Btw, this thread on grifting is complementary to my thread on bullshit jobs and where they come from. Grifting creates bullshit jobs if they succeed in installing themselves. Eliminating bullshit jobs is the defense against grifting attacks.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1277760202951897089 …
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Wonky investigation of the good sort is invariably very, very ugly. The data is a mess. The graphs are underwhelming, there is a messy mix of anecdote and tenuous trends. There is need for a good deal of repeated digging and refinement and ugly data dumpster diving.
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Covid is a GREAT example of problem that presents opportunities for both kinds of grifting. Sensory-aesthetic grifting: dumb-ass designs restaurants with beautiful perspex partitions, mask chic. Abstract grifting: endless pretty chart porn of case counts.
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I'll end with a small mea culpa. Yeah, a lot of what I do is also a bit of a grift. I aestheticize problems by finding pretty turns of phrase around which to build satisfying appreciative discourses. But in my defense, I'm ironic about it, and don't make much money off it.
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Bonus: South Park S11E7 Night of the Living Homeless has a great joke about problem aestheticization. Can't find a clip, but here's the script fragment. "We could give the homeless all designer sleeping bags and makeovers. At least that way they'd be pleasant to look at."pic.twitter.com/uugmtYXG38
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Found myself thinking Steven Pinker as a grifter when I read this, in how he's seemingly cherry-picked charts to claim that ~"everything is clearly getting better"https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/steven-pinker-s-ideas-are-fatally-flawed-these-eight-graphs-show-why/ …
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He’s a Pollyanna which is distinct and more forgivable
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