I will admit I have a soft spot for grifters who aren't too damaging. The optimal amount of grift in a system is not zero. Grifters do serve one valuable function: draining away clueless idealist energy down distraction bunny trails.
Conversation
Damnit, I had a couple of great turns of phrase I was thinking of for additional points, but then got distracted by something and forgot them. Now unless I remember them, you'll all have to do without them.
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AH YES I recall one of the phrases.
Problem aestheticization.
Instead of solving a problem, you make it look prettier. Many grifts are based on problem aestheticization. It's literally palliative to sensory trauma. It's like painting a house but billing the cost of the house.
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Problem aestheticization is a great way to construct a grift because it at once presents a cheap thing to sell, and a clear audience that will buy. There are 2 kinds of people concerned by a problem.
People concerned about consequences.
People concerned about ugliness.
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The thing is, people concerned about the consequences of a problem going unsolved tend to investigate and think through boring, wonky, solution options. You do NOT want these people if you're a grifter.
You want those emotionally traumatized by the *symptoms* of the problem.
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If you're a woke grifter working in the racism market, you do NOT want to focus on say incarceration rates because that problem is literally locked away out of sight. There is no opportunity to aestheticize the problem.
You want to focus on say casting decisions in hollywood.
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Aestheticization of a problem immediately soothes the emotional trauma of those who can't deal with ugliness. But will they buy the bullshit non-solution?
Yep. They are also the most likely to be values-based idealists who will stan causes with beautiful performative actions.
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Aestheticization, performance, theater, emotional trauma, values, signaling. These are all aspects of the UX design of life. The producers of grift are ideological UX designers. The consumers of grift are people acutely sensitive to the sensory presentation of problems.
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Ultimately what you're selling as a grifter is a self-image as an integrated, good person who has agency and exercises it wisely and morally.
The buyers are precisely people who both lack that self-image and not inclined to poke beneath surface appearances.
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Note: this is not exclusively restricted to sensory beauty. Certain kinds of abstract beauty work too. You can aestheticize a problem with beautiful spherical cow economics, and paper over the problem with lovely infographics and chartporn. That's aestheticizing a problem too.
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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."
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