Hacker News: stafford_beer

New comment by stafford_beer in "Academia as a d-index measuring contest"

stafford_beer — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 08:37:23 +0000

https://kevinmunger.substack.com/p/a-confession-i-p-hacked-t...

author here -- the follow-up post explains the point...it's an existence proof, that a metric exists which ranks me first....which doesn't mean that we have to care about that metric, but it does mean that we shouldn't be taking any metrics for granted as "real"

Peer Review 2027

stafford_beer — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 10:30:11 +0000

Article URL: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/594zj_v1

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46808209

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

"The Algorithm" Does Not Exist

stafford_beer — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 05:02:43 +0000

Article URL: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/the-algorithm-social-media-facebook-technology-the-apparatus/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43408397

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

New comment by stafford_beer in "In the belly of the MrBeast"

stafford_beer — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 06:18:37 +0000

haha I'm not saying that MrBeast couldn't have sex if he wanted to -- I'm saying that, because he's constructed himself to only care about maximizing audience metrics, having sex would be a waste of his time

New comment by stafford_beer in "In the belly of the MrBeast"

stafford_beer — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 06:14:40 +0000

thank you!

New comment by stafford_beer in "In the belly of the MrBeast"

stafford_beer — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 17:11:48 +0000

totally agree--and I think this is key to Trump's success as well, that he used audience feedback on Twitter to figure out that there was unmet demand for harsh anti-immigration policy and then win the 2016 primary

New comment by stafford_beer in "In the belly of the MrBeast"

stafford_beer — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 17:05:56 +0000

OP here -- I like Baudrillard and McLuhan but the media theorist who best captures the present IMO is Flusser: https://kevinmunger.substack.com/p/the-discourse-is-the-cybe...