it reminds me a little of the people who talked about their standardized test scores as if training themselves to perform well on such a thing was a meaningful achievement.
I personally don't do well with standardized learning environments - never have, also not as a kid - so I share this view. Also because I've been haunted for years by people focusing on certificates rather than capability. So this is a good generic comparison I think.
But if we ignore standardized lists/rankings, the problem then transforms: how do we discover new stuff? Do we take signals from SN? I would right now, because there are many smart and honest people here. Without SN 1, it would be much harder for me to filter signal from noise, so how does a bird-app-only normie do it?
Footnotes
I kind of feel that SN is not a representative platform for the rest of the world because it is still niche. And then, the moment it grows out of the niche and normies do get access (or it gets truly invaded by the slop army) I expect that we will lose this benefit, just like it was lost on the Reddit of old. So having normies on SN kind of goes against the quality interactions we enjoy today. ↩
Footnotes