Blue wall Oct 29, 2020

I photograph nice things when I am running, and send them to my boyfriend at home.

Empirical case study: how optimized are my Facebook ads? Oct 28, 2020

(Other thoughts on The Social Dilemma: one, two)

For some more direct evidence about how aggressively Facebook optimizes its content, we can also look at its content.

Here are a bunch of ads it showed me yesterday (prompted by me seeing a particularly compelling ad (#2) and thinking of this, then just noting the other ones starting at the top of the page):

Whence the symptoms of social media? Oct 27, 2020

A thing I liked about The Social Dilemma was the evocative image of oneself being in an epic contest for one’s attention with a massive and sophisticated data-nourished machine, tended by teams of manipulation experts. The hopelessness of the usual strategies—like spur-of-the-moment deciding to ‘try to use social media less’—in the face of such power seems clear.

But another question I have is whether this basic story of our situation—that powerful forces are fluently manipulating our behavior—is true.

Some contrary observations from my own life:

But what kinds of puppets are we? Oct 26, 2020

I watched The Social Dilemma last night. I took the problem that it warned of to be the following:

1. Social media and similar online services make their money by selling your attention to advertisers
2. These companies put vast optimization effort into manipulating you, to extract more attention
3. This means your behavior and attention is probably very shaped by these forces (which you can perhaps confirm by noting your own readiness to scroll through stuff on your phone)

This seems broadly plausible and bad, but I wonder if it isn’t quite that bad.

Yet another world spirit sock puppet Oct 25, 2020

I have almost successfully made and made decent this here my new blog, in spite of little pre-existing familiarity with relevant tools beyond things like persistence in the face of adversity and Googling things. I don’t fully understand how it works, but it is a different and freer non-understanding than with Wordpress or Tumblr. This blog is more mine to have mis-built and to go back and fix. It is like not understanding why your cake is still a liquid rather than like not understanding why your printer isn’t recognized by your computer.

My plan is to blog at worldspiritsockpuppet.com now, and cross-post to my older blogs the subset of posts that fit there.

The main remaining thing is to add comments. If anyone has views about how those should be, er, tweet at me?

The end of ordinary days Oct 24, 2020

One time as I was burping, the thought occurred to me that there would be a last burp in my life; a final silence on that familiar bodily stage. And while I wasn’t a particular burping enthusiast, it was a sad thought. Since then, burping often reminds me of this.

Why aren't P100s all the rage? Oct 23, 2020

Some confusing facts:

• P100 masks plausibly increase the safety of activities by a factor of a hundred, if worn correctly, which can’t be that hard. And my uneducated guess is that worn imperfectly they should be a lot better than a surgical mask at least.
• P100 masks cost about $60 (or $30 pre-pandemic, if I recall), and a single one can be reused indefinitely
• Lots of people are greatly constrained in what they do by covid risk.
• I have seen almost no discussion of or interest in P100s. It took me a bit of searching to even figure out if they were helpful, since the internet was so disinterested in the topic.

What gives?

P100 PSA Oct 22, 2020

If I understand, a well fitted P100 mask might increase the covid-safety of activities by a factor of about a hundred (though note well fitted, and I’m unclear on how hard it is to fit them perfectly, or on how good they are if not—I treat it as a smaller factor).

My city Oct 21, 2020

People often tell me that they don’t like San Francisco, especially of late. It’s dirty, or depressing, or has the wrong vibe, or is full of people who think it is reasonable to ban straws, or is the epitome of some kind of sinister social failing. Which are all plausible complaints.

I’m reminded of this thought from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, which my boyfriend and I have been meanderingly reading in recent months:

Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing – say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne or the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would attire herself as a woman does when she is loved. For decoration is not given to hide horrible things: but to decorate things already adorable. A mother does not give her child a blue bow because he is so ugly without it. A lover does not give a girl a necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say that this is a mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization and you will find them knotted round some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.

American Politics Oct 20, 2020

The other day I had a dentist appointment, and as an alternative to focusing on whether or not it was currently unpleasant, I tried to become interested in American politics.

It’s not that American politics fails to be attention-grabbing. But a casserole falling on the floor is attention grabbing, and I wouldn’t say that I’m interested in falling casseroles. I do read about the political situation, but like a casserole-fall viewer, mostly with curiosity and responsive dismay, not with real intellectual engagement or fertile thinking. Why?