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For what it is worth, I saw this story and thought "Oh, I love this; creative use of metadata in the payments system", principally because I am professionally i

For what it is worth, I saw this story and thought "Oh, I love this; creative use of metadata in the payments system", principally because I am professionally involved with payments. All the "coincidences" here are explainable by "people who geek out on X will tend to see a lot more X in their daily lives than civilians and will become focal points for other people who geek out on X, who see a lot more X in their daily lives than civilians." You can trivially reproduce "OMG banks!" on any social media feed you control; just kvetch in public about a banking story. Also, there are people on HN who do marketing for a living (checks business cards including me?), and to the extent that you model someone as going into their planning meeting with "OK guys I have this great idea for how to hit our Q4 numbers: lets do stealthmarketing on our personal Twitter accounts", you should know that that would not receive the reply "Genius Bob, why do we employ teams of expensive professionals to do this when you come up with such pearls of wisdom for free." Mentioning this half because excessive cynicism is a failure mode for geeks and half because many people on HN will, at some point in their life, actually have to get good at causing people to adopt a product or service, and HNers should correct the mental model that would suggest that this is in any way aimed at or effective at causing adoption of a product or service.

natural219 7y ago
I guess we can assume by this that TransferWise is patio11 approved :D
TulliusCicero 7y ago
Reflexive cynicism is a simple, easy way of asserting intellectual superiority over others without directly insulting them. Super common in internet comments, including, arguably, this one. It's vastly less complicated to just assume and assert that everything is bullshit everywhere, all the time, than to actually try to discern where cynicism and optimism are each warranted.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >Reflexive cynicism is a simple, easy way of asserting intellectual superiority over others without directly insulting them. Super common in internet comments, including, arguably, this one. Or maybe it's a natural adaptation to a world where almost everybody seems to have some ulterior motive. Edit: a word
  - Judgmentality 7y ago
    > anterior motive I think you mean ulterior motive :)
- 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
  floatrock is pointing out the fact that there is a motive for this to be a PR stunt. I'm not sure that's reflexive cynicism. I've seen that type of cynicism and it is ugly. It's also ugly to assume there are never ulterior motives, or to disparage someone for questioning something. I've found that just as there is reflexive cynicism designed to feel superior, there's also reflexive anger to people who go against the current. floatrock provided evidence and reasoning as to why he questions the validity of this event. He never put blanked statements and didn't even accuse the event of being fake. He merely pointed out it might be. Your comment is something I'd think of as reflexive anger toward cynicism. There wasn't any real weighing of evidence or deep consideration. Just a general dislike toward cynicism. BTW: I understand the word reflexive to mean: without thought and consideration, automatic and many times pre-programmed (i.e. prejudicial either toward cynicism or against it)
  - akerl_ 7y ago
    > He never put blanket statements and didn’t even accuse the event of being fake. He merely pointed out it might be. I feel like this is a debate-team style nuance that doesn’t really have merit in actual conversations. If somebody tells me a story about their day, and I respond “well, it’s possible that you made all that up, and this is all a ruse to trick me”, I’ve not accused them of making it up, I’ve just pointed out it’s possible. But I’ve implied an accusation, otherwise I’d not have gone out of my way to announce this “possibility”. And, as noted in your comment, you then do directly accuse the reply of being “reflexive anger towards cynicism”, with the implication that the audience is required to provide “deep consideration” when responding to the possibility. If the original comment is just pointing out something that could potentially be true, without any accusation, why are the rest of us required to give it deep consideration? Can’t I just respond “well it’s possible you’re fake!”? To which the original commenter could retort “no, you’re fake!” And then we go back and forth forever, secure in the knowledge that it’s impossible to totally prove the voracity of any story. That would lead to a lot of comments back and forth, but it seems unlikely any of them would lead to meaningful/productive discussion.
    - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
lonelappde 7y ago
It's called content Marketing and it's quite commonly seen here.
- ghaff 7y ago
  No, actually Content Marketing is not planting fake stories on social media.

natural219 7y ago

I guess we can assume by this that TransferWise is patio11 approved :D

TulliusCicero 7y ago

Reflexive cynicism is a simple, easy way of asserting intellectual superiority over others without directly insulting them. Super common in internet comments, including, arguably, this one. It's vastly less complicated to just assume and assert that everything is bullshit everywhere, all the time, than to actually try to discern where cynicism and optimism are each warranted.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>Reflexive cynicism is a simple, easy way of asserting intellectual superiority over others without directly insulting them. Super common in internet comments, including, arguably, this one. Or maybe it's a natural adaptation to a world where almost everybody seems to have some ulterior motive. Edit: a word
- Judgmentality 7y ago
  > anterior motive I think you mean ulterior motive :)
4ntonius8lock 7y ago
floatrock is pointing out the fact that there is a motive for this to be a PR stunt. I'm not sure that's reflexive cynicism. I've seen that type of cynicism and it is ugly. It's also ugly to assume there are never ulterior motives, or to disparage someone for questioning something. I've found that just as there is reflexive cynicism designed to feel superior, there's also reflexive anger to people who go against the current. floatrock provided evidence and reasoning as to why he questions the validity of this event. He never put blanked statements and didn't even accuse the event of being fake. He merely pointed out it might be. Your comment is something I'd think of as reflexive anger toward cynicism. There wasn't any real weighing of evidence or deep consideration. Just a general dislike toward cynicism. BTW: I understand the word reflexive to mean: without thought and consideration, automatic and many times pre-programmed (i.e. prejudicial either toward cynicism or against it)
- akerl_ 7y ago
  > He never put blanket statements and didn’t even accuse the event of being fake. He merely pointed out it might be. I feel like this is a debate-team style nuance that doesn’t really have merit in actual conversations. If somebody tells me a story about their day, and I respond “well, it’s possible that you made all that up, and this is all a ruse to trick me”, I’ve not accused them of making it up, I’ve just pointed out it’s possible. But I’ve implied an accusation, otherwise I’d not have gone out of my way to announce this “possibility”. And, as noted in your comment, you then do directly accuse the reply of being “reflexive anger towards cynicism”, with the implication that the audience is required to provide “deep consideration” when responding to the possibility. If the original comment is just pointing out something that could potentially be true, without any accusation, why are the rest of us required to give it deep consideration? Can’t I just respond “well it’s possible you’re fake!”? To which the original commenter could retort “no, you’re fake!” And then we go back and forth forever, secure in the knowledge that it’s impossible to totally prove the voracity of any story. That would lead to a lot of comments back and forth, but it seems unlikely any of them would lead to meaningful/productive discussion.
  - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago

lonelappde 7y ago

It's called content Marketing and it's quite commonly seen here.

ghaff 7y ago
No, actually Content Marketing is not planting fake stories on social media.