Comments for ribbonfarm

Comment on The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God by Kay

Kay — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:16:00 +0000

Beautiful. I could comment a lot on the final piece of your tragic theory of The Office but I better leave it as is and enjoy the artistic quality of the whole. This has become a rare experience for me, unfortunately.

I would like to see GP in print, on paper, good paper, which is worth to be gifted to others, not just e-book store- and forgetware.

Comment on The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God by Klepacio

Klepacio — Mon, 20 May 2013 00:28:38 +0000

After all is said and done, I’m still clueless.

And I suspect all narratives are nihilistic in nature, but we fill the void by putting instrinsical values into them.

Comment on The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God by ez

ez — Sun, 19 May 2013 20:18:09 +0000

I was thinking about uses for this post. I have thought of these points (which may be incomplete or totally wrong) so far:

1. Gods do not talk back. (Key insight that needs to be grasped at the instinctual level or else all the other steps will fail.)
2. When dealing with clueless, subtract away emotional realities to gain advantage in material realities (i.e. structure the deal in your advantage.) (Easier said than done. Hard to do naturally every day if you do not embrace point 1.)
3. When dealing with losers, add/manipulate the emotional realities to gain advantage in material realities (i.e. structure the deal in your advantage.) (Easier said than done. Hard to do naturally every day if you do not embrace point 1.).
4. When dealing with socialpaths, you are negotiating what deals to offer the clueless and losers. When there are no rules, value to sociopaths involves deals to alter the realities for losers and clueless. To sociapaths, money and status itself only has meaning to sustain their personal needs and services (food water clothing, luxurious) and to alter the realities for others.

Comment on The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God by James F

James F — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:03:20 +0000

Your description of the Sociopath reminds me of http://theviewfromhell.blogspot.com/2012/09/trying-to-see-through-unified-theory-of.html . It’s strange to think that nerds on the internet and C-level sociopaths result from basically the same process, but I have trouble not drawing that conclusion. The key difference would seem to be *when* they start trying to see through social reality.

Comment on Frequently Asked Questions by Ms • Blog Archive • Common Buzzards

Ms • Blog Archive • Common Buzzards — Sun, 19 May 2013 07:43:29 +0000

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Comment on The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God by Links – May 17, 2013

Links – May 17, 2013 — Sat, 18 May 2013 06:25:56 +0000

[...] The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God [...]

Comment on The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God by JiaoNing

JiaoNing — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:36:43 +0000

The hollow core is an important point. I never thought of seeing that as being the stepping stone into Sociopath-hood. I think that when people glimpse the fundamental truth of their own emptiness of self (as you eloquently described), it’s shaking…

For the loser, the closest they every come to reality is when they’re all depressed and lamenting that everything is meaningless. They just keep wanting to attach self-pity and self-importance, I guess, to make THAT meaningful, in some social way or in a personal emotional way. Losers, thus, probably have a chance to get OUT. But everyone treats anyone who points at the meaninglessness of social reality and emotional responses as if they are “sick.”

I feel that you made some VERY good insight, and I’ll have to take a lot of time to think it through. To cherish and despise what you’ve said.

However, at first blush, I think it’s worth saying this. I am coming to see being a living entity as more torus-like, where the core is hollow, but something is defined in the aggregate movement of the whole thing.

There is not a squishy middle to derive happiness from, but if everything is taken as an opportunity, SOMETHING is created by one’s will. Also, there still may be objective Truths to discover. Meaning can be had in the discovery.

Comment on The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God by nemdam

nemdam — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:19:20 +0000

“Sociopath lives, lived under these conditions of freedom, are incomprehensible to non-Sociopaths. So they imagine hidden social realities governing the lives of Sociopaths, turning them into forces of nature.”

This paragraph brilliantly puts into context the idea of “The emperor has no clothes.” When this line is uttered, it is a Loser/Clueless getting a glimpse of the core truth of a Sociopath. Previously, the Loser/Clueless was unable to understand the Sociopath’s life so they projected all sorts of social realities and mythologies onto him or her. But when the facade is broken for whatever reason, this is the lesson learned. Unfortunately for the Losers/Clueless, if I am understanding the GP principle correctly, the emperor/Sociopath never has any clothes.

Also want to also say bravo. This was a truly outstanding series and a satisfying conclusion. Ribbonfarm readers need to get a Kickstarter fund going to force you to write about our favorite Sociopath shows under the GP perspective :)

Comment on The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God by nazgulnarsil

nazgulnarsil — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:35:01 +0000

This got dark fast, as it had to. But that the human condition is the sum of competing narratives does not have to be nihilistic, unless you let your narrative get outcompeted by nihilistic ones.

Comment on The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God by Cheryl

Cheryl — Fri, 17 May 2013 03:45:01 +0000

I think a lot of cynical losers will come to realize that they are much farther from sociopathy than they thought after reading this.

Comment on The Gervais Principle VI: Children of an Absent God by David Brent-Walker

David Brent-Walker — Fri, 17 May 2013 02:30:59 +0000

Strange, I was just watching Burn After Reading last night. Truly it is an excellent film. It’s tempting to say that Osbourne Cox is merely clueless, but in some moments he appears to exhibit some expanded understanding. It may just be posturetalk.

Although it occurs to me that the earlier installments of this series were more actionable, and also I was hoping for more illustrated examples of Toby’s pastoral beneficence, I can say that I very much enjoyed the series. Bravo.

Comment on The Economics of Social Status by Weekly Wisdom Roundp #197 – May 13th 2013 | The Weekly Roundup

Weekly Wisdom Roundp #197 – May 13th 2013 | The Weekly Roundup — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:36:43 +0000

[...] The Economics of Social Status – via http://www.ribbonfarm.com – As an economic good, social status is a lot like health. They’re both intangible and highly personal. In proper economic terms, they are private goods – rivalrous and mostly excludable. And the fact that they’re hard to measure doesn’t make them any less valuable — in fact we spend trillions of dollars a year in their pursuit (though they often elude us).But status differs from health in one very important respect: It can be transacted – spent as well as earned. It’s not a terminal good, but rather an intermediate good that helps us acquire other things of value. For example, I can trade some of my status for money, favors, sex, or information — and vice versa. #Economics [...]

Comment on For New Readers by Christopher Frey

Christopher Frey — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:25:26 +0000

Dear Venkatesh,

I just finished your book “Tempo” and was quite positive about it (I am unsually not to happy about most books that come close to business, economics or politics:)). I have the feeling that it comes close to what I once published in “Just to lazy to lie” (I admit that the English version is not the best one as I did the translation from German to Englisch myself:))
http://www.amazon.com/Just-too-Lazy-Christopher-Frey/dp/3837094375
http://www.amazon.com/Wer-ehrlich-faul-l%C3%BCgen-German/dp/3837051080/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368548705&sr=1-1&keywords=wer+ehrlich+ist

Comment on The Economics of Social Status by apoorvtrivedi.com » The Economics of Social Status

apoorvtrivedi.com » The Economics of Social Status — Tue, 14 May 2013 09:06:35 +0000

[...] via The Economics of Social Status. [...]

Comment on Honesty and the Human Body by Recomendaciones | intelib

Recomendaciones | intelib — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:09:47 +0000

[...] Honesty and the Human Body, by Kevin Simler [...]

Comment on A Beginner’s Guide to Immortality by Untitled | A Blemish is a Blunder

Untitled | A Blemish is a Blunder — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:13:13 +0000

[...] A Beginner’s Guide to Immortality (ribbonfarm.com) [...]

Comment on Blogging Residencies by Sabastian Haan

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Comment on The Economics of Social Status by Dan King

Dan King — Wed, 08 May 2013 20:44:54 +0000

I’ve posted a comment on this article on my own blog: http://trotskyschildren.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-status-of-marxists.html

Comment on The Economics of Social Status by Somewhere else, part 51 | Freakonometrics

Somewhere else, part 51 | Freakonometrics — Wed, 08 May 2013 06:10:39 +0000

[...] “The Economics of Social Status”by KevinSimler on ribbonfarm‘s blog http://ribbonfarm.com/… [...]

Comment on The Economics of Social Status by Glen

Glen — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:57:06 +0000

I think your first two implications contradict each other. In the first, you say that status is defined with respect to a community. In the second, you say that it’s a zero-sum game — and you dismiss David Friedman’s argument to the contrary. But the essence of Friedman’s argument is that status is defined with respect to a community! The idea is that there are many different status games going on, and you can to some extent choose among status games. You may choose to devote your time to seeking status in community A while conferring status (by playing the role of rank-and-file member) in community B. And if that’s true, then the zero-sum aspect fades in the super-game. It’s entirely possible for someone to gain more from having status in game A than you lose from conferring status in game B — and vice versa for someone else with reverse preferences.