twodigits
1yr ago
Is anyone here familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's book Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know? Is there a high-quality review anywhere that summarizes what I should know going into it? I understand that Gladwell has a bad reputation around here generally; is there a good general summary of his offenses to help me keep an appropriately skeptical mindset?
I realize that there's probably some irony in worrying about being biased toward excessive trust in someone who's writing in part about how people are biased toward excessive trust.
twodigits
9mo ago
Appreciate the response.
I don't remember the book as clearly as when I'd just finished listening to it, but I feel like you could reasonably view it as using the Bland case as a case study for a more general message/phenomenon. Which isn't to say that the title represents it well, or that I could make a good argument for the relevance of all the different topics/claims that the book tries to tie it to.
At times it seemed to be building toward something like "people are too complicated to perfectly understand, so don't get overconfident". But it always seemed to revert back to "this situation seems complicated, but let me explain everyone's exact thoughts and motivations". Similarly, lots of "here's the popular idea about this, but isn't it a little too neat and tidy? Let's look deeper", but then its own narratives end up exactly as reductive/simplistic/superficial.
I feel like the point about Harry Markopolos was pretty clear in the end. The "praise" was just the front half of the "but"; "you think you want a guy like this in your corner, but you don't".
I was pretty skeptical about the narrative about body language. There's probably a book's worth of material in how people are influenced by exaggerated screen acting as it forms an increasing proportion of their "social" experiences; and another's on broscience in police and intelligence training. But I have a hard time taking seriously the idea that facial and body "language" are pure social convention, and that there are no universal involuntary responses to things. Maybe I'm overgeneralizing from The Blank Slate, or being overly credulous toward it?
I feel like the book was conflating "these ways of evaluating people can produce false positives" with "evaluating people is completely impossible". In some places it almost seemed like it was leading to autistic supremacism; "the en-tees think they have these rich nonverbal communication channels and intuitive faculties, but they're all pure delusion", and so on.
I skipped the chapter on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Overall, I may have ended up biased against the book's value instead of for it. Like Malcolm watching the arrest video, I still get angry rereading or remembering parts of it, and remembering the anxious faux-earnest tone that they were read in. That's probably not a good sign. Still, I'm starting to question the value of this kind of single-perspective book generally.
One thing I did appreciate somewhat was reading about how embarrassingly obvious Amanda Knox's innocence was, years after seeing the crowing over Less Wrong "getting it right" and how it proved the superiority of their methods.
I'm passingly curious whether you ended up making the post on policing.
twodigits
1yr ago
Is this supposed to be a gotcha? Are you implying that you can't see any functional difference between the two options? Or are you just trying to bait them into saying something that you can label as racist/eugenicist?
there is less inequality but the upper ceiling is so much lower that it's legitimiately harder to get paid the same amount in PPP dollars there than in the US.
Why do you say "but" when those are the same thing?
twodigits
8mo ago
As someone who recently came to the same realization, but still hasn't fully come to terms with giving up a fairly enjoyable and rewarding hobby, I'm crossing my fingers for a high-quality debate either here or under @Primaprimaprima's potential post.
twodigits
9mo ago
Sometimes I wish I were better at reading things "for entertainment" without worrying about what beliefs or habits of thought I'm absorbing. Idk.
If a population could mutually agree to all have fewer babies, while pensioners agreed to stop collecting to make way for new generations, it might be good; if that's somehow easier than the rich all agreeing to build as many houses as possible, and so on. But if your rivals/enemies/the lowest-functioning are having lots of kids, you don't want them to be the only ones. All those kids are going to be taking up jobs, housing, etc., but at least your kids are in that group, and having more kids means more success chances for your family overall. Importing a bunch of foreign competitors doesn't benefit you even genetically.
Or maybe I went off half-cocked, and I'm missing the point just like you say Kulak did. Seems kind of rude of me to have butted into the exchange and demanded an answer, really.
twodigits
8mo ago
Would separate SIM cards not work? The idea I had was to have an occasionally-on smartphone for regular things and an always-on flip phone for critical things. Sort of the same use case as a house phone.
I currently have an Android phone. It has a toggle for Wi-Fi and one for 4G connectivity, but I'm not aware of one specifically for "Internet" that still allows calls through. Not sure how that would differ substantially from just closing and reopening the Web browser. I guess it could be an easier way to toggle email notifications, but I can't see it meaningfully reducing the "onlineness" that I'm trying to get away from. Am I misunderstanding something?
twodigits
1yr ago
Approving a comment "eventually" doesn't mean much when it doesn't appear as a new comment. It just hides the fact that the comment was hidden.
twodigits
1yr ago
Whereas if it were easier, higher achievers would tend to earn more, increasing inequality. What am I missing?
twodigits
8mo ago
I'd say "producing fetish media" to be as broad as possible. Mostly hiring people to draw and write stuff, and discussing and developing project ideas with other people. Wasn't really looking to make the thread about myself.
twodigits
8mo ago
Never mind 2G. The Nokia 2720 Flip that I bought a while back advertises 4G and Wi-Fi, but when I tried a T-Mobile SIM in it recently, I got a message saying that "this phone is only partially compatible with our advanced network"; and I wasn't able to make a call or send a message when I tried.
I'm unconvinced about the benefits of T9. Multi-press typing always made more sense to me; this sequence of presses produces this character, predictably and reliably, with no guesswork needed in either side. I guess time will tell.
twodigits
9mo ago
Provided, presumably, that you can accurately identify the "belief(s)" that a book "advocates for", and identify an adequately entertaining book that advocates for the opposite(s), without "accidentally" picking one that argues so badly that it only reinforces your prior beliefs, or one that disputes minor points while reinforcing the underlying assumptions; and without "coincidentally" finding that you don't have the spare time to read anymore.
twodigits
1yr ago
Would it be antagonistic or obnoxious if I jumped in to argue with some of this?
twodigits
1yr ago
Not sure that I'd call that a "bug" to be "noticed". Didn't Musk publicly announce it, saying that they were finally fighting back against scraper bots, or something?
twodigits
1yr ago
- If you want your family/clan to thrive, they need other people to have kids with. Who if not your neighbor?
- Didn't you just say that smart immigrants are worse?
- If you have a growing internal population, why do you need immigrants?
twodigits
5mo ago
Was reviewing my "saved" posts, and it looks like I saved this intending to reply to it asking you to clarify the relevance of your link, since it doesn't seem to mention Greta, climate, Palestine, or the word "omnicause".
I've been neglecting various things since this was posted trying to find the right words to respond to it, but I think it's time to cut my losses. I appreciate your following up and clarifying your position in the face of the downvotes and dogpiling.
twodigits
1yr ago
Can you speak plainly? Are you saying that only people currently in the filter should comment on it?
Does anyone here know anything about "flip" cell phones, or any advice or meta-advice for shopping for one in the US? I've been thinking for a while that it'd be nice to be able to turn off my smartphone for "offline" time without being cut off from anyone who might need to reach me.
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