site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2456 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 6, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If You Catch It, You Get $500..

Tldw; Youtuber offers 500 USD if you catch a tossed football. There's not much else to it really.

Why are people saying no? Unless your time is worth equivalent to that of Jeff Bezos's, I don't see how taking 10 seconds out of your day to attempt to gain 500 USD with 0 risk is debatable.

Am I missing something? Are people just untrustworthy of strangers enough that they think there is risk to attempting to catch a football?

I. DONT. GET. IT.

It's just weird, it's a significant breach of usual social norms, it just feels right to wince and ignore it.

You don't like game shows, you don't like MrBeast, you find the concept that a random guy's making you do something for some amount of money weird. Showing up in a popular youtube video feels weird.

You're on your way to a class, you're in the middle of thinking about something important, you're on a schedule, you just don't want to be disrupted by something uncertain.

(I'd be #2 or #3)

And all these outweight 500 USD?

I have a strong moral distaste for when one, especially one who's otherwise sensitive and competent, finds "STAND IN THE CIRCLE FOR THE LONGEST AND GET TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS" entertaining and spends a nontrivial amount of time consuming it. The challenges are enormously dull, chosen for mass relatability, and the financial reward serves as a hollow source of drama without any of the complex technical or social games that make IRL life or good fiction interesting. The video in OP is a minor case of that, and I just won't participate as a result. And it's just as bad to produce that content - you could be doing something interesting, and instead you're optimizing your facial expression to make 7 year olds click on the exploding train thumbnail. It's the same thing where I wouldn't work as marketer for a clothing or shitty mobile game company even if I were very good at it, and it paid well.

Whereas for a lot of people I really think 'this is super weird and unusual and cringe and I don't want to do it' plays a bigger role than you think, and they'd probably make a different decision in a different social context.

I'm not entirely sure the 'no guarantee it's for real' part is actually true? I sort of expect that, given the popularity of 'give you money for stuff' videos, a substantial fraction of things that look like 'yo i'll give you $500 if you catch this football' with someone filming are genuine (or, if something's rigged, it's that the challenge is harder than it appears, not that the money's fake). Just because there aren't that many big free stuff youtubers, but there aren't that many people doing fake challenges either.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats