often shaming or labelling viewpoints you disagree with as "hateful" without further elaboration is really just a thin veneer over the absence of any actual position. Intellectual laziness masked with the paper tiger of loaded words and language.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#125

Post by ryandv »

potato3732842 wrote: post #114
aanet wrote: post #30

This is perhaps the best articulation on the rise of certain cantankerous people... in social media / politics / The metaphor of the game is a good one for general understanding (though the Signaling / Counters-signaling paper is a TIL for me) I was hoping that there would be a "solution" of sorts to tackle / handle this issue of when EVERYBODY seems to use this strategy, but perhaps there isn't one...? (My own way o…

>This is perhaps the best articulation on the rise of certain cantankerous people... in social media / politics / It's a comforting one but I think it's also a crappy and wrong one. Take a few steps further back and it looks like the pendulum is simply swinging. It was over the past 10-20yr very fashionable to invest (or waste, depending on your take) a lot of resources softening up what we have to say and how we say…

Keen observation. Canadian white progressives have a pathological inability to state anything directly, take definitive stances on anything, or refrain from ambiguity and equivocation in their speech. You end up with so much noise in the signal from all the hedging, mea culpas, and beating around the bush that it becomes impossible to take them at their word.

All the communications overhead comes from this neurotic desire to sanitize speech of all possible offense, all possible negative implication, and indeed all humanity. The end result is vapid corpo doublespeak, which says... absolutely nothing at all.

The information content of the language of a culture that can be offended by everything tends towards nothing.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#126

Post by gadders »

cjs_ac wrote: post #123
gadders wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rory Sutherland had a good description of this: "If you’re a top executive, turning up to work on a bicycle is a high-status activity because it was a choice and not a necessity. But if you work at Pizza Hut, turning up on a bike means you can’t afford a car."

Other examples include the clothes that Rory Sutherland wears during interviews, the ways that Rory Sutherland sits on chairs during interviews, and the ways that Rory Sutherland rambles over others during interviews.

Or the way that he got the guy that impersonates him on TikTok to announce his (Rory's) conference: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mad-fest_this-isnt-a-course-i...

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#127

Post by const_cast »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #66
b_e_n_t_o_n wrote: post #39

It's not shamelessness, it's authenticity. In today's curated, hyperreal society people desperately crave imperfections, cracks in the armour, they want something real , something human. They desire vulnerability, in part because it gives them courage to also be vulnerable, to not be afraid of judgement and rejection, and the freedom to be themselves. And I think it's actionable advice for all of us. Be genuine, be v…

Let's take an example: people who play music/video aloud on public transport. In Ye Olden Days of the last century, this would be a shameful act, and people would be shamed for doing it. In our enlightened modern times, people don't give a shit, and trying to shame them into not doing it is pointless. They are shameless about their selfishness, and apparently that's OK now. With the result, as others have said, that…

The problem with shame is that the people who use shame as a tool do not understand how to use it conservatively.

You see, they shame for playing music in public. Okay, great.

But they also shame for your weight, your sexuality, the color of your skin. Your job, your hobbies, your family. Your clothing, your skin, your hair.

And now, shame, as a tool, has been worn down to its bones. Of course then society at large begins to reject it.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#128

Post by jocaal »

pyman wrote: post #105
rao-v wrote: post #5

This generally is a version of what economics and game theory knows as countersignalling. A classic paper is “Too Cool for School” https://host.kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/cs-randfinal.pdf Always worth pondering when it works, and when, for whom, and how it fails.

I'd argue that shamelessness and countersignalling are different things but share the same foundation: confidence. Shamelessness is acting without embarrassment and countersignalling is deliberately downplaying because you're so confident you don't need to prove yourself. Using the example from the article, another person who comes to mind besides Paris Hilton is Trump. He uses countersignalling as a strategic tool,…

I don't think it is that deep for Trump. His sloppiness is great for the media because his choices lead to endless content. He is great for the unofficial media because everything he does is meme worthy. It is no wonder he and Musk teamed up, both their successes come from following the same strategy.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#129

Post by bc569a80a344f9c »

jgon wrote: post #31
bc569a80a344f9c wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a movie, but according to the wiki article linked a little further up the book “A Visit From The Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan has metamodern qualities, and I heartily recommend reading it. It’s fantastic. The section in the format of a PowerPoint presentation about her brother that one of the main character’s daughter gives at her school is incredibly beautiful. One of my top five experiences reading.

I’ve added the book to my queue, and if you’re so inclined I’d appreciate hearing what your other four are.

I didn't really have a firm top 5 in mind, I meant it more in the sense of "this was very memorable indeed".

But what the hell, it would be fun to reminisce some more.

Kind of cheating because the book is a classic, so this is just for the story: I was 15 years old in 1996, and we took a family vacation near Westhoek in Belgium. There's a nature reserve with sand dunes. I spent a few days lying in the sand dunes while reading "Dune" for the first time. This was at the same time that Hale-Bopp was visible in the night sky. It's still one of my favorite books just because of how visceral that reading experience was.

"Diaspora" by Greg Egan starts in 2975 when the majority of humans are disembodied computer programs running in simulated-reality communities. Originally, humans were uploaded/digitized but by this point, new digital consciousnesses come into being. The first chapter describes the "birth" of such a consciousness, and again, I found reading this to be a very visceral experience, and rather beautiful. Given that this was written in 1997, it is also surprisingly prescient of today's understanding of auto-encoders and how LLMs train.

"The Carpet Makers" ("Die Haarteppichknüpfer" in the original German) completely blew my mind as a teenager because of how the story was structured. It starts with a description of a family that - like many other families - is working on an elaborate carpet made from human hair, a carpet that it will take them an entire lifetime to complete. Then the book begins to zoom out and you learn more and more about the universe it is set in, but not in an annoying fashion where a curtain is being pulled back and the author feels very clever. Its unusual structure exposed me to the idea that Sci-Fi didn't have to be primarily about rockets, if done well, it could just be quite good literature that happens to be set in space and speculates about technology and it's sociological impact. Other works demonstrate that better, but this is the one that made me realize that.

And then finally, and from quite recently, my hands down favorite short story ever. And it's actually metamodern! First you'd need to have read "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" (https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf) by Ursula K. LeGuin, who is generally worth reading. In 2024, Isabel J. Kim wrote "Why Don't We Just Kill The Kid In The Omelas Hole" (https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/), and it's great. I re-read it every now and then, and it chokes me up every time. The way the prose is a complete juxtaposition to the original story: rough, unpolished, conversational. It pulls no punches whatsoever, and bounces between humor and moral horror. 10/10, will read again, many times, whenever I happen to think of it.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#130

Post by dkarl »

potato3732842 wrote: post #120
dkarl wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very specific form of authenticity. It's the authenticity of people who don't make an effort, who don't feel any need to try, who know that people are going to accept them and look up to them no matter how shitty they are. But for regular people it's a fantasy. Because it only works if you're rich.

>It's the authenticity of people who don't make an effort, who don't feel any need to try, who know that people are going to accept them and look up to them no matter how shitty they are. Or they know other people won't accept them regardless and they don't care. It's one of those communication patterns you see at the top and the bottom and if your life consists of working in an office, living in a condo and golfing…

Pretending not to care what other people think is the least authentic thing imaginable. Everyone knows that the people obsess about not giving a fuck are the people who are deeply unhappy with how they're perceived and are fantasizing about a fix.

For secure people, caring what other people think doesn't have to mean being neurotic and miserable about it. It doesn't mean being so cringe that you lose people's respect.

Imagine caring what other people think and not being miserable because of it.

Imagine caring what other people think, and they respect you more for it instead of less.

Top performers care deeply about the opinions of people who matter. CEOs in particular obsess about it. If a CEO acted like your opinion didn't matter, they were probably right, and they were probably too busy thinking about the board and the COO who was angling for an eventual interim job to give you the time of day.

Plenty of documentaries about sporting legends who collected slights and obsessed over proving themselves every day. They cared, and it fueled them.

Trump and Paris Hilton are playing a part for a mass audience who don't know how elites act because they don't know any. Nobody is suggesting that Trump and Paris Hilton don't actually personally care. If they really didn't care, they wouldn't put in the effort. In the years when Paris Hilton was shooting reality shows, she was working a hell of a lot harder than a society heiress needs to. Trump had to keep a president's schedule (a version of it, at least) for four years and came back for more because he wanted to prove he could win again. Being on TV and running for public office are the ultimate forms of caring what other people think. I think the part they play is a part they learned by living it, and is authentic in that sense, but if it was really who they were, instead of being something they act out because they know the masses are impressed by it, we wouldn't know their names.

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