Noise to Signal #1

What We're Reading

Mar 15, 2021

“Noise to Signal” will be a weekly round-up of what we found interesting, inspired by Guzey’s Best of Twitter but with a humanities spin. Lots of Twitter, but we make no commitment to only posting Twitter links.

Credentials, skin in the game, and social coordination

GeniesLoki @GeniesLoki

Me talking to other poly people: Man, poly is often really dysfunctional. Me listening to monogamous people talking about poly being dysfunctional: Oh go fuck yourself.

On the nature of certain moral “blackpills”

Michael Curzi @michaelcurzi

I think “one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic” is only a major blackpill if you’re trying to defend the (at this pt IMO demonstrably) insane idea that the average person should have, maintain & emotionally prioritize an extremely complex 3rd personal view of the world

What Beiser calls the Aesthetic Deep State.

born unto trouble @asthesparksfly

wild

Tom Hoy @thoy

Loved this from @aaronzlewis - totally unlocked the project I’m working on atm https://t.co/JK4PuXxqrZ

“The world is all that is the case." —Wittgenstein

Jake Spinella @SpinellaJake

Politely but firmly replying “I prefer not to” anytime a philosopher asks me to imagine or suppose that p

Thread on surprise in film

pete wolfendale @deontologistics

Following on from @Aelkus, I think the main problem I had with the proliferation of genre deconstruction in literature, comics, and cinema especially was that it reinforced the idea that good art is art that surprises you. But surprise is often cheap and uninteresting (shock!).

Thread on regional variation in African American English

Doc Jones @languagejones

2. African American English exhibits dramatic regional variation in pronunciation. Even in a semi "formal" reading task. Even among highly educated speakers. There is no one black accent, and things claimed to be universal in the academic literature are not.

Clear explanation of meta-strategy and why it’s hard (or just disadvantageous) to talk about

Amir @amirism_

how the people playing the game describe the rules is not the actual rules because it's disadvantageous to discuss meta-strategy when the game is still on; and the game is always on yet winning depends on playing the meta, consciously or otherwise

Amir @amirism_

power is understanding meta-strategy, reading between the lines. you can't learn how the game *really* works by doing the beginners tutorial, you have to pay attention and find the sweet exploits

Signs and signifiers (via Omega Mart)

An Angry Opossum @AnAngryOpossum

root beer flavored vape juice flavored root beer

dr. quadrageistma @Geistb0t

An Angry Opossum @AnAngryOpossum

root beer flavored vape juice flavored root beer https://t.co/7xaGXNugeN

Easy ways to say it’s all impossible because of arbitrary bundling

orc samizdat (ochōfujin) @unplaceableface

Mutual intelligibility in strategic interaction:

shoveler (lyght) @no_harm_

In fighting games, sometimes good players will threaten a level 3 option, and the shitter will pick level 0 ("ME SMASH") and the good player gets hit Bluffing only works of your adversary understands the potential of the threat

shoveler (lyght) @no_harm_

i.e. you can't scare away a bear by pulling back your coat to reveal your glock If you don't effectively communicate your threat, the situation will escalate or your adversary will just attack

which reminds us of House of Games:

Akin to Erving Goffman's "presentation of self in everyday life" and the playing of roles in social behaviour, of theatrical conceptions of symbolic interaction in reality, Mamet's cinema draws attention to dramaturgical concepts such as proposed by Goffman in his distinction between storefront and backstage behaviour; on the backstage, however, we do not encounter undisguised, "true reality," but only further game-playing.

It’s only a problem if you treat it like one.