My wife, daughter, and I stayed at an @Airbnb in NYC in November. Perfectly normal stay. Nothing happened. When we left, the owner said there was a small stain on the hardwood floor he couldn't clean and said it took him $7500 to fix, including literally replacing floorboards. We know nothing about this, saw nothing, looks totally unfamiliar. Feels like insurance fraud, or something? AirBNB took his side because we couldn't provide a picture of the floor at the exact minute we walked out the door. Are you kidding me? Has anyone else had an experience with AirBNB like this? Any attorneys who know how to deal with this sort of absurd claim? AirBNB is saying that if we don't pay the claim by Jan. 31, they're just debiting my card $1000 and then someone from AirBNB will reach "about the rest"

10 dyads to help make things clear:

(1)
Thin desire: to be looked at.
Thick desire: to be seen. (2)
Thin desire: to create content.
Thick desire: to make art.

20 areas where I see the battle between thin and thick desires playing out 👇 1. Content has become more important than Form—and this is detrimental to human development. Lovers want to find new and creative ways to express the same content. Silence is an anti-mimetic form today.
read.lukeburgis.com/p/the-case-for…

Eddie Bernays on propaganda (PR), a nascent industry, writing in 1928—an eight-point 🧵 1) Only through the active energy of the intelligent few can the public at large become aware of and act upon new ideas

"How to talk about books you haven't read" by Pierre Bayard. An important book. A few key lessons:🧵 "Culture is above all a matter of orientation. Being cultivated is a matter not of having read any book in particular, but of being able to find your bearings within books as a system."

Some key concepts from René Girard's Theory of Mimetic Desires, in pictures: Mimetic desire is wanting "according to the desire of another"—we want what other people want *because* they want it. But we almost never realize we're doing this. We live under the illusion of the Romantic Lie. The path to the objects we desire is never straight, but curved.

I listened to Elon on #Clubhouse last night. He features fairly heavily in one chapter of my upcoming book b/c a Wall Street Journal piece came out about him that I just couldn't stomach. The man sounded totally burnt out and weary to me, but I would too if I were him. A few people who read an early copy of my manuscript were really troubled by Musk's presence—why would I "highlight a billionaire," they asked. They wanted me to excoriate him. For the life of me, I don't understand the hatred toward him.

20 insights into mimetic desire, some of which might save your life: The fox in Aesop's fable of the sour grapes in a Romantic Liar. The only reason he was able to convince himself that the grapes were sour is that he was alone. Had there been a rival fox who wanted them, he wouldn’t have been able to walk away.

I wonder what would happen if everyone had a Credibility Score.

Example: If @tomcolicchio tells me an NYC restaurant has great service, 99% chance I'll agree.

You can fill in the blanks: if [X person] recommends [Y category/thing], the probability of it being a good fit is [Z%] I think we all sort of do this tacitly, don't we? If @thomasjbevan1 recommends a substack, I am almost sure I'll like it.