verylittlemeat

It's a reality check for anyone who makes a better goodreads and doesn't understand why it never gains traction.

It's on par with complaining about facebook and creating your own better version of facebook while completely ignoring the reason why everyone is on facebook to begin with.

Goodreads will always win simply because it's where all the users are.

Like reddit or any huge site its usefulness isn't in the presented top layer (recommendations/front page/popular list of x) it's the depth of millions of users.

If you read a relatively obscure book and look it up on goodreads then you read through the reviews to find users who gave a high quality write up and then look at that user's profile. This will lead you to other users and books that are actual quality.

You could create a smaller website with a higher quality surface level but it's going to be infected with the bias of a small "elite" userbase making it a basically useless echo chamber.

OP is suggesting a starting place for people who feel unmoored. It's an anecdote giving him a formula to try on for size.

The kind of person who has strong feelings about their sense of style (for example dressing more feminine) already has achieved a kind of center or "normal" for their personality that the person who posted this lacks.

thread is pretty dead at this point but interesting comment thanks for typing it all out

It's psychologically comforting and you don't need to be an expat for it to be realistic. I agree that most people underestimate the value of creating a sustainable low stress life in their home country. Many people I know in the US seem to think working here means building up constant stress that eventually needs to be blown off in an orgy of travel and degeneracy.

I have about 80k in liquidity and in the back of my mind it's reassuring to know that if something went wrong at my job or I burnt out or got fired I would be ok. With just my savings I could rent a room in my city for something close to 10 years, including all basic necessities. Even just taking a part time minimum wage job I could easily double that time frame.

As it is I live happily in a small space with a very frugal lifestyle. Paradoxically I think going to work knowing that I could walk away at any time actually makes me a healthier and more productive person/employee.

I think people underestimate how much of the spirit of the old internet still exists.

For example, many twitch channels have an active offline chat that isn't advertised or even sanctioned by the actual streamer. I lurk/idle in the offline chat for a streamer who gets maybe 200-300 viewers per stream and there are now about a dozen of us from all over the world who have become friends over a decade. At this point many of us have met in real life or sent each other packages.

When I was younger I was very active on a small independent irc server and it was almost an identical experience.

I'm reading the wiki on them (admittedly not the best or most unbiased source) and I don't really buy that they're white supremacists since among other things their leader is afro-cuban. But fascistic sure, I could see that.

Without playing the enlightened centrist card too strongly I don't see anything particularly more disturbing about the proud boys than I have from antifa. Of course antifa can't be accused of being fascistic since their name is literally "anti-fascism" and if you call yourself anti facist then obviously it is impossible to be a fascist.

Proud boys are literal nazis?

Unfortunately much like the hysteria of "communists" being lost on McCarthyites in the 50s the same is likely for the "far right" on the left now.

They're literal Nazis, don'tcha know.

It's really everywhere due to the election. I lurk on a meme video forum that leans conservative and they have started deleting and clamping down on any political content. Some people really enjoy stirring up and having political debate but lots of the regulars can't stand it.

That seems outrageously obtuse. The electoral college is fundamental to predicting the US presidential election. The idea that 538 got it right but just didn't factor in the electoral college is a real stretch. If they screwed up polls in states that were crucial for an electoral college win then they screwed up full stop.

You're being downvoted but you're right.

I'm starting to believe that sites like 538 feed off of the general public not understanding that a 20% chance to win is 1 in 5. Endless ink has been spilled about how the public does not understand statistics but very little effort has been made to communicate effectively.

The whole thing seems like a navelgazing sideshow where the pollsters want to have it both ways. They want to claim their predictions are infallible but then when the public says they failed they want to backpedal with holier than thou "well, actually..." excuses.