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First, make me care

gwern.net

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Re: First, make me care

#91

Post by Animats »

Jap2-0 wrote: post #41

Okay, because no one seems to be answering the Venice question: - They had a strong navy (and shipbuilding capacity), making a blockade difficult - They traded with many nations, so no one group could cut off their food supply - Fish - They had a near monopoly on the trade of salt and spices, the former of which was important to everyone and the latter of which was important to aristocrats (note: I read a few sources…

Venice is the extreme "tail wagging the dog" situation. Venice is dinky. It's not much bigger than San Francisco. Yet it was a major European power for centuries.

Re: First, make me care

#92

Post by bsder »

keyringlight wrote: post #36
squigz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out KEXP and SomaFM. KEXP in particular is a great way to discover new music that you might not normally listen to. https://www.kexp.org/ https://somafm.com/

I'd say streaming radio in general is low profile in how it lets you discover new things. I use the search/directory built into foobar2000 or apps like radiodroid, but there are sites like https://www.radio-browser.info/ for the web. It's an interesting and low cost way to find things you wouldn't otherwise be exposed to and likely curated by whoever is running the station. What really stood out to me is how differen…

The problem I have with streaming radio is that it seems to be caught rehashing rather than discovering.

For example, I like SOMA's Underground 80s, but I also want to hear new artists in the same vein. I haven't found any streaming stations that are actively good at curating like this.

Where are the streaming stations that play Smiths and Smithereens but also play Blossoms and Johnny Marr's new stuff, for example?

Re: First, make me care

#93

Post by ofalkaed »

tolerance wrote: post #30

You know I’ve never read an article by Gwern that made me feel like he was sensitive to this idea, one that in my head essentially breaks down to the use of narrative and the leverage of “stakes” that inform the reader of kinds of conflict that make a narrative special. I’m reminded of a remark made by David Foster Wallace (on KCRW? Or oft-repeated elsewhere) about how he had to come to terms with the purpose of writ…

>David Foster Wallace (on KCRW? Or oft-repeated elsewhere) about how he had to come to terms with the purpose of writing not being to show off how smart you are to the reader.

He expands on this in his conversation with Bryan Garner (of Garner's Modern English Grammar) published as Quack this Way, and I think he gets to the core issue, which is that your ideas are not interesting to anyone but you; if you are showing off how smart you are, you are assuming the reader will find your ideas as important and interesting as you do. It is the writer's job to show the reader why they should be interested, why they should care.

Infinite Jest is a also a good example of something which goes against TFA's point, it opens with a very sterile, impersonal, literal and completely disconnected first person narrative, he gives us nothing to care about. But it evolves, but he still doesn't give us anything to care about, just has the narration turn in on itself despite it seeming to have nothing to turn in onto. All he really gives us is the suggestion that there is something more than what we can see. He gets us interested and curious but I don't think we really care at that point.

Re: First, make me care

#94

Post by NegativeK »

bondarchuk wrote: post #9

I think "Just… start with the interesting part first" is quite different, and actually much better advice than "make me care". I'm more than done with stupid hooks and attention grabbing techniques, just plainly and honestly state at the outset what the point is of what will follow.

I now try to follow something like bottom line up front (BLUF) when I'm trying to quickly communicate something and respect someone's time: the most important, actionable detail first with details expanding as you read more.

I first heard that it has a standard in an email from someone ex-military; they started the email with "BLUF: blah blah blah". Turns out the military had (has?) it as a standard for emails. Go figure.

Before then, I remember someone asking Adam Ragusea (Youtube cooking channel) why he gives away the point of the video at the very beginning. Ragusea explained that he was previously a journalism professor, and he refused to bury the lede.

I don't watch cooking content anymore, but I've remained impressed that he was able to have a Youtube career while avoiding that manipulate-the-audience behavior to drive stats.

Re: First, make me care

#95

Post by NegativeK »

kazinator wrote: post #88

Video edition: 1. First, make me care. 2. Then provide an indication (e.g. in the video description) giving the time in the video where the question starts to be answered. If you make me somewhat care, but I have to binary search through your video to skip the rambling, I'm likely to back button out.

First, make me care and tell me the answer. In 30 seconds.

Then expand on it in increasingly advanced levels of detail.

If your knowledge is high, I won't care about the video production. If you're not getting to the point quickly, you're manipulating the audience into getting views; education and sharing knowledge isn't the main driver of your video.

But what I want is idealistic.

Re: First, make me care

#96

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

firefoxd wrote: post #26

I wrote my story and titled it, "My experience at work with an automated HR system". I sent it to a few friends, only a couple of them read it. A week later, I renamed it to "The Machine Fired Me". That seemed to capture it better. The goal wasn't to make it click bait, but it was to put the spoiler, and punch line right up front. It blew up! I had just read Life of Pi, and one thing I like about that book is that yo…

That's the LinkedIn "broetry" formula.

LI only shows a sentence as a teaser, and good "broets" have learned to write a good teaser line.

Re: First, make me care

#97

Post by mmooss »

tolerance wrote: post #30

You know I’ve never read an article by Gwern that made me feel like he was sensitive to this idea, one that in my head essentially breaks down to the use of narrative and the leverage of “stakes” that inform the reader of kinds of conflict that make a narrative special. I’m reminded of a remark made by David Foster Wallace (on KCRW? Or oft-repeated elsewhere) about how he had to come to terms with the purpose of writ…

Gwern's point stands on its own merits regardless of what you think of the rest of their blog. And the evidence is overwhelmingly the other way: Lots of people, and especially lots on HN, are very engaged with Gwern's writing, so Gwern seems to be onto something about how to engage readers. What do you think that is?

That would be valuable analysis. Or provide constructive feedback. The complaints aren't constructive and don't inform us about the OP. To me they seem pointless and in the wrong spirit, especially when someone is in the room, within earshot.

Edit: removed an error in what I said originally, sorry.

Re: First, make me care

#98

Post by cindyllm »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #96
firefoxd wrote: post #26

I wrote my story and titled it, "My experience at work with an automated HR system". I sent it to a few friends, only a couple of them read it. A week later, I renamed it to "The Machine Fired Me". That seemed to capture it better. The goal wasn't to make it click bait, but it was to put the spoiler, and punch line right up front. It blew up! I had just read Life of Pi, and one thing I like about that book is that yo…

That's the LinkedIn "broetry" formula. LI only shows a sentence as a teaser, and good "broets" have learned to write a good teaser line.

[dead]

Re: First, make me care

#99

Post by mmooss »

Expanding Gwern's well made point, just a little, is that writing of any length needs a thesis statement in the first paragraph or so.

Thesis statements are not a new techniques, and these days they are needed much more because there is so much to read. Many articles don't state their thesis at all or not for a long time.

I don't have time to read that far to find out if it's worthwhile to me. Unless you are Satoshi Nakamoto, I'm not going to read far to find out.

Re: First, make me care

#100

Post by antonvs »

simonw wrote: post #35
sublinear wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I keep seeing people complain that the internet isn't as weird and fun as it used to be. The weird and fun stuff is all on TikTok! Here's a guy who rigged a theremin and a hurdy gurdy up to Singer sewing machine and performs spectacular covers on it https://www.tiktok.com/@singersoundsystem/video/751772710192... And here's someone living my dream, he moved to the Scottish Highlands to start a workshop creating mechan…

> I keep seeing people complain that the internet isn't as weird and fun as it used to be. The weird and fun stuff is all on TikTok!

This is classic equivocation fallacy.

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