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Fake Books

lcamtuf.substack.com

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21–30 of 371 posts

Re: Fake Books

#21

Post by sneak »

gzer0 wrote: post #10

This has been a concern of mine for a while; I have also published absolute garbage just to see how far I can take it. I've published music under various pseudonyms, books underneath different pen-names... the list goes on. I've retracted such publications, but it is frightening if one person like myself had the curiosity to try, what is already out there, and, what a well-funded nation-state actor could do. ---- Pos…

Ahh yes, the nation-state funded military-fake-book complex, destabilizing nations the world over. We really need to watch out for nation-states using incoherent technobabble!

Re: Fake Books

#22

Post by ipeev »

What actually surprises me is that the author bought 11 paper books from Amazon about NFTs. You really need 11 books to understand or write about a single concept? It is a highly controversial ongoing topic. Those 11 books most likely become obsolete exactly on the day after they were written.

Good catch on the one fake book! But I am surprised it was only one. Maybe the author started from that one and will write about the others later.

Re: Fake Books

#23

Post by nextlevelwizard »

Off topic: Why is everything posted here all of a sudden begging for my email? It feels like every article I click after reading few sentences I get a box begging to sign up for some stupid ass mailing list as if after spending 10 seconds reading their words I had become a fan and absolutely needed more of their bullshit in my life.

If I am interested in hearing more about you, I will find a way to subscribe to your shit otherwise all you manage to do is to get me frustrated and leave.

This time I couldn't even get to reading, I opened the article and had to answer an IM. By the time I got back I was treated with full screen "Type your email to subscribe" box that couldn't even be dismissed without clicking small "Let me read first" link.

Why is simple blog design such ass these days? Why can't I just read the content without being bombarded with pop ups, pop overs, and other crap that has nothing to do with the actual content?

Re: Fake Books

#24

Post by cowtools »

gzer0 wrote: post #10

This has been a concern of mine for a while; I have also published absolute garbage just to see how far I can take it. I've published music under various pseudonyms, books underneath different pen-names... the list goes on. I've retracted such publications, but it is frightening if one person like myself had the curiosity to try, what is already out there, and, what a well-funded nation-state actor could do. ---- Pos…

I don't think it's that scary. I mean it's basically spam isn't it? The only thing new is the volume in which you can produce surface-level-indistinguishable spam.

It is now cheaper to produce lots of flowery, meaningless text that is full of definitions. I suspect that the future of literature is more concise and externally-meaningful writing.

Amazon is a terrible marketplace insofar as the rating system isn't sybil proof. this crap slips through the cracks.

Re: Fake Books

#25

Post by andreyk »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #16

I think there’s a good chance it was ghost written by a content farm for someone who wanted to publish a book in a popular category to make a quick buck. I recently learned that this is a soft-scam technique advocated for by a couple of guys called the Mikkelson Twins. They say you can make money by publishing audiobooks on audible by finding a popular topic on audible, then hiring a ghost writing service to write yo…

I've watched the video as well and wholeheartedly agree! His 'Line Goes Up' documentary about crypto is also exceptional; very critical but in educated and actually nuanced ways (https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g).

Re: Fake Books

#26

Post by quickthrower2 »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #23

Off topic: Why is everything posted here all of a sudden begging for my email? It feels like every article I click after reading few sentences I get a box begging to sign up for some stupid ass mailing list as if after spending 10 seconds reading their words I had become a fan and absolutely needed more of their bullshit in my life. If I am interested in hearing more about you, I will find a way to subscribe to your…

Welcome to substack! “But it is better than medium!”

Re: Fake Books

#27

Post by seba_dos1 »

ipeev wrote: post #22

What actually surprises me is that the author bought 11 paper books from Amazon about NFTs. You really need 11 books to understand or write about a single concept? It is a highly controversial ongoing topic. Those 11 books most likely become obsolete exactly on the day after they were written. Good catch on the one fake book! But I am surprised it was only one. Maybe the author started from that one and will write ab…

The author didn't want to "understand a single concept" this way, but rather, as they say themselves, "get familiar with the best-articulated arguments put forward by the proponents of this tech".

Re: Fake Books

#29

Post by nine_k »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #23

Off topic: Why is everything posted here all of a sudden begging for my email? It feels like every article I click after reading few sentences I get a box begging to sign up for some stupid ass mailing list as if after spending 10 seconds reading their words I had become a fan and absolutely needed more of their bullshit in my life. If I am interested in hearing more about you, I will find a way to subscribe to your…

Have you tried paying? Publishers need food, too. So do some authors who write in a (semi)professional capacity and spend significant time writing.

Re: Fake Books

#30

Post by gzer0 »

colordrops wrote: post #18
tommica wrote: post #13

Its a scary concept - internet and books being nothing but generated content is going to be a sad world.

Or maybe people will start paying attention to references and provenance, and start looking into sources of information - maybe even more widespread use of cryptographic signatures. Misinformation has always been out there, and so there are tools to deal with it. Perhaps now is our chance to make these tools wide spread.

In an ideal world, I would hope for your statement to be correct. However, our society has changed the value of recognizing duty to recognizing choice. As long as individuals are aware of the choice they are making, they are justified. The fear of truth is caused by the following dilemma: either you choose for yourself or someone else will choose for you. Because of this fear, choosing correctly becomes less important than choosing freely. The choice is justified by the idea of inner truth, in which the role of subjective experiences can outweigh the role of objective experiences.

A choice is not justified just because it is a choice. But without an objective criterion of correction, every choice is irrelevant, because the subjective criterion is also a choice. It can be changed to justify each of the choices, however inconsistent and contradictory they may be. To say that everything is valid is to say that fact checking is a farce. The loss of discernment is an unexpected result of the emancipation of reason.

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