> While I’m mostly assuming this post’s readership is American, this is a point I’d like to particularly address to my non-American readers. If you aren’t American, and most of your followers aren’t American, consider not posting about American politics! I realize this is substantially Americans’ fault (both because we think we’re the only country in the world and because we elected Donald Trump), but consider focusing your social media posts on the country your followers might actually affect.
So I've been doing this for a while on my socials, focusing posts on general policy proposals or "local"(i.e. my country's) issues, and I can tell you why content creators from other countries don't tend to do that: You get way less money that way. Your potential audience is just way smaller due to language alone, not to mention the sheer number of people with high disposable income in the US. This then leads to a vicious cycle where foreigners learn more about the US which makes the amount of people that can watch your content and give you money higher if you cover the US, etc etc. Now there are of course content creators that focus on covering a country other than the US, but they're not nearly as numerous, don't reach the same level of wealth and fame, and have a way harder time starting up.
I really expected this to be less politically strategic and more focused on not saying things you don’t mean or starting stupid arguments. I wonder if “strategic posting” would be a better description?
I also think the “people are reading your social media accounts on purpose, and so they might pay attention to you” argument is overused. I read social media to see someone’s unique insights or humor or art. When people switch from posting those to posting content that they don’t want to post but feel they ought to post, it’s often very obvious. When I visit Tumblr blogs outside my usual circle, they’re often clogged with page after page of reblogged GoFundMe posts, which are just as frustrating as any political ad.
This is the opposite of *mindful*, which is about full appreciation of the moment, and being your authentic self.
Whatever mindful is, it is *definitely not* about how to maximize the amount you change someone’s position on something. That is more like “calculating,” “manipulative,” “strategic.”
The established meaning of the word mindful is approximately 'being attentive to', or 'keeping in mind'.
The 'appreciation of the moment' usage is a recent and additional co-opting of the word by wellness culture - which is in itself a co-opted concept, but that's another story.
The use of the word mindful in this context is completely accurate, in that this is the older and more established usage.
Certainly language and the meaning of words changes over time, but it's a bit premature to be disregarding the primary meaning of the word mindful just yet.
I would be happier if you retitled this post to “lie and mislead readers expediently to achieve your political goals.”
Yes, obviously, it’s a politically optimal choice to make, but it’d be refreshing for you to, in a venue like this not aimed at misleading the masses, admit openly that’s exactly what you’re asking people to do and advocating yourself. (To his credit, Matt Yglesias has openly admitted this on Twitter—the citation is not hard to find.)
I don’t blame you for finding this the utilitarian-correct thing to do, but you know that’s what you’re describing, right?
My blog is not a random selection of my thoughts. It's a curated selection of my thoughts aimed at convincing my readers to take various actions I wish them to take, such as asking people out, being nicer to themselves, being more accepting of severely mentally ill people, recognizing when studies have terrible methodologies, donating to effective charity, going vegan, showing my posts to potential new readers, and giving me money. I don't think it's dishonest to add "electing Kamala Harris" to the list!
It would be dishonest if I said "you should elect Kamala Harris because I'm a huge fan of the Biden/Harris border policy" when I'm not. But I'm not doing that! I'm posting at the swing voter/me/Kamala Harris intersection, which is abortion policy.
I don't mean to be offensive ... but isn't this a manipulative relationship with one's readers? "...aimed at convincing my readers to take various actions I wish them to take..."
Would not a healthier relationship be just to share your thoughts without hoping to influence, because of a full respect of the readers understands that they may well have more wisdom on something than you.
This applies to everyone, of course. I like the book "Courage to be Disliked" which helped inform me on this.
Edit: Though I suppose op-ed writers do this all the time. Probably I'm holding your post to a higher standard because of its emphasis on mindfulness.
What sentence of Ozy's post do you think requests that people "lie and mislead readers"?
Ozy says "I don’t think you should say things you don’t believe" - isn't saying something that you don't believe a necessary condition of telling a lie?
I would agree that you can mislead someone while telling truths, e.g. talking about individual crimes committed by immigrants while leaving out the statistical fact that immigrants on the whole commit fewer crimes. But at most, what Ozy is asking you to do is to mislead about your own controversial opinions, by keeping them to yourself. That would seem to be no more misleading than keeping an adventurous amorous life to yourself.
I don't see where this is advocating lying. If my main issue were* "I think gasoline cars should be banned and Harris is more likely to do that than Trump," it's not _lying_ to post about how Biden lowered the price for insulin instead. He did do that. I did like it.
Yeah. It's not dishonest to say "Republicans blocked a bipartisan bill" when I don't actually care about that very much but expect that readers do. But it's grossly dishonest if I say "the Biden-Harris administration barred illegal immigrants from receiving asylum" and imply that it's a reason to approve of this administration, instead of immediately appending "which is an unconscionable violation of the Refugee Protocol, and ought to be tried as a crime against humanity".
Of course you could always say that near people who are going to be like "wow based, I want fewer refugees so I'll vote for Harris".
cmon, man. when grandma is over and you're discussing whether to go out to dinner at the Burmese place, is it obligatory to say "no thanks, grandma, I've been having an IBS flareup and I would hate to be shitting my brains out in a dirty concrete cube after dinner, getting my ass splattered with watery diarrhea" lest you lie and mislead grandma expediently to achieve your dinner goals? i don't think that's an accurate characterization.
Suppose your cousin runs a hotel. You stay there, and you have a bad experience: it's too noisy, the beds are uncomfortable, the closets are too small - but they serve a nice breakfast. You've also tried the competing hotel across the street, and their breakfast is an actual health hazard and their sound isolation isn't great either, but at least the beds are okay.
If someone asks you for a hotel recommendation, it seems manipulative and moderately dishonest to just tell them about the breakfast because you want to help your cousin.
I'm not against trying to influence friends and acquaintances. But doing it in these sort of appeal-to-the-masses ways rather than by sharing some of your more authentic personality has a similar taste as people using their socials for MLM promotion. And it reduces your social capital as a result.
Tipping your hand about doing it seems...maybe better? But I'd prefer it to come with a sense of irony or regret, as with Scott's Kolmogorov Complicity.
> While I’m mostly assuming this post’s readership is American, this is a point I’d like to particularly address to my non-American readers. If you aren’t American, and most of your followers aren’t American, consider not posting about American politics! I realize this is substantially Americans’ fault (both because we think we’re the only country in the world and because we elected Donald Trump), but consider focusing your social media posts on the country your followers might actually affect.
So I've been doing this for a while on my socials, focusing posts on general policy proposals or "local"(i.e. my country's) issues, and I can tell you why content creators from other countries don't tend to do that: You get way less money that way. Your potential audience is just way smaller due to language alone, not to mention the sheer number of people with high disposable income in the US. This then leads to a vicious cycle where foreigners learn more about the US which makes the amount of people that can watch your content and give you money higher if you cover the US, etc etc. Now there are of course content creators that focus on covering a country other than the US, but they're not nearly as numerous, don't reach the same level of wealth and fame, and have a way harder time starting up.
I really expected this to be less politically strategic and more focused on not saying things you don’t mean or starting stupid arguments. I wonder if “strategic posting” would be a better description?
I also think the “people are reading your social media accounts on purpose, and so they might pay attention to you” argument is overused. I read social media to see someone’s unique insights or humor or art. When people switch from posting those to posting content that they don’t want to post but feel they ought to post, it’s often very obvious. When I visit Tumblr blogs outside my usual circle, they’re often clogged with page after page of reblogged GoFundMe posts, which are just as frustrating as any political ad.
This is the opposite of *mindful*, which is about full appreciation of the moment, and being your authentic self.
Whatever mindful is, it is *definitely not* about how to maximize the amount you change someone’s position on something. That is more like “calculating,” “manipulative,” “strategic.”
As Ruffienne said, but also in DBT "taking the actions that will effectively cause you to reach your goals" is a mindfulness skill!
The established meaning of the word mindful is approximately 'being attentive to', or 'keeping in mind'.
The 'appreciation of the moment' usage is a recent and additional co-opting of the word by wellness culture - which is in itself a co-opted concept, but that's another story.
The use of the word mindful in this context is completely accurate, in that this is the older and more established usage.
Certainly language and the meaning of words changes over time, but it's a bit premature to be disregarding the primary meaning of the word mindful just yet.
The subtitle of the post clearly connects it with the 'appreciation of the moment' usage.
I think that's a joke based on the double meaning?
Oh, maybe. Well, I would argue that it's much healthier to live by the be-authentic meaning than the maximize-progressive-politics meaning.
I would be happier if you retitled this post to “lie and mislead readers expediently to achieve your political goals.”
Yes, obviously, it’s a politically optimal choice to make, but it’d be refreshing for you to, in a venue like this not aimed at misleading the masses, admit openly that’s exactly what you’re asking people to do and advocating yourself. (To his credit, Matt Yglesias has openly admitted this on Twitter—the citation is not hard to find.)
I don’t blame you for finding this the utilitarian-correct thing to do, but you know that’s what you’re describing, right?
My blog is not a random selection of my thoughts. It's a curated selection of my thoughts aimed at convincing my readers to take various actions I wish them to take, such as asking people out, being nicer to themselves, being more accepting of severely mentally ill people, recognizing when studies have terrible methodologies, donating to effective charity, going vegan, showing my posts to potential new readers, and giving me money. I don't think it's dishonest to add "electing Kamala Harris" to the list!
It would be dishonest if I said "you should elect Kamala Harris because I'm a huge fan of the Biden/Harris border policy" when I'm not. But I'm not doing that! I'm posting at the swing voter/me/Kamala Harris intersection, which is abortion policy.
I don't mean to be offensive ... but isn't this a manipulative relationship with one's readers? "...aimed at convincing my readers to take various actions I wish them to take..."
Would not a healthier relationship be just to share your thoughts without hoping to influence, because of a full respect of the readers understands that they may well have more wisdom on something than you.
This applies to everyone, of course. I like the book "Courage to be Disliked" which helped inform me on this.
Edit: Though I suppose op-ed writers do this all the time. Probably I'm holding your post to a higher standard because of its emphasis on mindfulness.
What sentence of Ozy's post do you think requests that people "lie and mislead readers"?
Ozy says "I don’t think you should say things you don’t believe" - isn't saying something that you don't believe a necessary condition of telling a lie?
I would agree that you can mislead someone while telling truths, e.g. talking about individual crimes committed by immigrants while leaving out the statistical fact that immigrants on the whole commit fewer crimes. But at most, what Ozy is asking you to do is to mislead about your own controversial opinions, by keeping them to yourself. That would seem to be no more misleading than keeping an adventurous amorous life to yourself.
I don't see where this is advocating lying. If my main issue were* "I think gasoline cars should be banned and Harris is more likely to do that than Trump," it's not _lying_ to post about how Biden lowered the price for insulin instead. He did do that. I did like it.
* it's not
Yeah. It's not dishonest to say "Republicans blocked a bipartisan bill" when I don't actually care about that very much but expect that readers do. But it's grossly dishonest if I say "the Biden-Harris administration barred illegal immigrants from receiving asylum" and imply that it's a reason to approve of this administration, instead of immediately appending "which is an unconscionable violation of the Refugee Protocol, and ought to be tried as a crime against humanity".
Of course you could always say that near people who are going to be like "wow based, I want fewer refugees so I'll vote for Harris".
cmon, man. when grandma is over and you're discussing whether to go out to dinner at the Burmese place, is it obligatory to say "no thanks, grandma, I've been having an IBS flareup and I would hate to be shitting my brains out in a dirty concrete cube after dinner, getting my ass splattered with watery diarrhea" lest you lie and mislead grandma expediently to achieve your dinner goals? i don't think that's an accurate characterization.
Suppose your cousin runs a hotel. You stay there, and you have a bad experience: it's too noisy, the beds are uncomfortable, the closets are too small - but they serve a nice breakfast. You've also tried the competing hotel across the street, and their breakfast is an actual health hazard and their sound isolation isn't great either, but at least the beds are okay.
If someone asks you for a hotel recommendation, it seems manipulative and moderately dishonest to just tell them about the breakfast because you want to help your cousin.
I'm not against trying to influence friends and acquaintances. But doing it in these sort of appeal-to-the-masses ways rather than by sharing some of your more authentic personality has a similar taste as people using their socials for MLM promotion. And it reduces your social capital as a result.
Tipping your hand about doing it seems...maybe better? But I'd prefer it to come with a sense of irony or regret, as with Scott's Kolmogorov Complicity.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/
This post pairs nicely with a great Liam Kofi Bright presentation about... the opposite of mindful posting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDDpyM_Z9kA