4 ms·

i miss smart people writing blog posts that stopped after twitter and went asymptotically downhill from there approaching, but never quite literally getting

by veidr 4mo ago

i miss smart people writing blog posts that stopped after twitter and went asymptotically downhill from there approaching, but never quite literally getting to the point of eating a dog shit sandwich (despite the same nauseous feeling and bad taste in your mouth)

throwaway27448 4mo ago
Substack is thriving, btw. Curiously I simply have less desire to read the thoughts of "smart" people than ever. Either write a proper book or distract me from the horrors of the world.
- veidr 4mo ago
  yeah, but substack is mostly just another twitter low-engagement farm also, your last-line worldview... i mean i get it, but... just basically sounds like the twitter origin story (T_T)
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - st3phvee 4mo ago
    > but substack is mostly just another twitter low-engagement farm That, plus it's also full to the brim with LinkedIn-esque AI slop. There are still some decent writers there, for sure, but Substack is going downhill fast as more grifters join the platform in the hopes of making a quick, easy buck.
    - throwaway27448 4mo ago
      How are you using it such that you even encounter writers you don't know?
      - st3phvee 4mo ago
        Via Substack's own recommendation algorithm, Substack Notes, and by perusing the leaderboards, both of which have been a thing on the platform for a while now. Substack's social media side is very Twitter-esque. Writers you follow "restack" publications (some of which are full of AI slop, unbeknownst to the restacker) and the algorithm also inserts "writers" you haven't encountered into your feed. ("Writers" is in scare quotes for a reason.)
        throwaway27448 4mo ago
        So—why do you use these features if you don't like them?
simonw 4mo ago
I frequently joke with people that the reason I have influence in the AI world is that I'm blogging like it's the early 2000s, when everyone else gave up on blogging as a medium. It's only partly a joke.
- veidr 4mo ago
  And, haven't you also been doing so since around the turn of the millennium? So, you might also be repped writ large in their their training data... (;^_^)

by veidr 4mo ago

throwaway27448 4mo ago

Substack is thriving, btw. Curiously I simply have less desire to read the thoughts of "smart" people than ever. Either write a proper book or distract me from the horrors of the world.

veidr 4mo ago
yeah, but substack is mostly just another twitter low-engagement farm also, your last-line worldview... i mean i get it, but... just basically sounds like the twitter origin story (T_T)
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- st3phvee 4mo ago
  > but substack is mostly just another twitter low-engagement farm That, plus it's also full to the brim with LinkedIn-esque AI slop. There are still some decent writers there, for sure, but Substack is going downhill fast as more grifters join the platform in the hopes of making a quick, easy buck.
  - throwaway27448 4mo ago
    How are you using it such that you even encounter writers you don't know?
    - st3phvee 4mo ago
      Via Substack's own recommendation algorithm, Substack Notes, and by perusing the leaderboards, both of which have been a thing on the platform for a while now. Substack's social media side is very Twitter-esque. Writers you follow "restack" publications (some of which are full of AI slop, unbeknownst to the restacker) and the algorithm also inserts "writers" you haven't encountered into your feed. ("Writers" is in scare quotes for a reason.)
      - throwaway27448 4mo ago
        So—why do you use these features if you don't like them?

simonw 4mo ago

I frequently joke with people that the reason I have influence in the AI world is that I'm blogging like it's the early 2000s, when everyone else gave up on blogging as a medium. It's only partly a joke.

veidr 4mo ago
And, haven't you also been doing so since around the turn of the millennium? So, you might also be repped writ large in their their training data... (;^_^)