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[silverspawn]

How is the entire Black thing even supposed to work? They never explain how it went down that a dozen eye witnesses saw him blow up a street when it was really peter --  but fine. Say that happened. How did it go from that to him being the most dangerous criminal of all time? He never actually killed anyone -- and the thing with Harry's Parents isn't well known. So it must all be based on that one scene, where only one wizard supposedly died. It doesn't make any sense.

[silverspawn]

Right now, I'd say 3 < 1 < 2 < 4 < 5 < 6 < 7 < hpmor < Primrose

(no I'm kidding. But only about that last part.)

[silverspawn]

Would the world improve if everyone everywhere banned the use of thumbnails and casing? You are only allowed to use textual description for e.g. youtube videos, and no character except the first of every word is allowed to be uppercase?

[silverspawn]

Clickbait culture and excessive bureaucracy always have a super dystopian feel to me. That's where I see the devil Moloch.

[silverspawn]

On the other hand, I wouldn't have clicked on this album if the art wasn't so good. But I'd be willing to pay that price.

[faust]

Would the world improve if everyone everywhere banned the use of thumbnails and casing? You are only allowed to use textual description for e.g. youtube videos, and no character except the first of every word is allowed to be uppercase?

No.

[silverspawn]

Yeah, probably not.

But it would be better if everyone who made a clickbait title for something immediately felt extreme shame and had to sit in a corner for an hour.

[Awaclus]

Thumbnails are fine, and so is capitalization in titles (e.g. if your video is news about NATO, you probably want to write NATO in all caps in the title). The only problem is misleading and/or intentionally vague thumbnails and titles, and the much bigger problem is that so few people care enough to never click on clickbait that almost all creators have to do it if they want their videos to succeed even if they dislike the practice, which makes it very difficult to care enough to never click on clickbait. And while platforms would probably prefer if people were less stupid and watched videos with informative titles and thumbnails instead, they can't change the fact that most people would just rather watch videos with ShiTty titles and thumbnails, and so they have no incentive to try to prevent creators from creating the thing that people are going to watch more.

So if anything, it would be better if everyone who clicked on a clickbait title for something immediately felt extreme shame and had to sit in a corner for an hour. With the reduced demand for ShiTty titles and thumbnails, the market would take care of it.

[faust]

I would be better if with didn't live under a capitalist system in which the only way to make a living as a Youtube creator is to generate lots of clicks. There is no need for anyone to feel shame. (except I guess the people who own Youtube)

[faust]

With the reduced demand for ShiTty titles and thumbnails, the market would take care of it.

Lol. The market has created the demand for shitty titles and thumbnails in the first place.

[silverspawn]

I would be better if with didn't live under a capitalist system in which the only way to make a living as a Youtube creator is to generate lots of clicks. There is no need for anyone to feel shame. (except I guess the people who own Youtube)

I don't buy this. At least not in a vacuum -- you maybe have some ideas of how a non-capitalist system would change goals of people in a more fundamental way. But I don't buy that people only engage in this stuff because they need the money, or even for money at all. People literally enjoy seeming numbers go up, as demonstrated by games like clicker heroes. If they didn't earn money, they would still do it for the views. Probably some people would stop, but I don't many would.

And a lot of people are cooperating in this global prisoner's dilemma already by not doing it.

[silverspawn]

So if anything, it would be better if everyone who clicked on a clickbait title for something immediately felt extreme shame and had to sit in a corner for an hour. With the reduced demand for ShiTty titles and thumbnails, the market would take care of it.

That would be better, but it's not achievable.

[faust]

I would be better if with didn't live under a capitalist system in which the only way to make a living as a Youtube creator is to generate lots of clicks. There is no need for anyone to feel shame. (except I guess the people who own Youtube)

I don't buy this. At least not in a vacuum -- you maybe have some ideas of how a non-capitalist system would change goals of people in a more fundamental way. But I don't buy that people only engage in this stuff because they need the money, or even for money at all. People literally enjoy seeming numbers go up, as demonstrated by games like clicker heroes. If they didn't earn money, they would still do it for the views. Probably some people would stop, but I don't many would.

And a lot of people are cooperating in this global prisoner's dilemma already by not doing it.

People enjoy lots of things. Numbers going up is one of them. Producing content that reflects their intentions in the best possible way is another. I have heard multiple YouTubers talk about how they would rather not do clickbait-y stuff/focus on topics that they feel are more interesting/important but less "trendy" - but they literally can't because they will starve if they do.

[Awaclus]

With the reduced demand for ShiTty titles and thumbnails, the market would take care of it.

Lol. The market has created the demand for shitty titles and thumbnails in the first place.

...because they're attractive to people. The point is to make them unattractive. Markets don't create demand for unattractive things.

[silverspawn]

I would be better if with didn't live under a capitalist system in which the only way to make a living as a Youtube creator is to generate lots of clicks. There is no need for anyone to feel shame. (except I guess the people who own Youtube)

I don't buy this. At least not in a vacuum -- you maybe have some ideas of how a non-capitalist system would change goals of people in a more fundamental way. But I don't buy that people only engage in this stuff because they need the money, or even for money at all. People literally enjoy seeming numbers go up, as demonstrated by games like clicker heroes. If they didn't earn money, they would still do it for the views. Probably some people would stop, but I don't many would.

And a lot of people are cooperating in this global prisoner's dilemma already by not doing it.

People enjoy lots of things. Numbers going up is one of them. Producing content that reflects their intentions in the best possible way is another. I have heard multiple YouTubers talk about how they would rather not do clickbait-y stuff/focus on topics that they feel are more interesting/important but less "trendy" - but they literally can't because they will starve if they do.

Well -- if X has to steal food from someone to survive but also likes the thrill if stealing, and you ask X about why they've stolen, what do you think their answer will be?

[faust]

With the reduced demand for ShiTty titles and thumbnails, the market would take care of it.

Lol. The market has created the demand for shitty titles and thumbnails in the first place.

...because they're attractive to people. The point is to make them unattractive. Markets don't create demand for unattractive things.

Markets decide what people find attractive.

[Awaclus]

Markets decide what people find attractive.

Each individual decides what that particular individual finds attractive (although usually it's not a decision they have any conscious control over). Markets only reflect this. (It might be that sometimes individuals make that decision in a way that partially depends on markets, but that isn't the same as the market making the decision and it doesn't happen at all in many cases; nobody chooses to click on clickbait because they think that clickbait is highly valued by everyone else.)

[silverspawn]

Aren't both extremes rather obviously untrue? People's buying matters are totally different despite them being in the same market, hence individual preference matters. But Markets sell products that people didn't want before they existed, so markets matter.

[silverspawn]

*buying patterns

[Awaclus]

Aren't both extremes rather obviously untrue? People's buying matters are totally different despite them being in the same market, hence individual preference matters. But Markets sell products that people didn't want before they existed, so markets matter.

You can't just make a random product that nobody wants, start selling it, and expect people to suddenly want it. Even if you pour ShiTtons of money into advertising, that's just not going to ever work. When successful companies develop new products, they start the marketing before the product even exists, not so much by convincing people to want this thing that doesn't exist yet, but by doing market research to figure out what kind of a thing people would want that doesn't exist yet. And if you have a business idea but you don't have a company yet, you might not have the resources to do extensive market research like the established company does, but your intuition in that scenario is still to try to figure out somehow, at least based on a gut feel if nothing else, whether or not your product is something that people already want before you would actually go and start the company, and if it wasn't, you would conclude that it's not worth it to start it based on that idea.

[silverspawn]

Imagine being a Hogwarts student who does the final year in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and your teacher is Lockart

[silverspawn]

In book 1, they say Griffindor hasn't won the quidditch cup since Charlie Weasley was seeker! That means they haven't won the cup since the previous year! Because that's when Charlie was seeker!

[silverspawn]

I'm just going to ignore all canon that's not in the books, since Rowling mysteriously became a dimwit the moment she finished book 7.

[faust]

Aren't both extremes rather obviously untrue? People's buying matters are totally different despite them being in the same market, hence individual preference matters. But Markets sell products that people didn't want before they existed, so markets matter.

I mean, I was being hyperbolic. I do not think that markets have complete control over what people find attractive. But there are definitily cases where the markets (i.e. the capitalist class) have a significant impact on what people want.

You can't just make a random product that nobody wants, start selling it, and expect people to suddenly want it. Even if you pour ShiTtons of money into advertising, that's just not going to ever work.

I think that is proven wrong by actual effects. The fashion industry frequently does this thing where they have famous people wear their clothes to make people want them, and it seems that works very well overall.

The trend for women to shave their body hair was started by a razor company trying to expand their client base.

On a more substantial level, car companies lobby against public transport to increase demand for their products.

The idea that companies just cater to whatever needs exist and do nothing to manufacture demand is ridiculously naive to me.

[Awaclus]

I think that is proven wrong by actual effects. The fashion industry frequently does this thing where they have famous people wear their clothes to make people want them, and it seems that works very well overall.

The trend for women to shave their body hair was started by a razor company trying to expand their client base.

On a more substantial level, car companies lobby against public transport to increase demand for their products.

The idea that companies just cater to whatever needs exist and do nothing to manufacture demand is ridiculously naive to me.

"Clothes that let me pretend to be a higher status individual than I actually am" is a thing that people inherently want, the fashion industry only takes advantage of this desire. It's a similar situation with shaving for women; many women read women's magazines because making themselves appear feminine is something they inherently want to do and the magazines promise to address that by giving them advice on how to do it, and the shaving products advertised there promise to address that by making their users appear more feminine (how well the products actually deliver on these promises is not super relevant — products are allowed to be bad if they look like they're good).

Car companies don't lobby against public transport to increase demand for their products, but to decrease competition for addressing the need to move from places to other places, which people inherently have.

There are all kinds of marketing techniques that companies can do to make their products sell better besides designing the product itself to be maximally appealing, but it is ultimately only the customers who can decide whether or not your product is worth buying for them, and if you don't have a product that at least appears to help your customers in some way, it's not going to be successful.