Very cool! Personally, I currently avoid the news because it's not really relevant to my life, actionable, or something that tends to make me happy. The Base Rate Times doesn't seem to change any of that - fundamentally it's still news - and so I wouldn't use it.
Of course, not everyone is like me. Many people currently read/watch/consume the news. A lot of that is probably social positioning though, like watching CNN or reading NYT to better fit in with friends and family. I don't think The Base Rate Times would appeal to them.
But it does feel to me like there is some demographic for whom it would appeal to. Eg. rationalists and rationalist-adjacent people. To me it seems like an important step forward would be to figure out who these people are, where they hang out (physically or digitally), and what acquisition channels might work for them. The product honestly seems fine to me at the moment for the purpose of getting some sort of sign ups and feedback; my hunch is that it'd make sense to spend 70%+ of your time on marketing and user research.
It's not so much that I'm endorsing the status hierarchy stuff. It's more that I'm trying to take the action that has the best consequences. Perhaps your position is that 1) status hierarchy shouldn't gatekeep meta-conversation, 2) my acting as if it does makes the norm stronger, which is a bad consequence, and therefore 3) I shouldn't act as if it does. My objection is that (2) is extremely weak given that my action is just an extremely small drop in the bucket. I think it rounds to zero and that the discomfort I'd cause others and myself outweighs it.
I like the descriptive point about it being hierarchy-restricted. That sounds at least partially correct. I can think of situations where such meta-conversation wouldn't be taboo for someone who is high status, such as the CTO in example 1.
However, I can also think of situations where there just isn't really (enough of) a status hierarchy. As for prescriptive claim that it should be hierarchy-restricted, I'm not sure. I could see things getting out of hand if everyone is allowed to initiate meta-conversation, but that also feels like a solvable problem. You need to establish some sort of norm about how to balance meta-conversation with object-level conversation. I also think that there needs to be a solution for situations without clear status hierarchies.
but overall: nah just ignore the taboo. we don't have time to respect silly taboos. just reassure people you don't think they should have known you'd feel this way and it usually goes fine.
I hear ya, but I also disagree. I don't expect that sort of thing to go fine. I expect that usually it'd do a lot more harm than good, looking at it both from a selfish perspective (it'd make me feel uncomfortable) and an altruistic one (it'd make everyone else in the group feel uncomfortable).
Making meta-comments feels like a status claim.
Ah yeah that's a great point. I agree.
But if one person makes a meta-comment, and some other person disagrees with the meta-comment, they will soon have a meta-argument, and everyone else will be like "what happened to the original topic we wanted to discuss in the first place?"
I think that's definitely a failure mode that is likely to happen. However, I think that it's also a failure mode that is avoidable.
Interesting points! I generally agree. In particular, that a) there's a natural tendency for people to mesh with some groups more than others based on these unspoken norms, and people gravitate towards groups they mesh with, which mitigates the problem. But the problem still doesn't totally go away. Often times it doesn't even go away all that much.
b) I lean pretty strongly towards agreeing with the point about it coming across as a personal insult. In particular, that fifth example I gave with the girl at the tea house. If I spoke up in front of the group and called her out for dominating the conversation, yeah, I feel like it'd be awkward. I wish that weren't the case.
My sense is that in the abstract people would say there's nothing wrong with it, but when it comes time to actually do so in a real conversation, it's usually awkward. Well, I think there are exceptions that aren't awkward, but my sense is that most of the time it would be awkward.
In my mind (which might be wrong; I'm not particularly knowledgable and have not thought about this deeply) the big issue with ads is the attention economy stuff that Cal Newport talks about. Monetizing (primarily) via ads means that you are competing for eyeballs, which is bad when things like outrage and jealousy prove to attract the most eyeballs instead of things like knowledge and empathy. Well I guess that doesn't automatically make it bad. It's just that it's an undesirable consequence.