The Oscars

It appears that the Oscars ratings have hit an all-time low. I didn't watch the ceremony and haven't watched it in many years. When I had satellite TV with a DVR, I recorded it in case a boob popped out or some other view-worthy moment. I was looking for a recap, and then I saw a reference to "Glenn Close's 'Da Butt'" and that was the end of that.

In general, I don't think movies have the prestige they once had. Or maybe television has gotten so much better that movies need to be that much better to compensate. 

I haven't seen any of the Best Picture nominees this year. I don't know whether to watch any of them or not. I don't like going into a movie with high expectations and then being disappointed. Wouldn't it be great if there was some website powered by AI where I could select movies I like from various genres, and it would suggest movies that I may like. The next step would be to cross-reference that list with all these award shows to triangulate the movies that would be most likely to be worth my time. I could then fine-tune the answers as I watch the movies and rate them so that this AI gets even smarter. Maybe such a thing exists somewhere already. 

I looked at the last 25 years or so of Best Picture winners, and of the ones I've seen, I would say only a handful would qualify as truly great movies. I have high expectations if you are going to take 2+ hours of my time.
Abraham Kim
My mom continues to mention institutional awards such as 
The Oscars
and I need to try real hard not to deride all these awards. When she shares that some 
Korean
won an award or got nominated for many of them she feels like it's a win for us.

I'm not as attached to my nationality so I don't get anything out of it. I'm guessing 
keni
is more like my mom than me on this one lol.

williamliao
are you into big awards and them being attached to your background?
2021-04-27 20:43:56
Keni
Yup that's a correct assessment Sir Abe. Mom is just like me. 
2021-04-28 02:27:18
William Liao
abrahamKim
I am. I think diversity is important for several reasons and to that end I tend to celebrate when historically homogenous institutions begin to diversify. 

keni
what you're describing reminds me of the concept of 'reward prediction error' which is discussed in the book Molecule of More (
abrahamKim
). The gist is that if your experience exceeds expectations, you are extremely elated. If your experience falls beneath expectations, you're extremely disappointed. To that end, you could argue that we'd all be much happier people if we expected all things to be awful - in that way even the most lukewarm of things would bring us delight. 
2021-04-28 20:39:22
Keni
That book is something I need to be reading right now. Thank you 
williamliao
 ... I saw a TED talk about the relationship of expectations and happiness by Barry Shwartz many years ago and it stuck with me forever. 
2021-04-28 21:29:37
Abraham Kim
lmao only if this argument worked. To that end, you could argue that we'd all be much happier people if we expected all things to be awful -

But I believe that you need to actually believe your expectations. If one falsefully downgrades their expectations (defaltes) just so they can be pleasantly surprised later then they actually don't have that expectation.

There's a quote from 
Peter Thiel
that I can't find right now that roughly says that 
burning witches
was done by people in the past who were more superstitious than contemporary folk -- slightly -- and they were willing to burn witches because they actually thought that would alleviate a lot of their problems. Things like plague and whatnot I believe. 

Thiel jokes that this witch burning only worked because the people believed it did. The feeling of agency and the
placebo
belief that things were improving after these burnings would be rendered moot if they were to not actually believe that they were working.
2021-04-29 02:51:32