It's toxic in some ways; sure--but it's easy to care about.
But, indulging (in moderation) in ice cream or Factorio is one of the great things about living in the modern era. Just don't let it rewire your dopamine receptors too far to enjoy the real stuff!
who gives a shit about famous people? authors I assumed died decades ago? Literally I do not give a single shit what Stephen King or JK Rowling thinks
have fun with that, but you just explained why it never appealed to me. Weird idolatry. Reddit has the same problem.
Interesting people talk about ideas, not other people
> something insightful enough
you mean if you play the game and are sufficiently blessed by the algorithm your demigod may offer you a blessing. The algorithm doesn't reward insight, lol.
I meant, like, Joyce Carol Oates; who I had mentally placed in the same "historic personage" category as Sylvia Plath and Angela Carter before learning she had a twitter account.
And, yeah, it's somewhat toxic to engage in idolatry; yeah, I would more profitably spend my time trying to become a research director or founder myself. Having John Carmack like my Arxiv recommendation isn't an achievement, the way inventing the fast inverse square root algorithm is. But it sure does feel nice!
You're here in the comments of Hacker News so you clearly are interested in social networks. You reguarly check in here to see popular links others have shared, and occasionally participate in conversations. It's seems pretty easy to understand that others might be interested in a slightly different UI on top of this.
Lots of people. That's why they're famous. You may not, but many do, and that's okay.