Hacker News Reader

Comment by zopa | Hacker News Reader

If someone got into wine or baseball cards because their boss liked them, we might call it a smart career move. But much of the time the underlying psychology will be exactly the same. And in fact it will likely work better if it’s not done rationally: anyone who becomes too conscious of what their motivation might be risks coming off as insincere.

Wanting to connect with important members and of your community it a perfectly normal human impulse, and finding or creating things the two of you have in common is often a very reasonable strategy towards that end. It goes badly at the scale of modern celebrity, is all.

View on HN

> If someone got into wine or baseball cards because their boss liked them, we might call it a smart career move. But much of the time the underlying psychology will be exactly the same.

Is the underlying psychology the same? As you mentioned, one is a smart career move. Your desire to emulate your boss may stem from your selfish desire to promote your career, not a desire to connect with important members of your community.

The ape brain doesn't have a separate category for 'people you see on TV' and 'people you work with', celebrities are stored in the same place as your friends except the nature of parasocial relations seems to polarize their status; such that these people are seen as very high or very low status.

Citation needed

>> Our brains treat on-screen faces the same as in-person faces, explains Bradley Bond. He is a communication researcher at the University of San Diego in California. “We assign personhood to people we see in-person and on screens,” he explains. And we “process them in a similar fashion.” We are a social species. So we crave connections to other people. “It’s human instinct,” he says, and parasocial bonds help fill that need.

https://www.snexplores.org/article/imagine-friends-parasocia...

It's not surprising to me that we process faces the same whether we see them in person or on a screen, that's because screens are designed to accurately display the visual qualities of their subjects. That is not even close to the same thing as saying "celebrities are stored in the same place as your friends".

"process" includes storing/referencing memories etc.

Recognizing your wife's face and recognizing a cartoon character from your childhood are both done with your brain, therefore your brain doesn't have different categories for family members and cartoon characters?

I'm not sure because I've never read anything about cartoon characters in this context but it probably has to do with whether the person recognizes that the cartoon character is an animated drawing or a person.

And boss are not even friends!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction

Will wikipedia work?

No.

The Wikipedia article claims we treat YouTuber like our personal friend.

The parent post claims ape don't have different caregory for boss that can advance your career and a celebrity that, at its best, can be treated as a friend ..

I am skeptical that there is any profound scientific value in the term "parasocial interaction".

To judge from the origin of the term,[0] we are calling a "parasocial relationship" the phenomenon of mass conditioning of consumers by controlled media. There is enough clear evidence of a state's ability to affect public discourse by controlling entertainment (and news) media.[1]

Although people may be inclined to credulity or at least some basic level of cooperation, most people can see when they are being duped in a tangible way.

There are extreme cases, which the article calls, "extreme parasocial behaviour".

Other terms exist to describe a person who believes things that are not real, highly improbable, or hallucinatory. And in the marketplace, there is caveat emptor, the complete phrase being,

"Let a purchaser beware, for he ought not to be ignorant of the nature of the property which he is buying from another party."[2]

[0] > Evolution of the term > Parasocial interaction was first described from the perspective of media and communication studies. In 1956, Horton and Wohl explored the different interactions between mass media users and media figures and determined the existence of a parasocial relationship (PSR), where the user acts as though they are involved in a typical social relationship.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveat_emptor

I am skeptical that you have any credentials with which to dispute the scientific value of the term "parasocial interaction" legitimately.

the SEC’s logic is that if you decided that a wine bottle or baseball card you bought was to be sold at a profit in the future, then the winery and card issuer should have registered them as securities, and the seller should have been a registered broker dealer. and the boss should have provided a whole list of disclaimer to mitigate regulatory liability.

otherwise, the winery or baseball card issuer is engaged in fraud, and the seller is too, and the boss who recommended them is as well

this is what people find to be… at best … incomplete logic. there is a Howey test interpretation that would allow for this expansion, and crypto folks would gain power by having it applied congruently to those physical established artificial scarcity collections too, because Congress would reevaluate this inconvenience more holistically. There is another interpretation where the SEC makes no sense at all, and has to provide a clear exemption framework for crypto assets to navigate in order to be treated the same as wine bottles and baseball cards, ignoring the current parasocial relationship and reliance that crypto traders have with crypto project creators.

The SEC's logic is actually about how the items are marketed by the manufacturer. Baseball cards and wine aren't marketed by the manufacturer as items to buy as an investment.

Baseball cards are a bad example. The packs are lotteries with extra steps, and the manufacturers routinely face racketeering suits.

and many crypto teams are meticulous about not doing that too

its why their discords say “no price discussion”, amongst many other communication nuances and project structuring to avoid securities issues. dont confuse celebrities and youtubers for the actual teams.

the only teams that have been sued by the SEC are ones that deviated in very predictable ways, there have been no surprises in the cases the SEC have brought, compared to the legal guidance that is given by law firms in the US

its just that the SEC then pretends as if it just hasnt gotten to other project issuers yet, and when not going after a specific project it just says “all cryptos are securities” because theyre going after an exchange, at the moment, and wont tell the exchange which ones

everything suggests the SEC’s logic is flimsy, or needs to apply even more broadly in a way that makes the SEC’s logic flimsy. The SEC is dragging this out because they understand the same thing, that all paths lead to their charter being modified even though they were just hoping that crypto went away.

This case is literally about celebrities being paid by the developers to market the product. Banning price discussions on Discord doesn’t absolve the developers of responsibility.

and the celebrities simply need to disclose what their compensation is, when the asset involved is already determined to be a security. I would actually like to see that practice extended to consumer products that aren't securities.

unfortunately here, the SEC is still relying on an ambiguous interpretation of securities, unilaterally deeming something a security and simultaneously charging people that promoted it, who are relying on assurances and a parallel set of behaviors that something is not a security.

Hmm that's not the SEC's logic though. Winery or Baseball cards have thier own intrinsic value and while their value can be pumped by promoters it does not depend only on that and they are not sold as an investment. You may decide to buy them as an investement but they are not Created for that purpose. The same as I may invest in Property to profit in the future but the property is not a security becasue it has it's own intrinsic value and does not depend only on the promotion or market expectation or how the contructor company does afer I have bought the house.

There might be some parallels in Art and NFT but there the issue is completly different and is more of grey area of what you are actually bying than if it's an investment or not.

intrinsic value isn't the qualifier for a distinction

and many crypto issuers focus on their nonspeculative utility

everything you described is exactly the problem. The SEC is saying that because any individual may have decided to buy them as an investment, then the SEC can ignore everything to the contrary. except the SEC hasnt actually ignored everything to the contrary because they havent charge crypto teams that focus exclusively on nonspeculative utility and other nuances. they charged teams that promised the price would go up. believe it or not, very many teams focus on the nonspeculative utility exclusively, the prevailing legal opinions from law firms in the US have had this advice to crypto teams for at least 6 years, and civil charges the SEC has brought have not undermined these assumptions. in any case, the SEC then turns around and says “theyre all securities” when speaking publicly or when charging an exchange. now we’ve come full circle between yours and mine perspective: either apply the same logic to “things with intrinsic value (that you respect)” or point out exactly which way for digital asset collections to be exempt as well.

Although technically you are right that the "intrinsic value" is not explicitly stated by SEC, the whole purpose of the Howey Test it to establish whether something has intrinsic Value. At least that's my interpretation of it. The main points of it are is it an investment and does this investment value depend only on the enterprise you investing on and promotion or does it have any other value that is independent of those factors (thus intrinsic value). Put it another way, if you investment is completely lost when the actor who put it in the market disappears, then it is a security.

> If someone got into wine or baseball cards because their boss liked them, we might call it a smart career move.

First off, no, we wouldn’t. The boss and the other members of the team will all see that for what it is- trying to kiss ass to get ahead instead of doing your job. Particularly because (as you’re suggesting at least) the person doesn’t actually like those things and is simply trying to get ahead.

Just watch the Office. Dwight and Andy constantly try to do this to Michael and while they are occasionally successful, it hardly matters or has a lasting impact. Further, their coworkers all find them annoying (while they continue to “just do their jobs”).

> > If someone got into wine or baseball cards because their boss liked them, we might call it a smart career move.

> First off, no, we wouldn’t. The boss and the other members of the team will all see that for what it is- trying to kiss ass to get ahead instead of doing your job. Particularly because (as you’re suggesting at least) the person doesn’t actually like those things and is simply trying to get ahead.

The counter-assertion relies on the axioms of

(1) "100% of people are capable of detecting 'kiss-assery'",

(2) "100% of people don't like 'kiss-assery'", and

(3) "100% of all actions of a person copying their boss' likes are due to 'kiss-assery'".

All 3 axioms are invalid: (1) is invalid because not all people can detect it properly without false positives or negatives. (2) is invalid because of the existence of narcissism & (2)'s contribution towards the affirmation of narcissism. (3) is invalid as it excludes the possibility of taking on a new like simply because of enjoying it.

> Just watch the Office. Dwight and Andy constantly try to do this to Michael and while they are occasionally successful, it hardly matters or has a lasting impact. Further, their coworkers all find them annoying (while they continue to “just do their jobs”).

The example given cannot be considered useful as its reliant on using constructed scenarios in a semi-fictional setting, and using it as evidence. Its equivalent would be the usage of the CSI episode "Fur and Loathing" as evidence of the furry fandom always being about sex & deviancy at all times, which is not the case.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com