social media use really calls for something closer to a driver's license than terms of service... most apparent bad behavior here is more incompetence than malice, like not knowing how to change lanes or take turns at a 4-way stop..

trump's history on twitter is something closer to a crazy car chase on LA streets than bad driving (with the cops MIA, but media helicopters in pursuit), but almost all unpleasantness around here is just poor driving skills
not that I'm advocating for a licensing regime... that would be a terrible thing. Do not need a social media DMV. But the underlying principles (as tested for eg. in the written and road tests) are pretty good.
Written test would test things like "safe following distance" (reply-guying = tailgating?)

Road test would actually expose you to routine provocations. Like, "make a left turn" = "deal with this concern troll"
As in the driving test, where an awkward, unnatural, and unintuitive bit, the parallel parking test, is the toughest bit, there would be some such awkward maneuver you'd have to learn (hmmm... what's the parallel parking equivalent on twitter?)
defensive driving = mutes and blocks

each medium would be a vehicle class... twitter is basic cars, FB is semi trucks, whatsapp is motorcycles in the 3rd world without helmets
Edgelords are like illegal street racers. There will be a Fast and Furious type franchise around edgelording in a few years.
Having an expensive luxury car and being a good driver are entirely different things.

Having a big following/reach and being a good social media driver are entirely different things.
But just like having a fancy sports car correlates with being a Hollywood type who drives dangerously, so does having certain kinds of social media following.

And just like cars, followings can be earned or unearned, bought, leased, borrowed, inherited,... even stolen.
Metaphor breaks down in some ways. Growing a big following by edgelording would be a bit like a Corolla transforming into a Maserati by being driven dangerously.

More from Venkatesh Rao

I’m guessing these responses really reflect people’s weighted averages (age*current average effort fraction) though I kept it simple and asked for just averages.


I suspect a healthy weighted average should be ~ (age-20)/2. So a 30 year old should be at 5, a 40 year old at 10, a 50 year old at 15 etc.

Standard deviation should be ~average/3 maybe, so distribution spreads as you age and accumulate projects and get better at them.

Other things being equal, people get good at starting in their 20s, at follow through in 30s, at finishing in 40s.

No point learning food follow through until you’ve found a few good starts to bet on. No point getting good at finishing until a few projects have aged gracefully.

I’m in the 7+ range myself. Probably 8-9. Slightly less than healthy for my age.

I suspect most self-judgments on being good starters/follow-through-ers/finishers are really flawed because of the non-ergodicity of project management skill learning. You can’t learn good practices for the 3 phases in an arbitrary order. On,y one order actually works.
Both this thread and the outraged response threads are... something.


This is why I never wanted kids. Way too much responsibility for another human’s development. Depending on the child, this might either be the day they discovered who they were or the day that traumatized them into a lifelong fuckup. Either way I don’t want to direct the show.

As far as the can opener goes, it wouldn’t even occur to me to try and turn it into a teachable moment. That sounds vaguely quixotic. I’d just show them how immediately. I think my default is to try and instruct clearly but not demonstrate unless the person is truly disoriented.

I think there’s basically a right answer here: show the kid. If the kid has the aptitude they’ll enjoy the mechanism so much they’ll develop the figure-it-out skill with other devices. If not, it’s a training data point that will build remedial levels of intuition more slowly.

I think perseverance is both misframed and over-rated as a virtue. Misframed as in: everybody has potential for it in some areas and lacks it in others. Aptitude is those areas where perseverance comes easily to you. Meta-skill of knowing where/why you persist is more important.
Heh, one thing the nyt piece managed was to do a Cunningham's law nerdsnipe-wmd at newspaper scale... now a bunch of people are energetically trying to post the right answer.


IMO trying to correct whatever the NYT writer thought he knew/understood is futile. "Willing to be misunderstood by the NYT" should be the default stance unless you want to waste a lot of time correcting an obsolete 2013 map for people who don't care.

The thing is, the NYT still has enough normative cultural power, even as it has fallen from newspaper-of-record, that it takes a particular sort of heretical self-confidence to sort of ignore whatever they happen to be wrong about on any given week, whether or not it concerns you

A subtle shift has occurred in the workings of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. It used to be an individual private amnesia re: media ("I'll believe myself when I am certain they got it wrong because I'm an expert, but still believe them when I am not"). Now it's a collective effect

A sort of common-knowledge threshold has been crossed lately. "Everybody knows that everybody knows the NYT is wrong on X across largish subcultures." It's no longer mutual beliefs being validated occasionally 1:1.

More from Social media

1/ Creating content on Twitter can be difficult. A thread on the stack of tools I use to make my life easier

2/ Thread writing

Chirr app

Price: Free

What I like: has a nice blank space for drafting and a good auto-numbering feature

What I don't: have to copy and paste tweets into Twitter after thread is drafted and can't add pics

https://t.co/YlljnF5eNd


3/ Video editing

Kapwing

Price: Free

What I like: great at pulling vids from youtube/twitter and overlaying captions + different audio on them

What I don't: Can't edit content older than 2 days on the free plan

https://t.co/bREsREkCSJ


4/ Meme making

Imgflip

Price: Free

What I like: easiest way to caption existing meme formats, quickly

What I don't: limited fonts

https://t.co/sUj13VlPiO


5/ Inspiration

iPhone notes app

Price: Free

What I like: no frills & easily accessible. every thread i write starts as an idea in notes

What I don't: difficult to organize
Enter the thread if you dare. 😈

We’re counting down 13 of the best ways to Halloween on Snapchat. First up – matching Lens costumes for you and your pet.

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MDZS is laden with buddhist references. As a South Asian person, and history buff, it is so interesting to see how Buddhism, which originated from India, migrated, flourished & changed in the context of China. Here's some research (🙏🏼 @starkjeon for CN insight + citations)

1. LWJ’s sword Bichen ‘is likely an abbreviation for the term 躲避红尘 (duǒ bì hóng chén), which can be translated as such: 躲避: shunning or hiding away from 红尘 (worldly affairs; which is a buddhist teaching.) (
https://t.co/zF65W3roJe) (abbrev. TWX)

2. Sandu (三 毒), Jiang Cheng’s sword, refers to the three poisons (triviṣa) in Buddhism; desire (kāma-taṇhā), delusion (bhava-taṇhā) and hatred (vibhava-taṇhā).

These 3 poisons represent the roots of craving (tanha) and are the cause of Dukkha (suffering, pain) and thus result in rebirth.

Interesting that MXTX used this name for one of the characters who suffers, arguably, the worst of these three emotions.

3. The Qian kun purse “乾坤袋 (qián kūn dài) – can be called “Heaven and Earth” Pouch. In Buddhism, Maitreya (मैत्रेय) owns this to store items. It was believed that there was a mythical space inside the bag that could absorb the world.” (TWX)
1/ Here’s a list of conversational frameworks I’ve picked up that have been helpful.

Please add your own.

2/ The Magic Question: "What would need to be true for you


3/ On evaluating where someone’s head is at regarding a topic they are being wishy-washy about or delaying.

“Gun to the head—what would you decide now?”

“Fast forward 6 months after your sabbatical--how would you decide: what criteria is most important to you?”

4/ Other Q’s re: decisions:

“Putting aside a list of pros/cons, what’s the *one* reason you’re doing this?” “Why is that the most important reason?”

“What’s end-game here?”

“What does success look like in a world where you pick that path?”

5/ When listening, after empathizing, and wanting to help them make their own decisions without imposing your world view:

“What would the best version of yourself do”?