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Crazy New Ideas

paulgraham.com

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Re: Crazy New Ideas

#781

Post by lvs »

dang wrote: post #778
lvs wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some irony in invoking ad hominem arguments while claiming my critique is a distraction. I'm simply acting as an arbiter of which intellectual sausage makes the world worse, just as you are. We have different opinions about which wurst is worse. If your view of reality is that these people don't idolize a gambler masquerading as a philosopher, then I'd absolutely love to agree with you if I could.

I suppose you could say that my question were an ad hominem argument if it were an argument, but it's not - it's a question. Your comments shocked me by how mean they were, even relative to the other stuff that I read on here. And I have vague memories of having been shocked in the past by how mean you were on other occasions—I don't remember anything specific, but I have a residual Pavlovian wince about it. All of t…

You're getting a bit semantic in defending what you certainly know is ad hominem misdirection. But if you want to double-down on it, it doesn't faze me. Your contention is that it is more important that I, a random commenter on the internet, am psychoanalyzed than to consider the substance of the argument I made. Your concern was how it was presented, not its content. I'll take that as a concession that the argument had enough validity that you'd prefer not to address it.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#782

Post by aj7 »

ALittleLight wrote: post #626
Noumenon72 wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on the idea that the Kardashians produce pornography for women? Sounds like it could explain why I don't get it!

I don't know if I would call it "pornography for women" but in my experience women tend to be more interested in social dynamics. e.g. Who said what to whom and why, X is fighting with Y because of Z and J is siding X instead of K, and so on. These shows tend to be about groups of characters engaging in what you might call social or political struggles. Tensions, drama, conflict, emotions, and so on. Reality shows li…

I think your comment is more sophisticated and useful than my “pornography for women”. What I was getting at in particular was that fantasies of luxury, arbitrary amounts of money, clothes, homes, vacations, and being listened to, resonate with many women on a fundamental level, and this may be entwined with their sexuality. Whether this is a form of pornography or not is complex. The points about politics above are well made. I have always thought that these endless “social dynamic” controversies represents a real time estimation, by the women involved, of their mating attractiveness, which partially governs all the chrome junk they’re enveloped in, but I am certainly a very amateur analyst. Two more thoughts, one from my late mother and one from me. 1. There are no books in these houses and no abstract concepts. 2. It is useful to contrast the details here with men’s obsession with sports.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#783

Post by tome »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #768
tome wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for that? It seems extremely implausible for a number of reasons.

Sure, Rudy made a video detailing the FBI breach of his iCloud account. [Starts at the 18:30 minute mark] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcjaaBcmUVg

Hmm, I think I meant "evidence" more than "source".

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#784

Post by failwhaleshark »

In 2013, I mentioned to a recruiter that Go would be huge by 2015-2016, and the jagoff argued with me from their zero domain expertise. I told them to piss off and never contact me again because they signaled they were stupid, ignorant, and unable to listen.. which means I had no use for them and they were a liability.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#785

Post by failwhaleshark »

geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

There are incremental/larger/easier improvements and then there are populism "improvements." The one tends to amplify the other. Facebook was incrementally better than Myspace at first, and then became more popular and much better. Myspace was much better than Friendster. It's an evolutionary model where some improvements are made, some features are lost, and specialization meanders.

I think the transition point is when incremental improvements amplify themselves to the point where they are both way more popular and way more efficient than what came before.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#786

Post by LudwigNagasena »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #397
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then as time passed and we learned more Yeah, lots of time has passed since people started to use masks to prevent a spread of infection. Like, 100 years?

That's sarcasm but let me try to address the notion behind it, to best of my limited personal understanding; "prevent spread" has multiple factors to it. My impression, in my locality, is that at beginning of pandemic people focused on notion of using masks to protect themselves (and many though not all governments indicated that's not efficient/recommended). Then "as time passed and we learned more" focus moved to u…

My impression is that importance of mask is well-studied and masks are regarded as one of the most important hygienic achievements right behind washing hands. These are cold hard facts. Everything else is political wiggle-waggling.

You may argue whether it is okay for a technocratic establishment to lie to people and manipulate them; but to pretend that they didn’t feed the public with half-truths is just ridiculous.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#787

Post by dukeofdoom »

tome wrote: post #783
dukeofdoom wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, Rudy made a video detailing the FBI breach of his iCloud account. [Starts at the 18:30 minute mark] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcjaaBcmUVg

Hmm, I think I meant "evidence" more than "source".

Did you watch the video? The FBI itself disclosed to Rudy's lawyer that they accessed his iCloud. Thats a post facto admission from the government itself. There's no good reason to think Rudy, a practicing lawyer for 40+ years, is making up statements of legal fact.

Article with statements from Rudy's Lawyer https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/lawyer-feds-got-rudy-iclou...

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#788

Post by 867-5309 »

shard wrote: post #777
867-5309 wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're giving them a lot more credit than is due. they are merely puppets poorly acting out situations scripted by people who do understand how to market their products

That's no different than actors and singers, who act out situations scripted by their publicists and managers who understand how to market their products. Regardless, we are talking about the kind of product that's being sold, which is fundamentally different than those sold by actors and singers.

actors and singers are contributing to the arts, plus they require at least an iota of talent, which is more than can be attributed to those vapid degenerates

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#789

Post by mensetmanusman »

867-5309 wrote: post #727
shard wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other replies to your comment don't seem to address your fundamental point that the Kardashians and their kind are in a different category than other celebrities. Their skills are not acting or singing or sports, but rather generating news to keep themselves in the headlines. I don't really recall this being a category until the start of reality TV, and even then it was short-lived after the shows ended. It wasn'…

I think you're giving them a lot more credit than is due. they are merely puppets poorly acting out situations scripted by people who do understand how to market their products

But they are billionaires and we are not

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#790

Post by tome »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #787
tome wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I think I meant "evidence" more than "source".

Did you watch the video? The FBI itself disclosed to Rudy's lawyer that they accessed his iCloud. Thats a post facto admission from the government itself. There's no good reason to think Rudy, a practicing lawyer for 40+ years, is making up statements of legal fact. Article with statements from Rudy's Lawyer https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/lawyer-feds-got-rudy-iclou...

Interesting, thanks.
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