IRR #7: The Internet, Advertising, Mental Health, Personal Finance, Slavery, The Curb Cut Effect

[original post date = 5 november 2017. Side note, all caught up on backposts, so no more journal flooding. Expect new IRRs every week or so. ]

I didn't forget about this, it just took me this long to come up with a suitable number of links. xP

What Facebook Did to American Democracy And Why It Was So Hard to See It Coming. • r/TrueReddit
The article, not the comments. Basically, Facebook heavily influenced the election, but it'd done it more than once...

The War To Sell You A Mattress Is An Internet Nightmare • r/TrueReddit
The comments are ok if you're actually interested in this subject matter and/or you are looking for a new cheap mattress to buy. Otherwise, the article is pretty interesting even if you have no interest whatsoever. As the article itself states: "[online mattress reviewing business vs mattress businesses] would also reveal just how thoroughly the internet and the businesses that thrived there had blurred the lines between product reviews and advertisements. All I’d wanted was a mattress, but what I got was a look at a little-known and hugely lucrative annex of e-commerce..."

What is an article about mattresses becomes the symbol of a much larger problem, one touched on in the comments. But here is my favorite comment chain, which is specifically about mattresses but could also technically be extrapolated. That mattresses are all the same now, the business will implode soon because of this (and the internet), and other businesses will follow suit.

I ran a self-experiment where I went from using only cash to only credit. • r/personalfinance
This whole thing is interesting because the experiment OP did was a huge discussion starter. And the comments you will find people saying they agree with OP and others saying their experience is the exact opposite from OP's. There's also a rather long discussion about credit cards, their rewards, and why cc companies give those rewards and what that means for you. Furthermore, for those of you who aren't into personal finance, any time someone mentions "mint" they mean mint.com, a sort of budgeting helper online service (totally free and extremely helpful, btw). This and YNAB ("You Need a Budget" software) are frequently mentioned.

What are some great side hustle ideas you can do from home and start making money today? • r/Entrepreneur
I don't find this particularly interesting myself but felt a lot of people on Iwaku might. I linked to the specific comment that actually had decent advice.

TIL For at least 6 years, ad companies have been retroactively adding/changing product placements in old TV shows • r/todayilearned
Something I kind of new happened already but didn't realize it was as incredibly pervasive as it is.

What steps are you taking to look after your mental health? • r/CasualConversation
A dearth of comments here citing what they currently do... Useful as ideas for what YOU can do too!

What moment in history that's hard to believe it actually happened? • r/AskReddit
Lots of surprising stuff in here.

Overt slavery seems a near continuous element of cultures through much of the history of the world, until around the 19th century, whereupon it fairly quickly became condemned and abolished in many different countries in short order. What triggered this sudden, widespread change? • r/AskHistorians
An interesting question I've also wanted to know the answer to but never found the situation to ask.
The answer brings up broader questions: "What actually IS slavery" and feels somewhat disappointing in some regards, but also eye-opening, particularly when they go into the abolitionism movement:
"[The thought process behind this question] ignores that the Abolition movement begins with the first slave. We cannot only look to the actions of benevolent white abolitionists... Enslaved people [...] resisted becoming enslaved. They resisted being put on boats. They resisted on the boats. They resisted when sold in the American colonies, and they resisted until they could resist no more. Without the constant resistance and agitation of enslaved people there would have been no abolition movement."

Why making games with color deficient people in mind is bigger than the 8-10% of the population they make up, and should be taken more seriously. • r/boardgames
Something that was just kinda banal to me but I agreed with came up on /r/boardgames. Why is it interesting, you say? Not only the thinking behind the explanation of the OP but also the concept of The curb cut effect which is mentioned in the top comments.
After reading that article, you can read the comments about the boardgames and really think to yourself.. "Huh. Why the fuck don't we have more assistive technology?"
I have subtitles whenever possible, for example, and I have no hearing impediments. I also am a firm believer that everybody should learn sign language (but that's a thing for another time). Plainly put, just read the article about Curb Cut Effect. TIL. You can learn too.

Romance films/TV targeted towards a male hetero audience? • r/flicks
This is from today so no particular comments of note yet, but there's a hint that there might be further discussion about what the lack of such a genre says about our culture and how our genders view romance, so, I'm keeping my eyes on it.

If mainstream movies were named with PornHub video title conventions
Also from today so not quite mature, I am listing it for no other reason than I find it hilarious.