In status games played at the level of teenagers (of whatever chronological age), by criticising something you place yourself above it, but by praising it you place yourself at or below. This is a strong motivation for the immature to be negative about everything.
Going off on a bit of a tangent from this:
This is one reason I don’t read reddit. (The other is that a collection of stuff selected only by the criterion “someone thought this link worth sharing” isn’t going to have a significant proportion of stuff I want to read. It will just be a useless distraction.)
For the same reason, I don’t read sucks sites in general, e.g. xkcdsucks.com or lesswrongsucks.com, I mean, talk about writing down your bottom line first. I don’t even read badscience or Pharyngula, sterling service though they do in the cause of rationality. There’s enough bad science out there for them to be free of the bottom line fallacy, but I don’t need to read them torpedoing idiocy every day, however deserving their targets. It’s good that they exist, but I’m not bookmarking their RSS.
As a rule of thumb, I’m not interested in what someone is against until they’ve said what they’re for, which makes Mencius Moldbug a great deal less interesting for me than he would be if he wrote more on what he would replace the Modern Structure with than on how vile it is.
The rule of impro, that “No” is always a bad move, and all good moves have the form “Yes, And”, can be applied to every area of life.
As a rule of thumb, I’m not interested in what someone is against until they’ve said what they’re for, which makes Mencius Moldbug a great deal less interesting for me than he would be if he wrote more on what he would replace the Modern Structure with than on how vile it is.
I’m not a Moldbug expert, nor much of an enthusiast, but I can tell you where to find the essays you’re looking for. There’s a tagged list of Moldbug’s posts here. The essays you’re looking for are tagged patchwork. You could also check out the essays tagged neocameralism if you have a lot of time to kill.
In addition to cynicism being popular right now, revealing that you care about something constitutes exposing a weakness to be attacked. Acting like you don’t care about anything avoids giving your enemies the opportunity to hurt you.
A couple of reasons:
It’s easier to be negative than to be positive.
In status games played at the level of teenagers (of whatever chronological age), by criticising something you place yourself above it, but by praising it you place yourself at or below. This is a strong motivation for the immature to be negative about everything.
Going off on a bit of a tangent from this:
This is one reason I don’t read reddit. (The other is that a collection of stuff selected only by the criterion “someone thought this link worth sharing” isn’t going to have a significant proportion of stuff I want to read. It will just be a useless distraction.)
For the same reason, I don’t read sucks sites in general, e.g. xkcdsucks.com or lesswrongsucks.com, I mean, talk about writing down your bottom line first. I don’t even read badscience or Pharyngula, sterling service though they do in the cause of rationality. There’s enough bad science out there for them to be free of the bottom line fallacy, but I don’t need to read them torpedoing idiocy every day, however deserving their targets. It’s good that they exist, but I’m not bookmarking their RSS.
As a rule of thumb, I’m not interested in what someone is against until they’ve said what they’re for, which makes Mencius Moldbug a great deal less interesting for me than he would be if he wrote more on what he would replace the Modern Structure with than on how vile it is.
The rule of impro, that “No” is always a bad move, and all good moves have the form “Yes, And”, can be applied to every area of life.
I’m not a Moldbug expert, nor much of an enthusiast, but I can tell you where to find the essays you’re looking for. There’s a tagged list of Moldbug’s posts here. The essays you’re looking for are tagged patchwork. You could also check out the essays tagged neocameralism if you have a lot of time to kill.
In addition to cynicism being popular right now, revealing that you care about something constitutes exposing a weakness to be attacked. Acting like you don’t care about anything avoids giving your enemies the opportunity to hurt you.