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Very Important People

dirt.fyi

21–30 of 34 posts

Re: Very Important People

#21
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By leaving out the following paragraph you're doing an injustice, framing a humorous anecdote as an attack: >Then I remembered that I'd heard it before. A homeless guy had been saying this exact same thing down by the beach, although I had to admit the message benefited from the wireless microphone, the giant festival stage, and the thousands of screaming fans. It's a poignant observation about how similarly inane ar…

> It's a poignant observation about how similarly inane arguments are perceived as evidence of mental illness or deep insights based on the social perception of the speaker. It’s not a poignant observation. This is the issue I had with the entire article; it was an uninsightful, unoriginal tweet that the author dragged out into more than two dozen paragraphs. > The author of this article is a solid storyteller I disa…

Writing isn't always about terse summaries of information. If you want that, have an LLM summarize it.

Good writing expresses concepts and ideas in engaging ways. You could write a few paragraphs summarizing theology, philosophy, and family dynamics that could be read in 10 minutes, but that doesn't come close to matching or replacing Dostoyevsky.

Doing everything as efficiently as possible misses the point. It's similar to how handwritten notes are slower but are retained more because of the process and taking the time to make them and read them.

Re: Very Important People

#22
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a poignant observation about how similarly inane arguments are perceived as evidence of mental illness or deep insights based on the social perception of the speaker. It’s not a poignant observation. This is the issue I had with the entire article; it was an uninsightful, unoriginal tweet that the author dragged out into more than two dozen paragraphs. > The author of this article is a solid storyteller I disa…

Writing isn't always about terse summaries of information. If you want that, have an LLM summarize it. Good writing expresses concepts and ideas in engaging ways. You could write a few paragraphs summarizing theology, philosophy, and family dynamics that could be read in 10 minutes, but that doesn't come close to matching or replacing Dostoyevsky. Doing everything as efficiently as possible misses the point. It's sim…

[deleted]

Re: Very Important People

#23
post #7

Envy is worth talking about. It seems to pull a lot of people, like one of the strings in string theory. They want to be envied so they live an exhibitionist life, or they were surpassed by someone they thought was their equal and now they hate the gap. Is it possible people who feel envy then decide to be more exhibitionist, so they can be envied in the future? I wonder what value envy provided to evolution? Did it…

> by-product of social status behaviors I think that's the one. There's entire rituals to show social status. For example, weddings. That's all it is for.

on an individual, or societal pov, i heavily doubt this is the case... it might be true in some subsets of some societies (royalty? maybe, not sure), or maybe in some periods of times. but this view seems extremely reductive.

Re: Very Important People

#24
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a poignant observation about how similarly inane arguments are perceived as evidence of mental illness or deep insights based on the social perception of the speaker. It’s not a poignant observation. This is the issue I had with the entire article; it was an uninsightful, unoriginal tweet that the author dragged out into more than two dozen paragraphs. > The author of this article is a solid storyteller I disa…

Writing isn't always about terse summaries of information. If you want that, have an LLM summarize it. Good writing expresses concepts and ideas in engaging ways. You could write a few paragraphs summarizing theology, philosophy, and family dynamics that could be read in 10 minutes, but that doesn't come close to matching or replacing Dostoyevsky. Doing everything as efficiently as possible misses the point. It's sim…

> You could write a few paragraphs summarizing theology, philosophy, and family dynamics that could be read in 10 minutes, but that doesn't come close to matching or replacing Dostoyevsky.

The author of the post is not Dostoyevsky. My objection is not to meandering, it’s to the meandering done by those who have nothing worthwhile to say.

Re: Very Important People

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's social commentary about class, fame, and fate – all things very relevant to hackers and news.

It's just weird celebrity worship dressed up by arguing that celebrity is somehow this innate characteristic his specific friend Adam can spot. This is tabloid ontology. I've worked in the celebrity space for a long time, there is no there there, the dehumanizing of celebrities (and oneself) via worship, para-socializing or unearned castigation is all brain rot. This attempt to hide ungrounded "People Magazine" super…

I too work in the attention economy and found the essay relevant and an enjoyable reminder of some of the genx era/Pitchfork era commentary.

Re: Very Important People

#28
post #12

I don't think I'm completely oblivious to social status, but I've never understood at a deep level the way most people seem to process concepts like "fame" and "celebrity". I have never had the experience of being awestruck by a person, or elevating them above personhood, though I admire plenty of people. With the few brushes with, maybe we can say "microcelebrity" I've had myself, the opportunities and status benefi…

Celebrity is a commercial, political, and creative 'hack' for mass media – which isn't always unhealthy to consume e.g. good books, films, music, etc.

I agree some people take it way too far, but I personally don't have a problem if Oprah promotes an important novel I wrote.

Re: Very Important People

#29
post #12

I don't think I'm completely oblivious to social status, but I've never understood at a deep level the way most people seem to process concepts like "fame" and "celebrity". I have never had the experience of being awestruck by a person, or elevating them above personhood, though I admire plenty of people. With the few brushes with, maybe we can say "microcelebrity" I've had myself, the opportunities and status benefi…

Celebrity is a commercial, political, and creative 'hack' for mass media – which isn't always unhealthy to consume e.g. good books, films, music, etc. I agree some people take it way too far, but I personally don't have a problem if Oprah promotes an important novel I wrote.

This is a phenomenon that, like many social phenomena, seems to scale superlinearly, and you've described a gradient of economic advantage along which this will tend to accelerate. These properties suggest to me that an attitude like "it's fine as long as it's not taken too far" is at best pretty naive

Re: Very Important People

#30
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Celebrity is a commercial, political, and creative 'hack' for mass media – which isn't always unhealthy to consume e.g. good books, films, music, etc. I agree some people take it way too far, but I personally don't have a problem if Oprah promotes an important novel I wrote.

This is a phenomenon that, like many social phenomena, seems to scale superlinearly, and you've described a gradient of economic advantage along which this will tend to accelerate. These properties suggest to me that an attitude like "it's fine as long as it's not taken too far" is at best pretty naive

Schelling points are a known outcome of many types of phenomena, especially competitive ones.
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