I can’t speak for other people, of course, but he never looked much like a manipulator. He looks like a guy who has no clue. He doesn’t understand marketing (or propaganda), the fine-tuned practice of manipulating people’s minds for fun and profit. He decided he needs to go downmarket to save the souls drowning in ignorance, but all he succeeded in doing—and it’s actually quite impressive, I don’t think I’m capable of it—is learning to write texts which cause visceral disgust.
Notice the terms in which people speak of his attempts. It’s not “has a lot of rough edges”, it’s slime and spiders in human skin and “painful” and all that. Gleb’s writing does reach System I, but the effect has the wrong sign.
Ah, perhaps I misunderstood the negative perception. It sounds like you see him as incompetent, and since he’s working with a subject that you care about that registers as disgusting?
I can understand cringing at the content. Some of it registers that way to me, too. I think Gleb’s admitted that he’s still working to improve. I won’t bother copy-pasting the argument that’s been made elsewhere on the thread that the target audience has different tastes. It may be the case that InIn’s content is garbage.
I guess I just wanted to step in and second jsteinhardt’s comment that Gleb is a very growth-oriented and positive, regardless of whether his writing is good enough.
It sounds like you see him as incompetent, and since he’s working with a subject that you care about that registers as disgusting?
Not only that—let me again stress the point that his texts cause the “Ewwww” reaction, not “Oh, this is dumb”. The slime-and-snake-oil feeling would still be there even if he were writing in the same way about, say, the ballet in China.
As to “positive”, IlyaShpitser mentioned chutzpah which I think is a better description :-/
I can’t speak for other people, of course, but he never looked much like a manipulator. He looks like a guy who has no clue. He doesn’t understand marketing (or propaganda), the fine-tuned practice of manipulating people’s minds for fun and profit. He decided he needs to go downmarket to save the souls drowning in ignorance, but all he succeeded in doing—and it’s actually quite impressive, I don’t think I’m capable of it—is learning to write texts which cause visceral disgust.
Notice the terms in which people speak of his attempts. It’s not “has a lot of rough edges”, it’s slime and spiders in human skin and “painful” and all that. Gleb’s writing does reach System I, but the effect has the wrong sign.
Ah, perhaps I misunderstood the negative perception. It sounds like you see him as incompetent, and since he’s working with a subject that you care about that registers as disgusting?
I can understand cringing at the content. Some of it registers that way to me, too. I think Gleb’s admitted that he’s still working to improve. I won’t bother copy-pasting the argument that’s been made elsewhere on the thread that the target audience has different tastes. It may be the case that InIn’s content is garbage.
I guess I just wanted to step in and second jsteinhardt’s comment that Gleb is a very growth-oriented and positive, regardless of whether his writing is good enough.
Not only that—let me again stress the point that his texts cause the “Ewwww” reaction, not “Oh, this is dumb”. The slime-and-snake-oil feeling would still be there even if he were writing in the same way about, say, the ballet in China.
As to “positive”, IlyaShpitser mentioned chutzpah which I think is a better description :-/