domain:eigenrobot.substack.com
Crake
Protestant Goodbot
12m ago
If the train is a metaphor for direction the government is going, than I'm not sure that America is that different. If America's train is heading for a cliff, I also have no possible control over it or ability to stop it. That train also won't stop for me, and will happily drag me to my death if I interact with the door mechanism wrong or whatever the equivalent metaphor is.
The biggest difference I see is that Chinas train is piloted by a single conductor who appears to be sane and fairly smart. So I think that train will be safe until he dies, and then yeah, huge potential for disaster as a new pilot is selected and possibly a bad or evil one.
versus America's train, there barely is a pilot at all, and to the extent their is a pilot he gets replaced very often and the new one is selected by a people I don't trust, interacting with entrenched and sinister factions in esoteric ways.
At least until Xi dies, I think that the China train sounds like that safer bet.
Obviously I'm not going to move there, the American train is more luxury, and I've already paid for a nice cabin. But I'm not convinced our conductors are likely to be better than theirs.
FtttG
29m ago
Every month in our office canteen, a member of the HR team hangs up posters on the noticeboard of notable days or commemorations which fall within that calendar month. For July, these included World Friendship Day (July 30th), Nelson Mandela's birthday (July 18th) and World Chocolate Day (today). There's also International Non-Binary People's Day, which it will not surprise you to learn made me roll my eyes (the aforementioned member of the HR team had only just taken down the innumerable pride flags festooning the office for the duration of June, but apparently we need an extra day outside of that just for the they/thems). But what interested me was that International Non-Binary People's Day falls on July 14th, the same day as Bastille Day. There's an implicit hierarchy here, wherein the HR department are tacitly insinuating that non-binary people deserve international commemoration in a way that French people don't.
philosoraptor
39m ago
Your math seems to assume they would only have lived one more year each. (If I understood it right, and if I didn't, it might be because most of the symbols seem to be missing...) Many were kids with their whole life ahead of them. It's 11 minutes per year they would have lived on average, plus other considerations of the sort self_made_human pointed out.
If you want to do things on a flood plain, surely you should be prepared for a flood. Better yet, manage the water so it won't flood. Flooding isn't akin to 'oh no this playground is too exciting, little Timmy might bruise himself, better make it as dull as possible' safetyism, it's a serious issue that destroys a great deal of property along with killing people.
I also submit that Los Angeles shouldn't have been burning down this year either. The US is supposed to be rich and this part of LA doubly so. Rich people aren't supposed to have their houses burn down. Clear away the flammable shrubs and have some water in tanks so it doesn't just run dry and people are running around tossing oat milk onto fires, as in one memorable case. LA couldn't be bothered to properly prepare for fires in a fire-prone area, couldn't be bothered to clear out vegetation, couldn't be bothered to pass the marshmallow test and paid the price.
I don't see why it's not cost-efficient to take these measures for a rich country. What else was the money going to be spent on, boomer welfare, fake jobs in medicine?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
50m ago
I don't use and never have used apps for various reasons (mostly age) but this is a very detailed post of reasonable advice, good on you taking the time.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
1hr ago
Occasionally we get reminded that even our most destructive wars barely hold a candle to a single "act of God."
WW2 killed more people than any "act of God" in recorded history. I'd be more concerned about a nuclear exchange than I would about any natural disaster that's likely to happen during my life expectancy.
self_made_human
C'est la vie
1hr ago
While I certainly endorse the principle, shouldn't the figures be much higher because the relevant population are people who even have to seriously consider the risk of drowning due to a flood? The risk of being attacked by a shark per capita is pretty low, but most people don't live next to an ocean.
TowardsPanna
1hr ago
That's a lotta books... :(
I haven't read Cialdini yet. I actually got it, read a tiny bit, but was hit with a moral concern that it's wrong to 'manipulate' people. I guess I should discard that concern, since everyone else who gets shit done is doing it.
ulyssessword
2hr ago
has to be subsidized by the state government because it’s just not profitable anymore.
AKA: charging what it costs would be unacceptable. I'm sure there's some price where it makes sense to offer flood insurance in a floodplain, but the government decided that people should pay less than that.
At least it isn't a price control forcing the insurance companies take an (expected) loss on every policy.
Rov_Scam
2hr ago
Based on friends who have all gotten long-term relationships from the apps, combined with my own experience, here's what I can tell you:
- Use Hinge, and nothing else. The quality of people on there is much better and the other apps are garbage.
- Use good photos; don't just pick the six most recent photos with you in them. The first one should be a good picture that shows what you actually look like. One picture should be of you in a group, so they can see that you actually have friends, but more than one creates confusion as to who you actually are. It also shouldn't be one of you and your ex, and ideally shouldn't include anyone better looking than you are. This also shouldn't be your first picture, and should be somewhere down in the order so the only people who will see it will be those intrigued enough to scroll down that far. At least a few pictures should be purpose-shot. You don't have to hire a photographer, but a friend who knows how to work a real camera with a long lens will help. Don't include too many pictures where you're wearing a hat or sunglasses as this makes it hard for to see what you look like. Some of the pictures should be "action shots" of you engaging in hobbies so they can see that you're interesting rather than read about it. Make sure you're smiling and showing your teeth. A lot of guys tend to smirk or look overly serious, and women don't like that. Women also don't care about cars so shots of you posing in front of your Mustang or WRX just make you look like a douche. The only exception would be if you own a Lambo or something and want to attract women who are after your money. Don't include pictures of you with deer you shot or fish you caught. No pictures of you shirtless or flexing. Selfies are bad. Bathroom selfies are worse. Bathroom selfies of you flexing are worst. You can include a Linkedin style professional photo if you have one, but I'd save this for last.
- Fill out the profile completely or almost completely. The purpose is to make you look like an attractive, well-rounded person. Include your job (unless you're a doctor, which will get you more matches but from women looking for guys with money), especially if you have a good professional job. If you're working as a bartender but graduated from college, it's okay to just list the college. It's also okay to just list the job if you're paranoid about them being able to figure out who you are (which can be surprisingly easy). It's fine not to list your religion if you don't want to, but your politics are liberal. Most young women in urban areas simply won't date Trump supporters, and if you say you're moderate or other or nothing they'll just think you're a conservative who doesn't want to admit it. Your height is an inch taller than you actually are, unless you're like 6'5" or something. Unless you're obviously black or East Asian your race is white. It's fine to omit one or two of these but if you omit too many the profile looks incomplete and it makes you look either uninteresting or like you have something to hide.
- If you have children, say you have children. If you don't, say you don't. Omitting this does you no good and can fuck things up. Women who aren't open to dating guys with kids won't risk it on guys who they don't know that about if they have other options. If you do have kids and they find out later it might be a dealbreaker. As far as intentions, be specific with those as well; if you want kids say you want kids, if you don't say you don't, and if you're open to the idea but not committed one way or the other say that. "Not sure yet" may be an option if you're under 30, but in general you'd just be turning people off since a girl who wants kids isn't going to be happy if the guy decides he doesn't want them after she's been dating him for two years. You're looking for a long-term relationship; if you're looking for a hookup you shouldn't be on Hinge. Saying "life partner" may be fine but could come across as a bit intense. Saying "figuring out my dating goals" makes you look confused and indecisive; I always assume people who write this are dipping their toe in the water after a divorce and will probably be flaky. Saying "long, open to short" or the reverse makes it look like you're either taking what you can get or are looking for a hookup but don't want to admit it.
- Select your prompts carefully, and include as much information as possible. I don't have a list of prompts at my fingertips, but you should be able to discern which ones actually say something about you and which ones don't. You only get three of these so use them wisely; saying that you order the loaded french fries for the table doesn't add anything to the discussion. On the other hand, saying what you do on a typical Sunday communicates what you like to do when you're not working or running errands, and saying what you could do together communicates what you have to offer in a relationship. Avoid one-word answers and non-answers, which are things that apply to pretty much everybody. So, you like tacos, travel, and music? Great, so does everybody else. Give her a reason to date you over the masses with generic responses. Even if she doesn't like all the things you like, it will at least make you seem interesting.
- Avoid using negative prompts. The last thing you want to do is give someone a reason not to match with you. If something is a serious dealbreaker, Hinge has a match note feature where it will come up when you match and give them the option to back out. I've only seen this once, and it was just a generic thing about actually being serious about starting a long-term relationship. But unless something is a serious no-go I wouldn't bother; you only get three prompts, so use them wisely. Also, and this probably goes without saying, but there are a bunch of prompts that mention therapy that shouldn't be used by anybody.
- The general theme of this list so far is that your profile will make or break your success. Six photos and three prompts are the only information the person on the other end is going to have when deciding to make a match. This is valuable real estate and you don't want to waste any of it. I've talked to a lot of female friends about this, and they're pretty unanimous and unequivocal about their complaints. It's been said over and over again about how women have it much easier on these apps then men, and while that's true to an extent, women have their own frustrations. Sure, a woman may be flooded with likes, but a large percentage of those are going to be from guys who have half-assed profiles that don't give them any usable information and another large percentage is going to be from guys who put some effort into making profiles that seem designed to appeal to other guys (though women are equally guilty of both of these). If you're not supermodel hot, seeing one of these profiles will make her hit the dump button without a second thought, and if you are supermodel hot she'll think about it and come to the conclusion that you're a fuck boy looking to score.
- No that we've gotten through the profile, you have to actually use the app. First, you won't get many likes, and the ones you do get will be from women you probably aren't interested in dating. Hinge isn't a swiping app like Tinder where you have to randomly match with someone. You send out likes to profiles you're interested in and the other person can choose to match or reject. Like in real life, men have to take all (or at least most) of the initiative—men match by sending out likes, women match by reviewing incoming likes. The only women who normally send out likes are the ones who aren't receiving a sufficient number of quality likes themselves. The rest are either women who happen to really like your profile or women who just got on the app and haven't yet realized they don't have to send likes out. The likes women send out are generally to men who are supermodel hot. This has created an interesting dynamic where men rarely get any incoming likes and don't match with the ones they do get, while women may send out a bunch of likes but rarely get matches from those.
- When you send out a like, Hinge gives you the option of including a message along with it. You should always do this. Remember, women are getting a lot of incoming likes, and most of these won't have messages. You're going to have to start a conversation eventually, so you might as well do it now, and it will at least give the woman a reason to check out the profile rather than just hit the dump button. And these messages should be well thought out and have something to do with the profile, preferably one of the prompts. This shows that you actually read the profile and are taking an interest rather than just clicking on a pretty face. And sending messages like "Cute" does nothing to start the conversation and doesn't demonstrate anything—if you didn't think she was cute you probably wouldn't have reached out in the first place. Some guys online have said that this does nothing but make them waste time thinking of something to say to someone who probably won't respond, and that they get comparable results by not saying anything and only putting in effort if there's actually a match, but this seems lazy to me. Again, most guys won't say anything, and you need to do whatever you can to make yourself stand out.
- When you actually get a match, respond promptly, and try to follow up your response with a question to keep the conversation going. Remember, women have an easier time getting matches, and you don't want to give them any reason not to respond. Don't be afraid to go back to the profile to get more source material, but also don't be afraid to get into things that aren't covered by the profile. Put some effort into this and don't slip into idle small talk; "How was your day?" isn't going to elicit any useful information for you and isn't going to communicate anything to them. Don't communicate during the work day unless you want them to think that you don't work very hard. Weekends are trickier; remember, you're trying to give the impression that you lead a busy, interesting life, and messaging on Saturday night or a beautiful Sunday afternoon doesn't give that impression. That being said, if it's a miserable day or they message you first, don't be afraid to respond on a weekend, and don't wait all weekend to respond to a message you got after work on Friday. Pick your shots.
- Don't be afraid to respond promptly. You don't have to check the app every 15 minutes, but you should be logging in at least once a day, preferably not late at night. If a girl is slow to respond it can be tempting to use that as a license to stall yourself, but remember, she probably has other options, and isn't going to keep talking to a guy who doesn't seem that interested. Sometimes you'll catch her on the app at the same time as you and you'll get a real-time conversation going, but mostly you'll get one exchange per day, and sometimes you'll respond one day and she the next, and you the next, etc. Sometimes things move faster, and people get busy and don't check the app for a while. Also, give her at least 48 hours to respond, but after this don't be afraid to double text. Sometimes people are just busy and forget, or possibly you did something to make them think you weren't that interested. I wouldn't worry about this making it look like you're needy. She might not be that interested, but you have to take all the shots you can at this point. If she still doesn't respond, but hasn't unmatched, at that point I'll wait until it's been two weeks since the last communication and send another message. After two weeks the app hides the dead conversations, but if there's another message it will unhide it and get you back on the radar. Usually it's a lost cause at that point, but you never know. Some people have things come up that make them drop everything, and by the time they get back on they won't respond to your message because they think the ship has sailed. I take the view that if they haven't unmatched me or otherwise communicated that they're not interested that I'm still at least marginally in the running and it's something worth pursuing.
- You should aim to have about three active matches going at once. Less is fine if you aren't getting any, but any more than that is wasting your time. Trying to keep a dozen conversations going at once is going to get pretty unwieldy pretty fast; it's time-consuming, and you're inevitably going to be more interested in some of the matches than others. There are obvious exceptions. Sometimes you'll get nothing for a while and get a flood all at once. Sometimes you'll have a full plate and more will trickle in, or conversations you thought were dead will get unexpectedly revived by the other party. Think of it as a podium with a first, second, and third. Any other active matches are off the podium, and the ones that have been around longer should be closer to the top. Everyone else you may be matched with is an off-podium reserve, and may include both active, unintentional matches and dead conversations who haven't unmatched you for some reason. If something changes with one of the finalists, knock them off the podium and rearrange things accordingly. Also, once you have a full podium, you should stop sending out likes. The last thing you want is women you might be interested getting short shrift due to bad timing and dipping out due to lack of attention on your part.
- Don't string along those lower in the running. This can be tempting, either because you have limited time for dating you don't want to waste on them, and you don't want to be on date two with your third place before you've gotten to date one with first place, or whatever. Women aren't stupid; if a conversation goes on too long without you asking them out, they're going to get the picture and will stop wasting their time.
- To that effect, don't let conversations drag on with anyone for too long without asking them out. This is obviously going to depend on the frequency of messaging, but unless there are unusual circumstances, you shouldn't go more than a week, and if you're getting (and sending) prompt responses it should be a lot less than that. In-app messaging should be used to establish rapport and show interest, and that's it. It's hard to get a feel for when a good time to ask someone else is, but you'll quickly get the idea. If the topic you're discussing is played out and you're scrambling to change the subject it's a good sign. If the conversation is flowing on multiple subjects it's a good sign. If the conversation is dying and you can't think of a response, it's a good sign. Sometimes you'll ask someone out because you're excited to meet her, and other times you'll ask someone out because you're bored with the conversation and are willing to take a chance that she'll be more interesting in person. If I get an unexpected response from a months-dead conversation, I'll usually just ask her out right there because I'm not interested in wasting my time again. As for what to say, keep it simple. "It's been nice chatting and if you're interested in hanging out let me know when you're available" is as good as anything. You don't have to propose anything right away, though if you're not available certain days, let her know. Sometimes people will be good with responding but get cold feet when it comes time for action. Usually it means they were just stringing you along as a plan B. I'll usually give them longer to respond to a date request, like a week, because I don't know if they're trying to figure out a schedule or something. If they still haven't responded, they're going to keep getting weekly messages from me until they either respond or unmatch. I can understand losing interest and not responding while in the messaging phase, but if there's an offer on the table, I think they should either accept it or reject it. There's no penalty for persistence, so there's no reason not to.
- As for what to do, I usually prefer drinks or coffee for a first date, preferably on a weeknight. Dinner is a traditional date option, but doesn't work as well for online dates. The cost of dining out makes it expensive for something that probably isn't going anywhere, and can attract the kind of woman who just wants a free meal. More importantly, there are disadvantages due to timing, as there is no date where dinner is the appropriate length. If it's going poorly you're stuck there til the end. If it's going well you're going to have to find a bar or somewhere else to go afterward, because the 60–90 minutes a restaurant meal takes isn't really enough time. If you're at a bar or coffee shop you can linger as long as you want or beat a retreat if necessary. For what it's worth, I only went out to dinner on a first date once, and only because the girl backed me into it, and she ended up being a bitch (not to me, but you can usually tell). I also don't like "activity dates" for a first date, since they tend to be similarly expensive and don't give time to interact. The purpose of a first date should be conversation, and I don't want to spend money to not talk to someone.
- When you're on the date, be yourself. If you end up getting involved, she's going to meet the real you eventually, so don't waste her and your time putting on a facade. If things went well and you'd like to see her again, let her know that you had a good time and text her the next day asking her out again. If you don't want to see her again, tell her you had a good time and leave it at that. Giver her a day or so to reflect on things. A decade ago, with IRL girls I already knew, I would tell them I'd like to see them again at the end of date one, but I don't do this anymore, because it puts them on the spot. I said this to the last IRL girl I dated, who was ten years younger than me, and she seemed uncomfortable and gave a noncommittal answer which ruined the rest of my night and the next two days. Imagine how surprised I was when she agreed to a second date after I asked her out again. Which brings me to another thing—I don't know if you're familiar with the "three day rule", but if you are, forget it. It may have some applicability depending on your age, but most mature women don't expect you to play games. Give them time to reflect, but don't feel the need to drag it out. If she agrees to a second date, it's going to be because she's interested in you, not because you used proper dating technique.
- Don't get discouraged. It will probably take I while for you to get matches, and you're probably going to be plugging away at it for months before you get off the app. This is normal for everyone. If you aren't getting matches after a month, then you need to take a serious look at your profile and make an adjustment. Also, keep in mind that these are real people, and treat them like you'd want to be treated. Online dating is similar to the internet at large, where people use the nature of the medium as an excuse for shitty behavior they wouldn't do in the real world. Try not to be one of these people, but don't hold it against other people. People will abruptly cut off conversations, but not unmatch you. People will cancel or reschedule dates at the last minute. People will take forever to respond without an apology or explanation for the delay. People will match with you but never talk to you. You'll meet people who text really well but in person have the personality of a manilla envelope taped to a beige wall. You'll have dates that you think went awesome with someone who doesn't want to see you again. You'll have dates that you think went terribly but you'll get a second one out of nowhere.
- There are a lot of people online who will tell you that this is impossible if you aren't a male model with an MD. Ignore them. I have numerous friends who have met long-term partners on Hinge, and none of them are exactly Adonis. None of them ended up with women below the standard of what I'd expect, and most of them are dating (or married) above what I'd expect. Also don't believe the people who tell you that since the apps have an incentive to keep you single they're specifically designed not to work. While this theory sounds plausible, there will never be an app that works so well that a major market will run out of single customers. There are definitely some weird idiosyncrasies and glitches, but by and large, the apps do what they say they do.
- Don't, under any circumstances, pay for this. Some people are convinced that the apps are designed to keep people paying, and that they won't work unless you pay. As I said, they work as advertised. Paying gives you access to features that are of dubious benefit. For instance, getting unlimited likes per day may seem like a good thing (the free version limits you to around five), but the consequence of this is that you end up burning through the local dating pool before you've had time to optimize your profile. Roses are a scam; don't bother with them, even the free one you get a week. Filters may have some use, but not for what they charge. Profile boosts are pointless for men, who don't need more people seeing their profile for reasons stated above. These features are window dressing for their real purpose, which is to attract the kind of undateable whales with bad profiles who are convinced that their lack of success is due to them not paying enough money.
- Beyond this, I can't really give you advice. The first step is creating a profile that is likely to get you matches, and the second step is managing your matches so that you can get dates. During this period, you basically are your profile, which is why the profile is so important. After you meet, though, you transform into a real person, and so does she, and now anything I can tell you is just basic dating advice you can get anywhere else.
Best of luck to you.
TIRM
2hr ago
almost any other group of people when they have any choice to mate with Europeans at all
Potential counter example: my white former classmates, former coworkers and current coworkers.
There aren't that many Asians in America, but they seem to be preferred by many of the white people I know. The pairings I notice far exceed any expected amount not explained by a large bias in each others favor. I also married one, so I'm not judging.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
2hr ago
I thought that were the thousands of news headlines along the lines of "worst summer ever; climate finally punishes us for our sins; repent now the end is nigh".
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
2hr ago
I don't get it. What exactly is the problem with their appearance?
Seems like reading really deep into very little.
I know people who approximately look like this type. Aging, balding white guy with beard. I have no complaints about their looks or character.
Could use more exercise and less food. True, but also true for most Americans their age.
Agreed. I look nothing like those guys and have no complaints. Aging white guys with beards, some balding. Seems pretty typical to me. Could use more cardio, less carbs if we are going to get picky.
FistfullOfCrows
2hr ago
I want my buildings on giant-fuck-off concrete/steel stilts engineered so hard that the wrath of god can't touch em.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
2hr ago
Yep, alarm fatigue is all too easy to fall into. It's always well meaning - someone makes the case that X should be really important, and nobody wants to be the one to tell them "actually that isn't important enough". But when everything is important, nothing is, and so people start to ignore everything as a way to cope with the onslaught. It applies to the phone alerts of course, but I see it all the time in network monitoring systems too. Sometimes you even see people start to invent higher tiers of "high priority" in an attempt to solve the problem, but unless they solve the actual problem (no one is willing to say no/they aren't listened to if they do), such efforts go about as you would expect.
MathWizard
Good things are good
3hr ago
I hesitate to be the cold calculating math guy but.... no wait, I can't help myself, I am that guy: 80 people isn't actually that many. I mean, obviously every death is a tragedy for themselves and the people who knew them. But when you zoom out to the perspective of a country of 300 million people, it's tiny.
80 deaths 80 QALYS lost 365 2460 = 11 QALMS (Quality adjusted life minutes). That is, on average preventing a catastrophe of this magnitude is worth 11 minutes of life averaged over everybody in the country. If your proposed solutions of "don't let kids be kids anymore", "take time doing flood preparedness drills" and "spend lots of money damming every river everywhere" costs more than 11 minutes per person in terms of actual time and lessened enjoyment and life lived, then it won't be worth it. (though if you can get costs lower than that it is worth it).
Google says annual flood deaths in the U.S. are ~125, so ballpark this number is approximately right, you'd have to prevent this many deaths at that cost ratio consistently every year (and you'd actually have to reduce it by that much, across the entire country, not just Summer Camps).
I think we should let kids be kids, and we should sometimes consider the inherent risks acceptable. People die, it's a thing that happens. And it's bad that it happens, but if we don't have magic finger snapping powers that make it not happen for free, then we have to consider the costs and tradeoffs. And the thing nobody wants to admit is that, mathematically, there MUST be a point where the costs are no longer worth it. You can make arguments about where that point is, but the argument has to start with the assumption that there is such a point.
ABigGuy4U
3hr ago
The real turning point will be when insurance companies stop covering those areas. Flood insurance in the Texas gulf coast already has to be subsidized by the state government because it’s just not profitable anymore.
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
3hr ago
Re. mysqldump, that's what we did last time we had to do this, but I was hoping there was a less manual way. You can do automate anything with enough scripts and DevOps duct tape, but I try to take zero maintenance options whenever I can because I have to scale my meager team and hiring is rough now (because our budget is shit).
Re. the security team, the tech details matter less than the perception. They're more of a compliance team than a security team. Such is life outside of Silicon Valley, sadly.
TitaniumButterfly
3hr ago
This would make a great drunken assertion but it feels kinda random in context.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3hr ago
Was this meant as a reply to me or OP?
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3hr ago
Mastering chaotic systems is the whole point of the game. That's what civilization is for, managing irrigation and controlling rivers is one of the oldest duties of government. We should also be working harder on controlling the weather. Weather is very complex but new AI methods are useful here, plus more sensors would be useful.
Building infrastructure to be replaceable and developing early warning systems is good but controlling the system entirely is better. Past a certain level of development, when human activity alters the whole climate system, we have to get more serious about controlling the environment rather than simply inhabiting it.
Imagine a man living in a huge mansion. His presence reshapes it slowly but surely as he builds up endless empty beer cans, bags full of garbage are overflowing. Rats and pests are building up. There are mysterious stains on the walls. And the mansion isn't so great in the first place, there are floorboards that mustn't be stood on, broken windows that let in the cold air.
He can either minimize his presence (not buy all these beer cans, eat 100% of his food so there's minimal waste, not tread where it's dangerous) or he can grow up and clear out all the garbage, renovate to fix up this place. Even though renovations are expensive, exhausting and you never know what kind of unexpected costs will emerge, it's still the right decision.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
4hr ago
Not even close. A person's livelihood is far more important than any given celebration, let alone this one which isn't even that important.
This is completely true, and it's an argument against the point the original essay was making. The democratisation of art has diluted technical and formal criteria by dismantling traditional forms of gatekeeping - not some new-found elitism.
Poetry's downfall in particular which you mention seems to me to be suffering from a similar issue - our elites aren't reading anymore and have little meaningful exposure to the great classics of Western poetry. The Rupi Kaur-style of poetry is successful because it is extremely undemanding to read and easy to consume, perfectly fit for a society that acquired Ivy League Humanities degrees by using Sparknotes and summarized bullet points to interact with a Lord Byron poem. There is a stunning lack of snobbishness even in our most elite universities.
I find the concept of a "golden age of art" overly ambitious and reductive, but it makes for a fun dinner party conversation. Your periodisation leaves out the entire Gothic period and the Renaissance, not to speak of Classical Antiquity and Ancient Rome, so I have trouble getting on board with it as the decisive high watermark of art. I also find much of the 18th Century to be a relative low point in the Western tradition of painting before 1900, but I think that's largely a matter of taste.
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