Lumifer comments on Marketing Rationality - Less Wrong
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Comments (220)
So, why do you think this is necessary? Do you believe that proles have an unyielding "tits or GTFO" mindset so you have to provide tits in order to be heard? That ideas won't go down their throat unless liberally coated in slime?
It may look to you like you're raising the waterline, but from the outside it looks like all you're doing is contributing to the shit tsunami.
I think "revulsion" is a better word.
Wasn't there a Russian intellectual fad, around the end of XIX century, about "going to the people" and "becoming of the people" and "teaching the people"? I don't think it ended well.
How do you know? What do you measure that tells you you are actually raising the sanity waterline?
Look, we can choose to wall ourselves off from the shit tsunami out there, and stay in our safe Less Wrong corner. Or we can try to go into the shit tsunami, provide stuff that's less shitty than what people are used to consuming, and then slowly build them up. That's the purpose of Intentional Insights - to reach out and build people up to growing more rational over time. You don't have to be the one doing it, of course. I'm doing it. Others are doing it. But do you think it's better to improve the shit tsunami or put our hands in our ears and pretend it's not there and not do anything about it? I think it's better to improve the shit tsunami of Lifehack and other such sites.
The measures we use and the methods we decided on and our reasoning behind them is described in my comment here.
Well, first of all I can perfectly well stay out of the shit tsunami even without hiding in the LW corner. The world does not consist of two parts only: LW and shit.
Second, you contribute to the shit tsunami, the stuff you provide is not less shitty. It is exactly what the tsunami consists of.
The problem is not with the purpose. The problem is with what you are doing. Contributing your personal shit to the tsunami does not improve it.
You measure, basically, impressions -- clicks and eyeballs. That tells you whether the stuff you put out gets noticed. It does not tell you whether that stuff raises the sanity waterline.
So I repeat: how do you know?
Do you truly believe the article I wrote was no less shitty than the typical Lifehack article, for example this article currently on their front page? Is this what a reasonable outside observer would say? I'm willing to take a $1000 bet that more than 5 out of 10 neutral reasonable outside observers would evaluate my article as higher quality. Are you up for that bet? If not, please withdraw your claims. Thanks!
I am not terribly interested in distinguishing the shades of brown or aroma nuances. To answer your question, yes, I do believe you wrote a typical Lifehack article of the typical degree of shittiness. In fact, I think your mentioned on LW your struggles in producting something sufficiently shitty for Lifehack to accept and, clearly, you have succeeded in achieving the necessary level.
As to the bet, please specify what is a "neutral reasonable" observer and how do you define "quality" in this context. Also, do I take it you are offering 1:1 odds? That implies you believe the probability you will lose is just under 50%, y'know...
Only if $1000 is an insignificant fraction of Gleb's wealth, or his utility-from-dollars function doesn't show the sort of decreasing marginal returns most people's do.
Indeed, $1000 is a quite significant portion of my wealth.
$1000 is not an insignificant portion of my wealth, as gjm notes. I certainly do not want to lose it.
We can take 10 LessWrongers who are not friends with you or I and have not participated in this thread and do not know about this debate as neutral observers. Should be relatively easy to gather through posting on the open thread or elsewhere.
We can have gjm or another external observer recruit people just in case one of us doing it might bias the results.
So, going through with it?
Sorry, I don't enjoy gambling. I am still curious about "quality" which you say your article has and the typical Lifehacker swill doesn't. How do you define that "quality"?
As an example this article, as do others, cites links to and describes studies, gives advice that is informed by research, and conveys frames of thinking likely to lead to positive outcomes besides building willpower, such as self-forgiveness, commitment, goal setting, etc.