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Comment by efilife | Hacker News Reader

Why? Not trying to be rude, I don't see the comedy here

> I don't see the comedy here So you are part of the problem.

The algorithmic overlords have long favored "trends" or more seriously content regurgitation. At first it was "have to post something about $topic". Then it was reaction videos. Arguably negative value add content. Then it was all fed back to algorithmic content regurgitators (LLMs) which flood the internet.

The beauty of this recording is that it sounds convincingly like a podcast. It has the podcast-style pacing, over the top praise for the most mundane things. It highlights how narrow is the mean this "content" has regressed to.

It's comedy. Comedy in absurd, but still comedy.

As someone who mostly stopped listening to podcasts just around the time the medium started to be taken over by overproduced vacuous drivel (I recall outrage from indie podcasts over random ads being injected into their audio), I always find these NotebookLLM "podcasts" unconvincing because it's just random speakers regurgitating information in between platitudes and praise for the most mundane and arbitrary things.

Now that you mention it, that does fit what has at this point become the primary podcast style so I guess it's actually being surprisingly realistic because the thing it tries to mimic is already so artificial.

Pseudo-intellectual consumerism, as I like to call it. How many people do you know who turn on the news on TV, sit in front and take notes? Who put on some music, relax in the sweet spot and immerse themselves? Who read a book, stop and ponder, continue? Versus people who turn on the TV while cooking, who put on headphones with music while working out for background noise, who put on sped up version of audiobook while driving to tick off another checkmark?

It's form over substance all over the place. I absolutely love this TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S0FDjFBj8o

The more pseudo-intellectual consumerism infiltrates our collective psyche, the more the substance becomes irrelevant. Nuance requires thinking. "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong" -- HL Mencken. But knowing this answer makes you feel smart.

His CV is very normal, dare I say boring, it is (I am sorry here) exactly the same as 1000s of other Google or Apple engineer resumes. Nothing remotely interesting. The AI reacts like he's the second coming.

It's an absurd way to talk about a very mundane topic. The comedy is in how disproportionate the reaction is.

"I thought we were stuck in a blender. Now we're saving lives? What?!"

Is it?

yes, it is

It's a cultural difference. As a foreigner, the American way of exaggerating everything has always amazed me. They don't even notice themselves, so expect more of these "what's odd about it?" reactions.

we have the best overreactions, perhaps the greatest exaggerations in history, you've never seen overreactions like these folks, trust me.

I think what sets Trump apart is how straightforward his hyperbole is. It's present throughout American culture but it's usually a bit more subtle. It's even in basic things like answering "How are you?" (in the US, "great!" is a neutral answer and "could be better" would be cause for concern - in e.g. Germany on the other hand, "great!" would prompt a request for elaboration whereas "could be better" would be understood as fairly neutral).

I also haven't seen another country (in Europe at least) where politicians across party lines so frequently emphasize in so many ways how great their country is - not even in a jingoistic way, just as a shared cultural consensus.

1. It’s a bizarre, over the top dissection of a person and their resume. Funny because the style doesn’t match the content.

2. To me personally, it’s extra funny because it’s two people breathlessly discussing.. me.

3. The strange turns of phrase (“That’s Masto”)

4. The stuff it makes up. I’ve never touched the guitar, but apparently I “shred”.

If you’ve spent any time in corporate circles where everyone tries to appear as positive and employable as possible, this is how a discussion with two such people (who both think the other is serious) might sound like. I find it hilarious in a condescending way, but it’s not the traditional hahaha type funny.

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