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Vanity activities

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Re: Vanity activities

#61

Post by johnnyo »

titanomachy wrote: post #6

I have this debate with people about news and podcasts sometimes (news was one of the examples in TFA). People say they are doing it to remain informed, and it’s a high-value activity, but I argue it’s mostly entertainment since it rarely affects any decision-making. This is not a hardline position, but I’m surprised at how vehemently people insist that their news habit has benefits beyond entertainment. (To be clear…

News consumption impacts political decision making, like who I want to support or oppose in local, state, and national elections.

That seems a pretty high impact decision we want all the members of our society to be making on a regular basis.

Re: Vanity activities

#62

Post by dragonwriter »

johnnyo wrote: post #61
titanomachy wrote: post #6

I have this debate with people about news and podcasts sometimes (news was one of the examples in TFA). People say they are doing it to remain informed, and it’s a high-value activity, but I argue it’s mostly entertainment since it rarely affects any decision-making. This is not a hardline position, but I’m surprised at how vehemently people insist that their news habit has benefits beyond entertainment. (To be clear…

News consumption impacts political decision making, like who I want to support or oppose in local, state, and national elections. That seems a pretty high impact decision we want all the members of our society to be making on a regular basis.

Staying informed of current events being a vanity activity is an idea very heavily pushed by people who are radically opposed to broad democracy in favor of some variety of elite rule, a distressingly common position in general, and particularly in tech spaces.

Re: Vanity activities

#63

Post by satisfice »

fastball wrote: post #46
satisfice wrote: post #10

To call reading the news “vanity” exposes the true vanity of this kind of post. What is the logic of assigning the word “vanity” to my interest to know what’s going on in the world? It’s vanity because I have no important decisions to make about the war in Ukraine, or the perfidy of my government? It’s not vanity, it’s a desire to understand my world and my place within it. What IS vanity is imagining that one’s own…

You are reading too much into choice of term. The author explains their rationale for using "vanity" quite clearly: > In business, a “vanity metric” is a statistic that sounds good but is not very useful. It's not about you being "vain" for reading the newspaper, it's just a parallel to another widely used term the author co-opted.

He literally says: "Our definition for vanity activity can be similar: something you do that seems more useful or virtuous than it really is."

And then he suggests that reading the news is a vanity activity.

My comment is perfectly on point. I think he is engaging in a vanity activity, by his own definition, when he suggests that reading the news is a vanity activity.

It's fine to have an opinion and a way of looking at the world. My objection is when a person claims that opinion is something more rational than it is-- while pissing on the choices other people make.

Re: Vanity activities

#64

Post by mooreds »

sfpotter wrote: post #58
mooreds wrote: post #4

Some good points in here, but with respect to networking, the author misses the forest for the trees. Sure, when you go to networking events, you aren't certain you are going to get a job from the folks you meet. What you are doing is increasing your luck surface area. Hiring is not an entirely rational process, but if someone doesn't know you exist, they won't hire you (how could they?). From there, it follows that…

Networking involves more than just letting people know you exist. I'd say that's borderline useless. Actually networking requires building real relationships with people. For me, that means continually meeting new people who do the same kind of thing that I do, having pleasant or exciting conversations with them, learning as much as I can about them (showing a real interest! asking serious questions! listening to the…

> Actually networking requires building real relationships with people.

Yes! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that letting folks know you exist was sufficient; it is only necessary.

I find a cheat code to building relationships with people is to give first. I love to ask "how can I help" when I meet someone at a conference or networking event. This does a few things:

* separates you from so many other people who go to these events looking to be transactional

* shows you can follow through (when you actually do help them) which, somewhat shockingly, distinguishes you from many other folks

* filters folks that might not be a fit for a deep relationship because you move in different worlds; if someone asks "well, I am looking for a major piece of real estate to buy", I as a software developer am unlikely to be able to help them

This is a long play though, to be sure.

Re: Vanity activities

#66

Post by fogj094j0923j4 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #26

There's something horribly broken about the styling on this site. Attempting to scale the page (Ctrl-+) doesn't change the font size. I have no idea how the page managed that, but whatever mechanism allowed that, browsers should kill it with fire.

Yeah sorry, those are vanity features \s

Re: Vanity activities

#67

Post by [deleted] »

satisfice wrote: post #63
fastball wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are reading too much into choice of term. The author explains their rationale for using "vanity" quite clearly: > In business, a “vanity metric” is a statistic that sounds good but is not very useful. It's not about you being "vain" for reading the newspaper, it's just a parallel to another widely used term the author co-opted.

He literally says: "Our definition for vanity activity can be similar: something you do that seems more useful or virtuous than it really is." And then he suggests that reading the news is a vanity activity. My comment is perfectly on point. I think he is engaging in a vanity activity, by his own definition, when he suggests that reading the news is a vanity activity. It's fine to have an opinion and a way of looking…

[deleted]

Re: Vanity activities

#68

Post by fastball »

satisfice wrote: post #63
fastball wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are reading too much into choice of term. The author explains their rationale for using "vanity" quite clearly: > In business, a “vanity metric” is a statistic that sounds good but is not very useful. It's not about you being "vain" for reading the newspaper, it's just a parallel to another widely used term the author co-opted.

He literally says: "Our definition for vanity activity can be similar: something you do that seems more useful or virtuous than it really is." And then he suggests that reading the news is a vanity activity. My comment is perfectly on point. I think he is engaging in a vanity activity, by his own definition, when he suggests that reading the news is a vanity activity. It's fine to have an opinion and a way of looking…

It is not hard to convincingly argue that reading the news is less useful than many participants believe it to be.

You in particular getting as much value out of the activity as you think you do doesn't negate the point of the article. Exceptions make rules, and the author said "most people".

Re: Vanity activities

#69

Post by ErroneousBosh »

californical wrote: post #53
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> going vegetarian reduce one's environmental impact Mmm, yes and no. It depends where your meat comes from. If you buy meat the way it's produced in the US where you have great big sheds full of cattle in the desert with everything trucked in, then yes. If you want permaculture, you absolutely must have livestock. If you want arable farming of any sort, you absolutely must have livestock. The whole thing breaks down…

The amount of livestock that we actually would need in that case is probably around 5% of what we actually have (in the US). So it’s still valid if half of all people became vegetarian, and the remaining amount cut their meat consumption to “special occasions only”. Keep in mind that a lot of our current agriculture is growing feed for livestock as well, so we could cut back on plant farming by a huge amount as well,…

> Keep in mind that a lot of our current agriculture is growing feed for livestock as well, so we could cut back on plant farming by a huge amount as well, if we greatly reduced livestock.

Yes and no.

We'd also cut down massively on the amount of food we have available for humans.

What would be better is if people stopped eating soya.

Re: Vanity activities

#70

Post by nicbou »

Is ethical consumption really a vanity activity? For the most part it just means not buying things. I don’t think that a Christian would consider “not sinning” a vanity activity. It’s just how people act about behaviour they consider harmful.
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