I’m overall super impressed by how well the styles of the songs fit the content—e.g. the violins in FHI, the British accent works really well for More Dakka, the whisper for We Do Not Wish, the Litany of Tarrrrski, etc.
My favorites to listen to are FHI at Oxford, Nihil Supernum, and Litany of Tarrrrski, because they have both messages that resonate a lot and great tunes.
IMO Answer to Job is the best-composed on artistic merits, and will have the most widespread appeal. Tune is great, style matches the lyrics really well (particular shout-out to the “or labor or lust” as a well-composed bar). Only change I’d make is changing “upon lotus thrones” to “on lotus thrones” to scan better.
Dath Ilan’s Song feels… pretty unhealthy, tbh.
I thought Prime Factorization was really great until the bit about the car and the number, which felt a bit jarring.
I loved the bit about the car and the number, but it only makes sense if you’ve read the original post I guess. (which I assume you have? YMMV I guess)
I loved “Half an hour before dawn in San Francisco” but it was mostly the lyrics that I love not the music—music is good but just as a platform for the lyrics.
I think “First they came for the epistemology” and “More dakka” and “Moloch” aren’t getting enough love in this comment section. They aren’t perfect but they are catchy and the synergy between the music and the lyrics is GREAT.
I’m interested in more thoughts on the Dath Ilan song. It’s the sort of thing I could imagine ending up believing was unhealthy, but I haven’t heard anyone argue that before.
(I think there are many flavors of anti-deathism that are unhealthy. And I think specifically the line “no death will be forgiven” is… maybe like mildly unhealthy because of, like, how I think people should relate to forgiveness. But, didn’t feel like it was making it in an overbearing way that I’d struggle to reconcile with my general ‘actually I think you should in some sense forgive most horrible things’)
I think the two things that felt most unhealthy were:
The “no forgiveness is ever possible” thing, as you highlight. Almost all talk about ineradicable sin should, IMO, be seen as a powerful psychological attack.
The “our sins” thing feels like an unhealthy form of collective responsibility—you’re responsible even if you haven’t done anything. Again, very suspect on priors.
Maybe this is more intuitive for rationalists if you imagine a SJW writing a song about how, even millions of years in the future, anyone descended from westerners should still feel guilt about slavery: “Our sins can never be undone. No single death will be forgiven.” I think this is the psychological exploit that’s screwed up leftism so much over the last decade, and feels very analogous to what’s happening in this song.
I think what I currently feel-in-my-heart is something like “yeah that does make sense, but, I sort of wish there was an amount of mournful-grieving-acknowledgement that felt like captured the weight of the thing, without being too likely to escalate into a pervasive psychological attack.”
The current (at least as of two days ago) amount of discussion of the Dath Ilan song was fairly rare and private and high-context. I do think making it into a sort-of-”pop” song is the sort of thing reasonable to be wary of.
For what it’s worth, I find the Dath Ilan song to be one of my favorites. Upon listening I immediately wanted this song to be played at my funeral.
There’s something powerful there, which can be dangerous, but it’s a kind of feeling that I draw strength and comfort from. I specifically like the phrasing around sins and forgiveness, and expect it to be difficult to engender the same comfort or strength in me without it. Among my friends I’m considered a bit weird in how much I think about grief and death and loss. So maybe it’s a weird psychology thing.
Fantastic work :)
Some thoughts on the songs:
I’m overall super impressed by how well the styles of the songs fit the content—e.g. the violins in FHI, the British accent works really well for More Dakka, the whisper for We Do Not Wish, the Litany of Tarrrrski, etc.
My favorites to listen to are FHI at Oxford, Nihil Supernum, and Litany of Tarrrrski, because they have both messages that resonate a lot and great tunes.
IMO Answer to Job is the best-composed on artistic merits, and will have the most widespread appeal. Tune is great, style matches the lyrics really well (particular shout-out to the “or labor or lust” as a well-composed bar). Only change I’d make is changing “upon lotus thrones” to “on lotus thrones” to scan better.
Dath Ilan’s Song feels… pretty unhealthy, tbh.
I thought Prime Factorization was really great until the bit about the car and the number, which felt a bit jarring.
I loved the bit about the car and the number, but it only makes sense if you’ve read the original post I guess. (which I assume you have? YMMV I guess)
I loved “Half an hour before dawn in San Francisco” but it was mostly the lyrics that I love not the music—music is good but just as a platform for the lyrics.
I think “First they came for the epistemology” and “More dakka” and “Moloch” aren’t getting enough love in this comment section. They aren’t perfect but they are catchy and the synergy between the music and the lyrics is GREAT.
I’m interested in more thoughts on the Dath Ilan song. It’s the sort of thing I could imagine ending up believing was unhealthy, but I haven’t heard anyone argue that before.
(I think there are many flavors of anti-deathism that are unhealthy. And I think specifically the line “no death will be forgiven” is… maybe like mildly unhealthy because of, like, how I think people should relate to forgiveness. But, didn’t feel like it was making it in an overbearing way that I’d struggle to reconcile with my general ‘actually I think you should in some sense forgive most horrible things’)
I think the two things that felt most unhealthy were:
The “no forgiveness is ever possible” thing, as you highlight. Almost all talk about ineradicable sin should, IMO, be seen as a powerful psychological attack.
The “our sins” thing feels like an unhealthy form of collective responsibility—you’re responsible even if you haven’t done anything. Again, very suspect on priors.
Maybe this is more intuitive for rationalists if you imagine a SJW writing a song about how, even millions of years in the future, anyone descended from westerners should still feel guilt about slavery: “Our sins can never be undone. No single death will be forgiven.” I think this is the psychological exploit that’s screwed up leftism so much over the last decade, and feels very analogous to what’s happening in this song.
Nod, makes sense. I’ll mull it over more.
I think what I currently feel-in-my-heart is something like “yeah that does make sense, but, I sort of wish there was an amount of mournful-grieving-acknowledgement that felt like captured the weight of the thing, without being too likely to escalate into a pervasive psychological attack.”
The current (at least as of two days ago) amount of discussion of the Dath Ilan song was fairly rare and private and high-context. I do think making it into a sort-of-”pop” song is the sort of thing reasonable to be wary of.
Yeah, the lyrics didn’t sit well with me either so I counterlyricized it.
For what it’s worth, I find the Dath Ilan song to be one of my favorites. Upon listening I immediately wanted this song to be played at my funeral.
There’s something powerful there, which can be dangerous, but it’s a kind of feeling that I draw strength and comfort from. I specifically like the phrasing around sins and forgiveness, and expect it to be difficult to engender the same comfort or strength in me without it. Among my friends I’m considered a bit weird in how much I think about grief and death and loss. So maybe it’s a weird psychology thing.