I expected to see him in the list too, but after looking it up turns out he made his posts on web forums. I remember reading the compilations in the early days of the web and being fascinated by them.
> skiing enthusiast banned by court order in 1999 from posting on the Usenet discussion group "rec.skiing.alpine", after engaging in a flame war with other online posters. The heated exchanges lasted for months, eventually escalating into death threats, until a police detective from Seattle posted a request for all involved to calm down. All involved did except Abraham...
I'm sorry, this was probably annoying to all involved, but also so hilarious. Not least of which picturing a detective, who joined the force thinking he was going to solve murders and maybe even get a lead on D.B. Cooper sighing as he posted on a message board.
"First, make me care" is exactly right. But I also know that anytime you have narrative non-fiction on here, someone without fail argues that the author didn't get straight into the details.
My personal distaste for typical narrative presentations of interesting information is how often the first interesting details come 4-5 paragraphs in and then are slowly peppered from there. Really doesn't seem at odds with the advice here which can easily be applied to the opening sentence or paragraph, and title.
This is why good writing on the web is broken up into multiple posts split by concern, and with links to the others at the top of the article.
The real problem is when they SEO the shit out of it and replace those links with irrelevant trash meant to steal your attention and people only want to share the "make me care" posts.
The writers stop bothering even posting details when they have them. They bury the lede because it's what the "make me care" crowd forces them to do.
Someone may have already been curious about the topic beforehand. I’m guessing they already have some kind of itch or curiosity. For example, someone who is interested in reading a dense technical textbook that gets straight into the details likely has a preexisting question waiting to be answered, which is why they care. That’s what motivates them to keep reading, even when the material jumps directly into the details
I really have a hard time understanding why people post videos of themselves crying. Maybe I'm already old in my 30s, but it's hard for me to wrap my head around it.
Like, I get that at some level it's fishing for sympathy and pity, but your real friends are going to be there whether they have a video of you crying or not. Everyone else just... doesn't matter that much?
I disagree others don't matter that much. Attention means influence. If your tears garner attention, you prove your influence. Those seeking to influence to their benefit will see your proof and react accordingly.
I think it's an interesting relationship between influencers, especially young ones, and their followers.
Young influencers of this nature get a following because of their authenticity. They're genuine, honest, about their experiences, and the comments reflect it. People in the comments open up about their own problems and insecurities and issues. It creates an "illusion of community" as Edwards says in the article.
Now couple with that the complication of making money. An influencer indirectly makes money from their followers. I could easily see how someone who makes that authenticity part of their brand/identity feeling an obligation to their followers to continue to be honest even on subjects of high emotion. These people who are responsible for your success, your lifestyle, how could you be anything but brutally honest with them?
And just like in real relationship where showing vulnerability can strengthen bonds, it has the same effect on the influencer-follower relationship -- despite in reality being parasocial. And strengthening that bond also results in more faithful followers, which is financially beneficial.
Now, whether a given influencer is being vulnerable due to obligation or due to financial incentives, is unclear. For many it seems more obviously financial. But for others it does seem like a bit of a complicated mixture of the two.
Edit: Here's the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8J8fWCNqCI . Personally this feels more genuine than financially motivated, but that's me. And to be fair there is no actual crying in the video! Seems like a bit of a dishonest wording by the author of the article to claim as such.
Trees are big in the Torah and Bible generally. The Bible Project did a whole series on trees in the Bible. You've got the Tree of Life, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the cross, the tree in the book of Jonah, the fig tree, the parable of the vine and the branches, etc..
It all makes sense for a religion steeped in a desert culture. Trees are (relatively) rare, and what they offer is incredibly important and life giving.
In Norse mythology the first man Ask was carved out of a piece of ash tree and the first woman Embla out of a piece of elm. Ash is a good choice for tool handles and elm for constructing homes.
I've seen people be smug that they read books and don't watch TV before, but this is the first time I've seen someone be smug that they watch reality TV better than someone else.
You're right, this does come off as smug. It was really more of a culture clash; they were annoyed at us for talking over the show, and we didn't realize that not everyone talked over it. We enjoy engaging with the shows this way, but no disrespect or superiority was intended.
This is just so absolutely stupid. This group of people have somehow got it in their heads that their primary job is owning the libs, and not governing.
Independent of your views on immigration, or law and order, or anything. Juvenile shit like this does absolutely nothing to advance any policy goals.
Even worse, why should you average normie trust any image that comes out from the White House? If there's a serious national security issue, why are we going to trust a group of people who are willing to doctor a photo for such stupid ends?
> Independent of your views on immigration, or law and order, or anything. Juvenile shit like this does absolutely nothing to advance any policy goals.
You should stop appealing to some kinds of higher principles that are provably inexistant among Trump supporters. This kind of juvenile shit is why they like him in the first place. Anyone still siding with them deserves only scorn and disgust.
> This group of people have somehow got it in their heads that their primary job is owning the libs, and not governing.
Their voters wanted exactly that tho. Although they did not wanted harm for themselves, conservatives and republicans actively wanted this kind of "owning the libs" and insulting "the libs".
The democrats did try to do things like pass a huge expansion in immigration enforcement. Harris promised to have a republican in her cabinet. She campaigned with Liz Cheney. Did republican voters suddenly jump on board? No.
The Biden administration slow-rolled prosecution of Trump for his crimes because they wanted to court moderates and republicans. That failure enabled Trump to run again from somewhere other than prison.
"If only the dems had run Romney for president, then they would have won" is not serious.
> The democrats did try to do things like pass a huge expansion in immigration enforcement.
IIRC, Biden hemmed and hawwed on border environment until like a couple months before the election, when he issued some executive orders that actually had an impact. But that was too little, too late.
> Harris promised to have a republican in her cabinet. She campaigned with Liz Cheney. Did republican voters suddenly jump on board? No.
Except that was misunderstanding "republican voters" and the energy Trump was tapping into. Getting Liz Cheney on board was just Dem elitists trying to ally with the dying and unpopular elitist wing of the Republican party.
I'm talking about something far more radical than some warmed over 2000s centrism: jettison the much of the social-justice activist baggage and co-opt some of Trump's populist appeal, like his rejection of neoliberalism and support for effective border enforcement.
So Harris goes on stage and says that we are going to amend Title 7 to expressly exclude LGBT people from its protection. This would have led to victory?
> IIRC, Biden hemmed and hawwed on border environment until like a couple months before the election
You recall incorrectly. The Biden admin was trying to push congress to pass a bi-partisan immigration bill. It was torpedoed by Trump when he wasn't even in an elected position on the basis that it would help his campaign run on Biden's "immigration failures".
Trump does not support effective immigration enforcement whereby the rule of law is carried out. Rather Trump supports similarly ineffective immigration enforcement, just with the incompetence accruing in the opposite direction.
The point is twofold. First, we need to stop letting the fascists own this idea that they're effective at anything beyond causing unnecessary human suffering (that many of their sick supporters actually seem to relish).
Second, regardless of the Democrats' policies, the fascists won by promising a siren song of simplistic fairy tale answers that were never going to work out (obvious to anybody using half their brain). There is no way to remain honest and overcome this when the People want to choose feel-good lies over uncomfortable truths. And if you try to compete by adopting similarly dishonest tactics, you're never going to catch up to the fascists who have years of a head start and an emotionally-resounding message of restorative cruelty.
I disagree. The Dems shot themselves in the foot for several reasons:
- trying to appeal to the "center" instead of going the other way and channelling the more radical elements' rage against Trump. I believe Bernie would have beaten Trump as the nominee. Yes, the GOP would have painted him as a "Communist destroying the American Way of Life", but they did that to Harris anyway so being centrist gave the Dems nothing.
- not focusing on prices and jobs from day one, in simple terms the average uneducated worker could understand, and mostly, trying to say "things are good/better" which may have been true, but everyone else thought they were not when they went to buy eggs
- Biden trying to stay in for a second term instead of bowing out at the start
> It was massively selfish and incompetent for them not to make major policy pivots with the goal of just annihilating Trump and his movement. Instead they just treated it as a regular election, where the goal was to eek out a victory for their partisans.
It sounds a lot like you actually agree; those are all reasons why every Democrat constituent should be livid with the party "establishment". Instead, any time this point is brought up, people respond instantly with the "it's not a 'both sides' issue" thought-terminating cliché. In this case, one person says, "Okay, but obviously the other people shot themselves in the foot" and the response is "I disagree, here's how they shot themselves in the foot".
I think so. Something more in the Sanders direction would have been way better, though with a keener eye towards not alienating working-class folks (like putting a massive student loan forgiveness plan front-and-center did), with Trump's rejection of free-trade dogma, and jettisoning the social justice activism that loses rural areas and many working-class voters.
> Instead, any time this point is brought up, people respond instantly with the "it's not a 'both sides' issue" thought-terminating cliché
"Both sides" itself is also often a thought-terminating cliche. It is always important to look at the larger context these points are being made in.
Here, the original comment was taking individual Republican voters to task for supporting this performatively-cruel societally-destructive con man with a proven track record. This is something that every individual Republican voter directly did, while Democrat voters did not do and would not have ended up doing [had Harris won]. Harris, for all of her faults and would-have-been letdowns, did not openly run on a platform of destroying our society. Reasonable people can disagree with her policies, but she appeared to be poised to at least lead the country rather than deliberately divide us.
But the comment responding to that then tried to equate that blame to "both sides", going so far as to use the word "collectively" to try and bootstrap personal responsibility from the (obviously terrible) actions of the Democratic party.
So no, that is not an equal criticism in the context of criticizing Republican voters who actively voted for overt evil! The many failings of the Democratic party is something that definitely needs to be discussed, but not in the context of the much larger and more serious problems in the Republican party. Rather, bringing it up here seems like yet another instance of the only-Democrats-have-agency fallacy.
(I presume the downvotes without comment are just the same old fascism supporters who hate my framing because it clashes with the lies they tell themselves about what they voted for. The funny part is I'm no friend of the Democratic party either - I'm a libertarian who actually believes in many of the issues Trump abuses to rabble-rouse. But my country called, so I swallowed my own independent individualist pride and answered that call rather than falling for the siren song of destructionist grievance politics)
This is nonsense, I'm sorry. Trump literally got elected off of pure partisan vilification, insults and just bullshit in general. The idea that the left need to go high while Trump and the GOP openly courted shit like pizzagate is just nonsense.
The fact that the dems are weak assholes unable to make even symbolic measures towards someone that's openly violating the constitution and harassing citizens is symptomatic of the deeper rot of attempting to be a 'big tent' party and having zero actual spine or policy.
> This is nonsense, I'm sorry. Trump literally got elected off of pure partisan vilification, insults and just bullshit in general.
Did you pay any attention at all to the 2024 election? Biden's age? Inflation? The half-hearted, too-late pivot on border enforcement? What you say is nonsense. It's twisted misinformation. There was a lot more going on.
> The idea that the left need to go high while Trump and the GOP...
Yeah, it's cathartic to act like a kid on a playground, and unleash your inner asshole because some other kid was mean, but it's stupid and immature.
> The fact that the dems are weak assholes unable to make even symbolic measures towards someone that's openly violating the constitution and harassing citizens is symptomatic of the deeper rot of attempting to be a 'big tent' party and having zero actual spine or policy.
The dems are weak, but that's because they want to stay exactly as they are instead of becoming a truly majoritarian party. If the dems make Trump-like power grabs (as many liberals fantasize about), it'll just make Trump stronger, because he can and will use the backlash.
> Did you pay any attention at all to the 2024 election? Biden's age? Inflation? The half-hearted, too-late pivot on border enforcement? What you say is nonsense. It's twisted misinformation. There was a lot more going on.
Did you? Biden and the Democratic party was entirely focused on attempting to appeal to 'centrists' and Republicans, exactly what you wanted and they lost because of it.
> Yeah, it's cathartic to act like a kid on a playground, and unleash your inner asshole because some other kid was mean, but it's stupid and immature.
No, it's called having an actual policy and stance. If someone's behaving like a dumb asshole then they should be called out on being a dumb asshole. We should expect more from our politicians and one of those things involves actually calling this shit out.
> The dems are weak, but that's because they want to stay exactly as they are instead of becoming a truly majoritarian party. If the dems make Trump-like power grabs (as many liberals fantasize about), it'll just make Trump stronger, because he can and will use the backlash.
At this point, the only recovery from the damage Trump has inflicted upon this country is going to be a massive power grab. That means dissolving ICE and arresting everyone involved, packing the supreme court, pulling out all of the Trump appointees and criminally investigating everyone involved with this administration. And let me be very clear: any Dem that does not agree not only deserves to lose, but they deserve to be harassed for the rest of their life and never, ever hold another job again. There is no middle ground anymore.
> attempting to appeal to 'centrists' and Republicans, exactly what you wanted
Why do you think this is what they wanted?
> At this point, the only recovery from the damage Trump has inflicted upon this country is going to be a massive power grab. That means dissolving ICE and arresting everyone involved, packing the supreme court, pulling out all of the Trump appointees and criminally investigating everyone involved with this administration. And let me be very clear: any Dem that does not agree not only deserves to lose, but they deserve to be harassed for the rest of their life and never, ever hold another job again. There is no middle ground anymore.
This just ignores the point from the parent comment it is in response to; regardless of how agreeable these actions would be to you and others (myself included), there are many who could be easily convinced that the result will be harmful to them pretty much "because it's 'the Democrats' doing it". You can arrest however many thousands of politicians and agents; the problem would be exacerbated in that case since the same people who voted for Trump twice would feel even more aggrieved. Many of them like what (they think) he's doing and would jump at any opportunity to vote for someone similar.
What you describe would not be the recovery you hope for, at least not long term. Granted, I don't know what would be, but this issue is one of "post-truth" where significant amounts of people can simultaneously be convinced of conflicting opinions about an event, even given videos from multiple perspectives, as we learned recently. Throwing an easily-contested "massive power grab" into the mix is not a serious suggestion. The political machine that got Trump elected will easily get another demagogue elected off the back of lies mixed with truths about said power grab.
>> At this point, the only recovery from the damage Trump has inflicted upon this country is going to be a massive power grab.
> This just ignores the point from the parent comment it is in response to; regardless of how agreeable these actions would be to you and others (myself included), there are many who could be easily convinced that the result will be harmful to them pretty much "because it's 'the Democrats' doing it".
And I a key point is: rejection of Trump is not an endorsement of the Democrats, let alone a full-throated one. Remember: the Democrats are still really unpopular. A Trump-like Democratic power grab is just as unacceptable to many people, and putting voters in the position of choosing between two unacceptable power grabs to not a recipe for resounding electoral success. It's likely a recipe for failure.
A power-grab would emotionally satisfying for partisan Democrats, as they are angry at Trump and would be happy with the result. The problem is they aren't even close to a majority, and they're exactly the kind of people who should be told to hold their nose instead of being catered to.
>> And let me be very clear: any Dem that does not agree not only deserves to lose, but they deserve to be harassed for the rest of their life and never, ever hold another job again. There is no middle ground anymore.
The GP has a totally unreasonable attitude. It sounds like emotional lashing out rather than anything helpful or productive.
I wouldn't be so dismissive. With only two choices, you get a lot of variation on both sides. I'm sure some people were motivated by animosity, racism, misogyny. Others were likely motivated by things Trump is willing to say out loud: Our trade policies are hurting average Americans. Our oversea imperialism does not benefit average Americans. We need to "drain the swamp". Of course his policies actively make all those problems worse, and could generally be described as an unmitigated disaster, but the pitch was compelling to at least some set of his voters.
I am not being dismissive. I genuinely think that.
> I'm sure some people were motivated by animosity, racism, misogyny.
A lot of them were, in fact. But that was not my claim. Above all, they wanted to see this kind of behavior. That is what was Trumps main attraction the whole time.
> Our oversea imperialism does not benefit average Americans.
Trump is pure imperialist. His international politics is literally imperialism.
> We need to "drain the swamp".
Trump is the swamp and made corruption much much worst.
> Our trade policies are hurting average Americans.
Trumps and republican politics in general hurts average Americans even more. And it was the plan the whole time, Project 2025 is all about hurting average Americans.
I agree with all your points about Trump's actual behavior, and assure you that nobody dislikes him more than I do!
That said, I think "Trump's voters are all assholes" is a talking point NOT of liberal voters, but of the Democratic party, because it conveniently avoids any discussion of policy, particularly where the party and its typical voters may differ.
Trade is a good example. The bipartisan consensus since Clinton has largely been that unfettered trade is good. However, if you work in manufacturing, or are in a labor pool that competes with former manufacturing workers (or workers who might have chosen a career in manufacturing, or mechanical engineering, or processing engineering), then there are certainly some drawbacks to consider.
To be clear: I do not in any way endorse Trump's policy. I am not trying to discount "owning the libs", or violent racism, certainly both motivators for a good chunk of the MAGA camp. I am saying that it is worth considering policy issues that may have convinced people to vote for him. Especially if you separate campaigning from implementation. Trump's foreign policy has been intervention-heavy, but his rhetoric was frequently isolationist.
> That said, I think "Trump's voters are all assholes" is a talking point NOT of liberal voters, but of the Democratic party, because it conveniently avoids any discussion of policy, particularly where the party and its typical voters may differ.
I agree with what you said, that's definitely a talking point meant to maintain a feeling of righteousness while avoiding self-reflection.
I disagree with distinction between the "Democratic party" and "liberal voters," if anything, I'd say it's the opposite. By and large, I'd expect the professionals of the party to not be so stupid to use "Trump's voters are all assholes" as a talking point (even if they think it). IMHO, it's a talking point of extremely polarized liberal voters, who are letting their emotions get the better of them, and themselves thinking and acting in a more Trump-like manner.
Both the party and its voters seem extremely reluctant to think about their role in this, and seem to prefer to continue to make the same mistakes, hoping luck or other-side incompetence brings them a better result next time. It's so stupid.
> I'm sure some people were motivated by animosity, racism, misogyny.
> Others were likely motivated by things Trump is willing to say out loud ... his policies actively make all those problems worse
These two things are not mutually exclusive, but rather they are directly related. Republicans reflexively categorizing people into "good people" and "other" is exactly what made them not listen to any of the substantive criticism of Trump's "policies" in the context of what he claimed they would achieve [0]
Racism, misogyny, etc form the main structure of this dynamic, because they are straightforward categories that can be quickly judged. Even without any societal history of racism, it's too easy to adopt a 90% rule that white -> ingroup, and nonwhite -> outgroup. Since this categorization system now has "predictive power" [1], it becomes worth augmenting it with more rules and exceptions. A non-white person can become "one of the good ones" by "acting white". A white woman can remain ingroup-accepted by "knowing her place", or can become part of the outgroup by actively rejecting the heteronormative role(s) (eg declaring herself a lesbian).
After this stews for a while, gaining more and more "predictive power" (aka confirmation bias), there becomes a tacit rule that anybody not nodding in full agreement with the Party mantras is also in the outgroup. Essentially everyone "good" must be supporting this particular leader and repeating the litanies of a narrow Overton window - if you're not onboard, then the simple answer is you're not "good" and therefore not worth listening to at all - even if you're merely trying to point out how they are not going to get what they themselves claim to want.
The end result is basically a self-reinforcing cult that goes off the rails of all reason, and here we are.
[0] it's understandable that people reject criticisms of policies that come from a place of judging them with different values. For example, someone arguing that tariffs are bad because free trade is inherently good and brings benefits somewhere else, handwaving about the manufacturing economy being disrupted - not going to be very convincing to anyone that sees the lack of manufacturing jobs as a problem. But here I am talking about criticism within the policies' own stated goals. For example, even accepting the goal of wanting to bring manufacturing back, the current tariff policies are abjectly terrible.
[1] also given an effectiveness boost by most people not seeing a significant number of people from the "obvious outgroup" in their day to day lives, and instead mostly only sees them through mass media which highlights the worst examples
It's still a lot of money from a donor or PAC for this kind of change. I find it remarkably hard to believe that lines moving on Intrade would have a bigger impact than an equivalent amount of money spent on battleground state television ads.
These drugs seem to all be only allowed after Phase 1 trials, so still not quite at the level you're describing here.
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