Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[silverspawn]

[silverspawn]

The f.ds aesthetic also doesn't permit arrogance btw, which is why when I first posted my fan card expansion, it was not received kindly. In this case, think I've mentioned that before, the arrogant tone was totally unintentional; that was just what I used to sound like when I wrote important-feeling things. But later I've reworded it to sound less arrogant, and, lo and behold, it was received far better!

Aesthetics are everywhere. LessWrong's may be unusual and unusually narrowly defined, but every community everywhere develops their own aesthetics, and people take aesthetics into account when they judge content, even if they don't know it. Even giant categories like computer scientists have aesthetics, though they're much broader.

[silverspawn]

And all of this is kind of cruel because most people don't understand it, so if their style happens to clash with the prominent aesthetics, they'll just be poorly received and no-one will explain them why that is. If they give feedback, they'll rationalize other reasons instead.

[faust]

Beyond the intuitive perception of tone, there's pretty complex signaling going on. At a minimum, the style signals (a) disapproval of formal academia or science (and perhaps superiority?) and (b) disapproval of... how to put this... cultish or status-centered communities. And there's probably more.

Like for (b), the other thing that joking does is that it makes you sound non-arrogant and I guess non-serious in some way, which gives off a more welcoming vibe. Probably because most communities who think they're above normal science have adopted some kind of arrogant sounding style, so it's important to signal that we're different. And I know from examples that arrogant-sounding posts on LW are very much not tolerated.

I'm not sure about the second point, or I guess more specifically putting "cultish" next to "status-centered".

If you look at scientific texts, they will be obtuse and needlessly complicated but one thing you can't accuse them of is being manipulative. That is the territory you cross into when you start adding jokes and other rhetoric devices. The more engaging the read, the less critical you are towards the claims being made.

This is not supposed to be a defense of academic writing, but I think the problem with it is less that people are obsessed with status and that causes them to write badly but more that being a good writer is not a skill that you learn during an academic career.

[Awaclus]

The f.ds aesthetic also doesn't permit arrogance btw

I'm not entirely sure if that's true. The top two users with the most respect here are often pretty arrogant.

[silverspawn]

If you look at scientific texts, they will be obtuse and needlessly complicated but one thing you can't accuse them of is being manipulative. That is the territory you cross into when you start adding jokes and other rhetoric devices. The more engaging the read, the less critical you are towards the claims being made.

Well... I mean, yes. As soon as you optimize for something other than content, you're doing some kind of manipulation. But like... not doing that isn't a realistic option? And people do it unconsciously anyway. It's like with the video on seductive body language I've shared a few pages back. It is manipulative, but people who aren't autistic do it as well, they just don't know what they're doing.

[silverspawn]

The f.ds aesthetic also doesn't permit arrogance btw

I'm not entirely sure if that's true. The top two users with the most respect here are often pretty arrogant.

True... arrogance is complicated because it depends on how high status you're perceived of being. I don't think most people can away with it, but it's true that some people do.

[silverspawn]

Like definitely in my case, I had no business sounding like that, and I think there've been a bunch of similar instances.

[silverspawn]

Beyond the intuitive perception of tone, there's pretty complex signaling going on. At a minimum, the style signals (a) disapproval of formal academia or science (and perhaps superiority?) and (b) disapproval of... how to put this... cultish or status-centered communities. And there's probably more.

Like for (b), the other thing that joking does is that it makes you sound non-arrogant and I guess non-serious in some way, which gives off a more welcoming vibe. Probably because most communities who think they're above normal science have adopted some kind of arrogant sounding style, so it's important to signal that we're different. And I know from examples that arrogant-sounding posts on LW are very much not tolerated.

I'm not sure about the second point, or I guess more specifically putting "cultish" next to "status-centered".

If you look at scientific texts, they will be obtuse and needlessly complicated but one thing you can't accuse them of is being manipulative. That is the territory you cross into when you start adding jokes and other rhetoric devices. The more engaging the read, the less critical you are towards the claims being made.

This is not supposed to be a defense of academic writing, but I think the problem with it is less that people are obsessed with status and that causes them to write badly but more that being a good writer is not a skill that you learn during an academic career.

The cultish one was not referring to academia but to other groups that also try to put themselves above academia. RationalistWiki was probably an import one. I think LW's style signals both not being part of academia and not being like the usual people who aren't part of academia.

[Awaclus]

The f.ds aesthetic also doesn't permit arrogance btw

I'm not entirely sure if that's true. The top two users with the most respect here are often pretty arrogant.

True... arrogance is complicated because it depends on how high status you're perceived of being. I don't think most people can away with it, but it's true that some people do.

I think it has more to do with who you're being arrogant at, and what the subject matter is, although Donald X. could probably get away with it to a large extent in any case (I doubt I could). If you're being arrogant at people who are trying to help you, that's a lot worse than being arrogant at people who are being stupid.

[Awaclus]

And e.g. a lot of people are often arrogant on RSP by taking it for granted that their political or religious opinion is the good one and that everyone who disagrees is necessarily some kind of an idiot, and that's maybe not something that the f.ds community is particularly excited to see but it's got to go pretty far before there's any pushback against it there because it's pretty much to be expected in these conversations.

[silverspawn]

My take on that is more that the RSP folks are just a different community and hence have different aesthetics from the other folk.

[Awaclus]

There's a ridiculous amount of analysis paralysis when buying lenses for an interchangeable lens camera as a n00b. I think I have pretty much been able to nail down the main use case that my kit lens isn't really cutting it for and the rough ballpark of specs it needs to have for that (which itself was not easy), but I still have a bunch of different options that it's super hard to decide between.

[silverspawn]

I can't believe you PPE'd me with that, my message took like 10 seconds to write

[silverspawn]

Anyway. Hot take: Rowling is strawmanning Hermione because she's not as smart as her.

[silverspawn]

More for me to fix

[Awaclus]

I can't believe you PPE'd me with that, my message took like 10 seconds to write

I can believe it.

[silverspawn]

Another hot take: elf rights are a legitimately difficult ethical problem that smart people can and would disagree on.

I mean, it does also have easy parts. Shouldn't b e legal to beat your elves.

[silverspawn]

I think I've made a mistake assuming that normal, philosophically minded people already know the arguments for substrate-independence. A lot of them haven't even made it down to the valley of the U-shaped curve.

[silverspawn]

It sounds so adorable to say "most interesting game" or "sounding most upset" or "most cheerfully" even if it doesn't make any sense if taken literally

[silverspawn]

Another thing Rowling didn't think through: she always writes as if they have normal sized classes, but it's literally just 8 people. Super small group.

[Awaclus]

Another thing Rowling didn't think through: she always writes as if they have normal sized classes, but it's literally just 8 people. Super small group.

Huh, really? I always got the impression that there were a bunch of anonymous NPCs in addition to the named characters, but I'm not sure if I got the impression from the books or from the movies.

[silverspawn]

Nope!

[Awaclus]

Fucking Rowling.

[Awaclus]

There's a ridiculous amount of analysis paralysis when buying lenses for an interchangeable lens camera as a n00b. I think I have pretty much been able to nail down the main use case that my kit lens isn't really cutting it for and the rough ballpark of specs it needs to have for that (which itself was not easy), but I still have a bunch of different options that it's super hard to decide between.

I had already ruled out one option that was kind of within my budget, but a lot more expensive than other options I thought I could probably get away with. But now I've watched more reviews where people keep bringing up these minor problems with the cheaper lenses that honestly probably wouldn't ruin them for my use cases, but it's something that makes me feel less great about buying them, and now I even found a comparison video between this previously-ruled-out option and the most promising cheaper alternative and I think I've got to rule it back in. It's not like the cheaper lens did poorly by any means but the difference was pretty substantial.



Does anyone know anything useful about wide angle (but not fisheye, something like 12 to 18 mm I guess) Micro Four Thirds prime lenses that are suitable for low light/indoors video?