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Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

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Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#131

Post by snapcaster »

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…

What are you talking about? can you point to a single instance of this happening? 20th century seems to contradict you pretty hard

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#132

Post by dkarl »

robocat wrote: post #71
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.

What a weird viewpoint. > But for regular people it's a fantasy So for authentic people it's a fantasy??? I can only imagine that either (a) you struggle to differentiate fake authenticity from authentic fakeness or (b) perhaps you don't have enough authentic non-wealthy acquaintances. Some welloff people countersignal successfully. But many don't because status signaling is difficult (evolutionarily). > it only work…

I think you're confusing authenticity with DGAF, because they both look like the opposite of insecurity.

Trump and Hilton play a DGAF role on TV, but the very fact that they're putting in the effort means that it isn't authentically them. If they really didn't care, we wouldn't know their names, because being wealthy doesn't automatically make you a celebrity. Consider Michael Bloomberg, who briefly flirted with a presidential run, but then discovered that coming from legit middle class roots and achieving orders of magnitude more wealth than Donald Trump meant very little next to the decades of work Trump had put in to build his celebrity status.

As celebrities, they have embraced caring about what people as their job, and for them, part of that job is playing out the ordinary person's fantasy of not having to care what people think -- a role that is only authentically them in the sense that they learned it authentically as spoiled rich children.

A lot of people experience anxiety in their everyday lives over how other people will perceive them. "Did I do a good enough job? What are people saying about me? What do people actually think about me?" When Trump and Hilton ostentatiously act out being able to be dumb and inept and still being treated like they're amazing, it's the perfect inverse of what causes ordinary people anxiety, which makes it a perfect fantasy.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#133

Post by jurking_hoff »

snapcaster wrote: post #131
overfeed wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What are you talking about? can you point to a single instance of this happening? 20th century seems to contradict you pretty hard

[dead]

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#134

Post by eszed »

bc569a80a344f9c wrote: post #129
jgon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 whil…

Damn. That kid in Omelas story bites hard. Thank you! I wish it'd existed back when I used to teach the original.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#136

Post by anal_reactor »

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 remember reading about Nikocado Avocado and I found information that he graduated from art school or something and thought "Wait. He's just pretending to be an idiot in front of a camera because this makes money". I talked about this to a friend of mine, who dismissed me. Two weeks later he put a video about having lost all that weight.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#137

Post by anal_reactor »

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…

For shame to work we need the whole society to agree that certain behaviors are shameful, otherwise the shamed person can simply change their social circle. In homogeneous societies, like Japan, this still works, at least for Japanese people. But in diverse societies, like most western democracies, you can always find a social circle that will accept you.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#138

Post by anal_reactor »

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…

I am a very direct person, and conversations with me often include very personal topics. I've noticed that at the beginning yes, this attracts at least some people who want to have serious conversations, but after some time it simply creates a new culture with new set of rules where you wear a different kind of mask. Everyone claims to crave authenticity, but when actually faced with it, most people back off.

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#139

Post by jurking_hoff »

borroka wrote: post #35
Spooky23 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This stuff is an art. Andrew Cuomo was this weird sex symbol for awhile. Eventually people got sick of him, and the media people just pile on.

It's all about the situation and depends a lot on personality, the real one, not the facade, on intangibles (“aura”) and on never showing any weakness or offering apologies. Trump's strategy works because it/he has all the elements to do so. Has he ever offered apologies? Never. He always moves forward: the past is the past. From an appearance standpoint, he offers an easy target for his rivals. But why hasn't anyone…

[dead]

Re: Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

#140

Post by borroka »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #84
borroka wrote: post #11

The article is way off base. Dorsey's playbook, if it even exists, isn't something to be ashamed of, especially in the context of Silicon Valley culture. Has the author never heard of Burning Man (obviously, she has and might have been more than once)? Zuck and Dorsey are two of the most common archetypes among tech company founders: the super nerd who only thinks about technology, and then money, and power, and the…

>Zelensky allowed himself and his wife to appear in what I consider to be an incredibly misguided and glamorous photo shoot published in Vanity Fair following older narratives of gender dynamics it would commonly be thought that the wife wanted it, because hey, Vanity Fair! and got the husband to go along.

Who knows who wanted what, but the leader of a nation at war showing up at any official event in casual clothes to show his solidarity with the troops and then posing for a glamorous photo shoot like any Hollywood celebrity is so ridiculous that it looks like a parody.

I am baffled that this serious misstep has been forgotten so quickly, but as I wrote in another comment, what you do plays a secondary role in how you are perceived; the main role is to show where you stand, whether that stand is supported by actions or not. Declare yourself anti-fascist, and any criticism of you and your policies will be interpreted as fascist.

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