> "Everything Everywhere All at Once are not lowest common denominator movies"
Is too. It's a stroppy teenage girl who is lol so random[1] and has discovered teenage nihilism because her mom doesn't understand her. It's written to be relatable to the stressed mom, the middle/highschool kid, the immigrant fighting government bureaucracy, and the "I wish my life was exciting" Waymond. It's sci-fi but not good quality deep sci-fi. It's a comedy but not full of jokes or skilled physical humor, mostly 'random' silliness. It's a drama but the characters are shallow 2D people with one attribute each, all done in a Disneyfied "bagel with everything!" style.
In the way that Bella in Twilight is a placeholder for the everywoman reader[2]. Compare The Substance which is beating you over the head with "Society treats ageing women badly" but is not a movie for everyone - the topic is of interest to fewer people, the nudity and the physical body horror and gore will turn away a large section of potential audience. There's not much action or chase scenes like Everything Everywhere tries to throw in, and there's no happy ending like EEAAO either.
agree with you on The Substance. another movie Serpell lazily categorized as new literalism. like your sibling comment i think the bar for lowest common denominator for me is lower than for you
last year i thought Hundreds of Beavers was a lowest common denominator movie but it turns out to be cult and im 0/5 on any of my family members liking it at all. a few movie nerd friends love it like i do. after that i decided normys must only like watching families hug on screen. i guess EEAAO has that, i just see the Swiss Army Man inside of EEAAO and think of the whole thing differently
I think people today, in general, would be unwilling to hold the idea in their heads that a cloud might look like a shape in a way that goes over their heads, or that they just don't understand. Poor rubes, I'm just more insighftul in the field of nimbohermenutics. The internet has revealed to us normals that an awful lot of "trust me, I'm upper class, this really is superior" was the idle rich patting each other on the back, empty posturing, tax dodges, a game of words as a passtime and social in-group signalling. Twitter and ubiquitous videos of daily life have broken the illusion.
Am I willing to hold the idea that a movie might be good in a way that goes over my head? Yes - take books, I'm never going to read James Joyce, I won't study the historic texts it references, I won't learn the Dublin colloquialisms, I won't understand his wordplay, and I accept that the people who do will get a lot more satisfaction from reading it than I would get from the few scraps I might make sense of.
But if you tell me the painting of a blue rectangle is worth millions, and I just don't understand because I'm a simple pleb and you're a true art connoisseur, and that the art house movie just has more sophisticated culture that a low-brow wouldn't understand, I go back to saying that if you stare longer at the clouds you will see more patterns in the clouds. If you are sharper and more imaginative you will see more patterns in the clouds. If you enjoy finding patterns in clouds you will find more of them. That doesn't mean some clouds have more meaning in them.
And if it's you telling me I can join your club of exclusive film afficionados if I pay the member's fee and spend hours watching the film, or that I can read your educated critical thoughts on 2025's Cloud Patterns in your review column in Cinema Monthly magazine, well that's sounding more like a racket.
Two different people recommended Severence to me [it's a streaming series about people who have their brains severed so when they are at work they cannot remember the outside, and outside they cannot remember their workday]; I find it boring. Is that because I'm a simpleton who can't appreciate social commentary and can't follow unusual storylines, or is it because I've read a lot more SciFi and spiritual self-help mumbo-jumbo than either of those people have, so the ideas are less novel and exciting to me? Sure there are objective things like "this lighting and camera technique was pioneered in $FILM" which I can't see and you might get enjoyment and satisfaction from noticing, but is that really different to me commenting that they have CRT/desktop computers harking back to the IBM XT instead of going with a Star Trek LCARS style flat UX, or that the Data Reduction team shouldn't be able to work with encrypted data because good encryption would not give any information about the plaintext content, or that using the computers to show numbers-as-text is really broken because computers are a tool for turning numbers into human-friendly graphs, sounds, pictures, and by showing the computers as dull numbers machines the writers are revealing society's lack of deep computer understanding and we've all missed the point of Jobs' "computer as bicycle for the mind"?
And there are more subjective things to say about media e.g. "this is Plato's Cave" but is it really, or are you seeing Plato's Cave in the clouds because you were hunting for Classic Memes or because you have spent more time studying the Classics so the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon kicks in and you notice more of the things you know about?
Sure, sure, "all art is the same, nobody is any better" says the intellectually sterile internet commentor. Sure, sure, you're just a higher calibre of person and it's not that everything in life is a status game and you're positioning yourself as higher status by self-declaring that the things you spent more time on are the better things. Yes, people are smarter than me, people know more than me, people see more connections in films than me - but the medium through which I learn those things, the way that message gets to me, is very suspect; why am I reading a newspaper column where you take a broadcast position and get paid to tell me that you see more meaning in a film than me? Why are you, the sublime intellect, spending your life watching films and commenting about them on the grubby pig-mud internet while claiming deep meaning, instead of fixing the world or sitting ZaZen on a mountain top? Why am I hearing about this from a Film Professor whose income depends on people believing that film is deeply meaningful, or from a Film Studies graduate whose self-image is partly supported by the idea that their expensive degree is about more than just simple entertainment? The medium is the message, and the mediums are not truth-finding, they are marketing and entertainment.
It's not that people "are less willing to believe there is stuff they don't understand", it's "people are fed up of being marketed to by centuries of con-people trying to spin the idea that they understand something deep and insightful that we don't, and we need to turn to them for help with it".
> It's not that people "are less willing to believe there is stuff they don't understand", it's "people are fed up of being marketed to by centuries of con-people trying to spin the idea that they understand something deep and insightful that we don't, and we need to turn to them for help with it".
Everything you said was baked into my post already, so it's funny to me that your conclusion ends up being the exact phenomenon I was talking about. I don't feel like going point by point but nothing you said was something I haven't considered.
Yes! Sometimes there are experts in higher-up places that do simply just understand something deep and insightful that you don't, and they may not have a peer-reviewed scientific study justifying this. You are allowed to not accept this - it may even be true, although I don't think so - but how are you going to keep thinking about what you might not know yet if you're already convinced you know about as much as the author does?
Like... are you going to keep thinking about the ideals in Star Trek if you think you know more than Gene Roddenbury? Are you going to keep thinking about what Lord of the Rings means if you're absolutely certain no author could really be THAT insightful? I've already come to a conclusion here: no.
> "Like... are you going to keep thinking about the ideals in Star Trek if you think you know more than Gene Roddenbury?"
This doesn't follow as a piece of logic at all; I often find some computer related comment on the internet by a beginner where I definitely do know more, and the comment is a trigger for me to keep thinking about the details long after the comment is over.
We could list some ideals in Star Trek, e.g. the multicultural bridge crew, and then think "I know more about that than Roddenberry so let's imagine about where Roddenberry could have done better". (I'm not claiming to know more, just spinning a thought experiment). Or you could say "look I've studied a lot of multicultural ideals and I knoww more about it than you, and you could learn something of it by watching more Star Trek and focusing on that point". The important part is that you can list specific ideals in the work, and then we can talk about those ideals.
We could imagine a movie about the killing fields of Cambodia. I don't want to watch it. You are saying "you don't think there is anything in there to understand!". But I am not saying that. This is not "the exact phenomenon" you were talking about because here I am accepting that there are things I don't understand, as I did with my example of James Joyce's writing.
However, what I do reject is the idea that there are films which you claim contain deep meaning that you understand - but you can't say what that meaning is, you can't demonstrate its presence, you can't demonstrate that you have the understanding which you claim to have, or demonstrate that I do not have it, but you are convinced that you understand it more deeply than I do and that elevates you to a higher status than me. That is the realm of every mystic, street corner preacher, megachurch pastor, cult leader, every psychoactive drug taker, every dreamer and philosopher, many artists, con-artists and scammers, and should be rejected under Hitchen's Razor ("What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence").
Am I going to think about what Lord of the Rings means? Probably not. I have read enough songs (one song is enough) about Bilbo Baggins hating it when people are careless while washing up plates. That's not because I claim to know more than Tolkien. But if you say "Tolkien made some deep commentary about the choice to suffer to protect those you love" that's different claim than "Tolkien made some deep commentary and it was like, whoa dude, you just had to be there, it was like - well, it was so profound words can't do it justice - but I understand it and if you don't agree then you must be a base simpleton philistine" and you say it in a magazine with a posh register. Yeah well the clouds were very deep and meaningful too and I saw Man's Inhumanity to Man in them, you'll just have to trust me. Why not spend a few hours contemplating it?
>You’re not a mom and pop landlord if you’re just buying a second home to move into with intent to sell your current one.
That's my point. The person I'm replying to is being obtuse and sarcastically arguing that the investor criteria requires owning 3+ as an attempt to use absurdity to force people to admit that 2+ makes you an "investor" thereby classifying the people who are simply swapping homes like you stated as "investors".
blindriver: "you must own two homes and then buying a third makes you an investor"
me: "no, that would mean people who own one home to live in and one home to rent out are not investors. Owning one and investing in a second makes you an investor."
You: "you are sarcastically and obtusely arguing that being an investor requires owning 3+ homes!"
No, I'm not arguing that.
> "thereby classifying the people who are simply swapping homes like you stated as "investors""
Nobody was talking about people who own two homes while moving houses. But if we were then the choice is (people who own a second house to rent are not classed as investors just in case they get confused with people moving house) which is wrong permanently and silly, vs (people who own two homes while selling their old home are classed as investors for a while) which is wrong temporarily but not too unreasonable, then I will pick the latter.
"Diarrhoea is a leading killer of children, accounting for approximately 9 per cent of all deaths among children under age 5 worldwide in 2021. This translates to over 1,200 young children dying each day" - https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-health/diarrhoeal-diseas...
I doubt it, but even if that were the case it would not support your earlier claim. When fermenting things you will generally intentionally introduce a very small quantity of a carefully controlled culture to the bulk media. Which is to say, you would almost certainly have your own yeast culture at home that you would inoculate the mead-to-be with. Maintaining a sourdough start is an example of this practice.
If you want to start your own culture from scratch there are established practices for culturing "wild" yeast from the environment.
It's absolutely why its done, because people would otherwise inadvertently initiate fermentation with it.
Not seeing this and instead going for 'hehe my little dude, pasteurisation doesn't destroy the sugar, you can still add yeast and ferment it' doesn't come across as particularly impressive from my perspective.
I never said that? It's well known that heat alters honey.
Obviously the purpose of pasteurization is either preservation or food safety (but I repeat myself) as opposed to preventing people from making mead. I claim no particular knowledge of which specific microorganisms are primarily responsible for the spoilage that might otherwise occur, nor the precise consequences of such spoilage.
I have enthused about Dr David Burns, his TEAMS CBT therapy style, how it seems like debugging for the brain in a way that might appeal to a HN readership, how The Feeling Good podcast is free online with lots of episodes explaining it, working through each bit, recordings of therapy sessions with people demonstrating it…
They have an AI app which they have just made free for this summer:
I haven’t used it (yet) so this isn’t a recommendation for the app, except it’s a recommendation for his approach and the app I would try before the dozens of others on the App Store of corporate and Silicon Valley cash making origins.
Dr Burns used to give free therapy sessions before he retired and keeps working on therapy in to his 80s and has often said if people who can’t afford the app contact him, he’ll give it for free, which makes me trust him more although it may be just another manipulation.
Thanks for the link! This is a good example of the use of the medium of video (animation) to present information more clearly than alternative media could.
He's concerned not about allocating the suffering optimally (to the people least willing to pay to reduce it, for example because they are in excellent health or couldn't afford the flight otherwise) but about reducing the total amount of suffering, which is far more important.
In other contexts, the main benefit of market mechanisms is precisely that they vastly reduce suffering, for example by stimulating the production of socially valuable goods. Is there a way market mechanisms for boarding order could have such a benefit? For example, by rewarding people who board in an order that minimizes overall boarding delay? I'm skeptical.
“We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of 21 statin trials involving 143,532 participants, using similar criteria to the CTT, and found no consistent relationship between lowering LDL-C with statins and death, heart attack or stroke.” - published in JAMA behind paywall, apparently
But you’re still wrong because she says “Statins are very effective at lowering LDL-C” which is literally something even if that doesn’t translate to less death.
Statin uses translate into less death, without any medical question or doubt. That particular systematic review is notorious for being utterly nonsensical. It's also notable that Maryanne Demasi is of...uh...of dubious professional credibility. Some of her papers have signs of scientific misconduct, including image duplication (yet with new labeling and analysis, indicating willful misconduct rather than simple error) and so on. She has various other questionable claims -- like mobile phones causing brain cancer -- and notably is a low carb advocate, which is something I will touch upon later.
"Our analysis showed that trial participants taking a statin for an average of 4.4 years, showed a 29% RRR in heart attacks, but the ARR was only 1.3%."
Over a 4.4 year average study length, there was already a 29% reduction of heart attack events over the control -- the relative risk. This analysis argues that since only some small subset actual had heart attacks -- again, during the short study period that averaged 4.4 years -- the "absolute" risk was low and therefore, negligible. "Minimal".
There are two enormous problems with this-
1) Most people given statins already have years to decades of CVD progress. Yet even still statins gave them that much of a relative risk reduction. That is an enormous relative risk reduction, clear evidence of the benefits. If you're a 30 year old with high LDL and are looking at the absolute risk reduction of a 55 year old who finally was prescribed statins, note that the possible benefit to you is much, much larger. It's like saying that someone who started brushing their teeth at 40 years old still has a pretty nasty set of chompers so therefore there is no benefit to brushing your teeth.
2) This is an incredibly small window to study the absolute risk.
3) The benefits of lower arterial plaque is much, much greater than just the worst outcomes of heart attack or stroke.
Again, Demasi et al are grifting off of the keto/low carb world, and she is a frequent speaker to this group. The low carb world often has a high saturated fat diet that sees their LDL massively rise, and there's a really desperate need to hope that LDL isn't bad for you. Dave Feldman recently has funded a lot of research on some subset of that group -- a group they call lean mass hyperresponders (LMHR), which are basically fit and active, healthy weight low-carb adherents -- and the premise was that in this subset LDL served a different purpose and wasn't bad. Only their most recent checkpoint was the CAC score of their participants rose disturbingly.
Better than statins would be changing habits and diets to control cholesterol. But the evidence that lower LDL = a better healthspan and lifespan is absolutely overwhelming. And for some people statins have bad side effects. But anyone believing they do nothing is massively misinformed.
As one aside on this, that Dr. Layne Norton video has drawn a lot of comments by people who declare that while CAC scores are rising dangerously in the LMHR Keto group --- exactly the opposite to what the LMHR and Keto communities predicted and wanted to see -- okay fine...it's, they now defensively claim, is the seed oils that are the cause.
Just as there is enormous volumes of data demonstrating that statins and/or lowering cholesterol naturally have a high degree of efficacy and benefit, there is a complete dearth of data showing seed oils to be the cause of much at all. Sure they're high in calories and are used in a lot of processed foods, which is bad, but the notion that some fries cooked in lard is healthier than fries cooked in canola oil has literally zero evidence. None. It has loads of counter-evidence, however.
The current seed oil boogeyman is based on absolutely nothing. But the Wellness Industry absolutely dwarfs the pharmaceutical industry, without any of the annoying oversight or governance, and there are loads of grifters that have to find the new Easy Fix.
And while I said "low carb" above as a surrogate for the carnivore/keto diet above, just to be clear, everyone should minimize simple carbs, which are often the foundation of ultra-processed foods. Unless you're highly active and burning that glucose as quickly as you digest it (which is rapid for simple carbs), those carbs are going to lead to a massive insulin spike, which is bad, and most will end up being converted into triglycerides, which is also bad. Everyone should be "low simple carbs", at least unless you're literally fuelling for a specific task.
> "As a dev I look at this as the worst, most historically atrocious user experience in the history of human civilization"
Another contender: during the fire and sinking of the steamship General Slocum carrying people on a family picnic in New York, 1904, people reached for the fire hoses which were cheap and rotten and useless. The lifeboats were inaccessible. The life jackets unmaintained for a decade and had rotted to cork dust and the inspection records had been falsified. Imagine with no fire extinguishing, no lifeboats, you grab a remaining life preserver and put it on your kid and throw them overboard only to watch them sink to their death because the life preserver manufacturing company had put iron bars in them instead of cork floats because that was cheaper.
957 people died in the whole disaster. The headlines are here:
Is too. It's a stroppy teenage girl who is lol so random[1] and has discovered teenage nihilism because her mom doesn't understand her. It's written to be relatable to the stressed mom, the middle/highschool kid, the immigrant fighting government bureaucracy, and the "I wish my life was exciting" Waymond. It's sci-fi but not good quality deep sci-fi. It's a comedy but not full of jokes or skilled physical humor, mostly 'random' silliness. It's a drama but the characters are shallow 2D people with one attribute each, all done in a Disneyfied "bagel with everything!" style.
In the way that Bella in Twilight is a placeholder for the everywoman reader[2]. Compare The Substance which is beating you over the head with "Society treats ageing women badly" but is not a movie for everyone - the topic is of interest to fewer people, the nudity and the physical body horror and gore will turn away a large section of potential audience. There's not much action or chase scenes like Everything Everywhere tries to throw in, and there's no happy ending like EEAAO either.
[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/im-so-random-lol-so-random-so...
[2] https://theoatmeal.com/story/twilight
reply