Bartek PaciaDec 21
JA Westenberg
The most successful grift of the modern era was convincing the smartest people in the world that “changing the world” means optimizing the click-through rate on ads for mattresses that ship in a box
Dec 21 at 9:16amTypefully
Show threadPēteris KrišjānisDec 21
@Daojoan or getting most views on post.
Show threadGeePawHillDec 21
@Daojoan Possible. I do know this: I have never seen a mattress store where they sell retail.
Show threadIrenes (many)Dec 21
@Daojoan yepppppppppppppppp
Show threadJuan Per¢ent,🇲🇽 🍉,🇻🇪Dec 21
@Daojoan The most gifted mathematicians go work in finance making their masters tons of money in milliseconds. Same as elsewhere; quantitative over qualitative.
Show threadSimon BrookeDec 21

@dacig @Daojoan It's an enormous waste of rare and critically valuable talent. Still worse, many of those who don't go into finance go into the scammy end of #AI.

Mathematics, at high level, is really hard. Few people can do it. And it is impotant for many of the real problems we need to solve in the world.

But the scammiest parts of the economy can pay the most.

Show threadFace ThumbDec 21
@Daojoan The smartest person I know is now an actuary in Fintech. He was a maths and programming genius in highschool and he was quite creative. He could have created interesting video games, or invented new encryption algorithms, or cured diseases, or solved hard maths problems. Instead he is just helping rich companies get richer. Such a waste. UBI now please.
Show threadJim LindDec 21
@Daojoan Worked for a place that _basically_ argued this. If more people can understand that they can affordably purchase boxed mattress and they can get a better nights sleep on boxed mattress their life will be better because of boxed mattress so we do change the world!
Show threadKerplunkDec 21

@Daojoan

The most successful grift of the modern era was convincing the smartest people in the world that 'changing the world' means optimizing the click-through rate on ads for mattresses that ship in a box.

And that they are Extremely hard to return if dissatisfied or the article description was misleading .

Most come vacuum packed and customer is responsible for return packaging.

Show threadKailas IdavanmuzhiDec 21
@Daojoan wait.. was this created using AI ?
Show thread(James Bradbury) has movedDec 21
@Daojoan not to blame individuals here, but smart is not the same as wise. In fact that arguably applies to humanity/culture as a whole.
Show threadKevin Boyd (he/him) 🇨🇦Dec 21
@Daojoan (and also convincing them that they were the smartest people in the world)
Show thread🔹 Jakob GivoniDec 21
@Daojoan So beautiful and true ❤️
Show threadderptronDec 21

@Daojoan Those things are pretty cool though. I love mine. I can even roll it back up and ram it into my sleeper-camper teardrop. The mattresses that came in it are thin and suck.

Who knows. Maybe they COULD save the world. They're pretty inexpensive so it's feasible for someone to actually build a padded room at home with them. You can probably get a discount if you order like 10 or more too.

You don't necessarily know that you need a padded room so this is where marketing can help.

Show threadgrrl_aexDec 21
@Daojoan Those people were never 'the smartest people in the world' tho
Show threadMaineCDec 21

@Daojoan "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.

Jeff Hammerbacher"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-14/this-tech-bubble-is-different is where I believe this is coming from.

Show threadMaineCDec 21
@Daojoan I'm not sure it was ppl convinced they would change the world with that work. More like a combination of fascination with what can be built coupled with high income rates.
Show threadMar HicksDec 21
@Daojoan @dmarti the most successful grift of the modern era was convincing the majority of people that those are the smartest people in the world🥴