Re the culture piece: you make some important points, but the “Let’s ban new books” thing seems rather self-undermining. If you’re going to ban new books, why not ban new blog comments, too? The observation that we have more culture than anyone can know what to do with is hardly original, and your phrasing can’t have been the best, so why did you spend all that time writing this piece, when you could have been making money?
My answer to this entire dilemma is just to say that culture isn’t about economic consumption: I guess that was entirely your point , but I’m taking a different attitude about it. Writing has been made into a commodity, but writing as such is a means of communication between people. To say that I should not write is to say that I should not speak, and even the least educated and cultured among us says something now and again, so to say that I should not speak is to say that I should not live. Why should I live, when we already have billions of people already?---because I want to. I don’t care if nothing I do has global, world-shaking effects; I don’t care it’s all been known and done before (if not here then somewhere across the many worlds); I want to know; I want to do—this particular conjunction of traits and ideas wants to know and do, even if lots of other superficially similar conjunctions have already known and done many superficially similar things.
I think that society ought not discourage the production of new novels, not because we need more novels around (you’re right; we don’t), but because I want to live in a world where everyone writes a good novel. No one’s life is exactly bitwise identical to someone else’s (or they’d really be the same person anyway), so everyone must have something to say that hasn’t already been said in exactly the same way. So let’s explore the space; the project is by no means complete. Yes, this means that a lot of crap will get written, but I still think it’s more fun this way than tiling the galaxy with James Joyce. But de gustibus non est.
Re the culture piece: you make some important points, but the “Let’s ban new books” thing seems rather self-undermining. If you’re going to ban new books, why not ban new blog comments, too?
Yeah, it is undermining. But it’s funny! You’re reading along and then you see “Let’s ban new books”, which although a fairly logical extrapolation, is still something that no one would expect to be seriously suggested.
More seriously, as I think I’ve already argued here, blog comments (and most websites in general) don’t affect the weakened argument about removing subsidies. Less Wrong receives no government support (if anyone mirrored us, would we actually sue them or even bother with DMCA takedowns? I note that we don’t work under any CC licenses, but that seems more like an omission than anything).
The observation that we have more culture than anyone can know what to do with is hardly original,
Alas, there is nothing new under the sun. (Oops.) But it seems to’ve been novel enough to most of the people who read it, and it’s not like non-philosophers read Schopenhauer any more.
and your phrasing can’t have been the best, so why did you spend all that time writing this piece, when you could have been making money?
As a student, my time is worthless! Essays like this may be useful as advertising, or spinning off into assignments; and they’re much better than playing Geometry Wars. (Also, is my phrasing that bad? I thought I wrote it pretty well. :()
My answer to this entire dilemma is just to say that culture isn’t about economic consumption: I guess that was entirely your point
I was also trying to show that it’s ‘not about Esthetics’ too: if it were, we would expect there to be a lifetime-length canon optimizing your esthetics-per-work count, with occasional tweaks (deletions & additions) by specialists when some work is realized to not be very good or just exceeded by some unincluded work. But that is manifestly not the case.
I think that society ought not discourage the production of new novels, not because we need more novels around (you’re right; we don’t), but because I want to live in a world where everyone writes a good novel.
So this would fall under the ‘externalities’ category—people writing novels become better people for it?
(Also, is my phrasing that bad? I thought I wrote it pretty well. :()
Well, I’m glad you wrote it, but I’m not the one complaining that we produce too much text.
if it were, we would expect there to be a lifetime-length canon optimizing your esthetics-per-work count, with occasional tweaks (deletions & additions) by specialists when some work is realized to not be very good or just exceeded by some unincluded work.
I think you’re underestimating long tail effects. There is a sense in which we can say that some authors are much better than some others, but people have extremely specific tastes, too: no one canon will suffice, not even canons for particular genres and subgenres. Consider that I like the particular philosophical style of Greg Egan; giving me a list of top “hard science fiction” won’t help me. Or consider that one of my favorite short stories ever is Scott Aaronson’s “On Self-Delusion and Bounded Rationality.” Now, Scott Aaronson isn’t a professional fiction writer; I don’t even think that story was even conventionally published in an official fiction venue; it’s not going in any accepted canon. But why should I care? It’s going in my canon. Or consider that there’s a lot of work on very specific topics that I have reason to believe doesn’t exist. So I’ll have to create it. Even if most of you wouldn’t understand or wouldn’t care; well, I’m not living for your sake. Some clever person updated Warhol, you know: “In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.”
So this would fall under the ‘externalities’ category—people writing novels become better people for it?
Consider that I like the particular philosophical style of Greg Egan; giving me a list of top “hard science fiction” won’t help me.
This sounds like an acquired taste; if you only came to like Egan’s style because it exists, and you would’ve come to like some style even if Egan had never been...
It’s not so much “doing this stuff will make you a better person” as much as, “the entire point of this being-a-person business is doing stuff, and it might as well be this as not.”
Well, OK. If writing books are leisure activities, then why does it need any protection or subsidies? You don’t hear many panicked cries that there is a papier-mâché deficiency which needs state intervention.
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”
Re the culture piece: you make some important points, but the “Let’s ban new books” thing seems rather self-undermining. If you’re going to ban new books, why not ban new blog comments, too? The observation that we have more culture than anyone can know what to do with is hardly original, and your phrasing can’t have been the best, so why did you spend all that time writing this piece, when you could have been making money?
My answer to this entire dilemma is just to say that culture isn’t about economic consumption: I guess that was entirely your point , but I’m taking a different attitude about it. Writing has been made into a commodity, but writing as such is a means of communication between people. To say that I should not write is to say that I should not speak, and even the least educated and cultured among us says something now and again, so to say that I should not speak is to say that I should not live. Why should I live, when we already have billions of people already?---because I want to. I don’t care if nothing I do has global, world-shaking effects; I don’t care it’s all been known and done before (if not here then somewhere across the many worlds); I want to know; I want to do—this particular conjunction of traits and ideas wants to know and do, even if lots of other superficially similar conjunctions have already known and done many superficially similar things.
I think that society ought not discourage the production of new novels, not because we need more novels around (you’re right; we don’t), but because I want to live in a world where everyone writes a good novel. No one’s life is exactly bitwise identical to someone else’s (or they’d really be the same person anyway), so everyone must have something to say that hasn’t already been said in exactly the same way. So let’s explore the space; the project is by no means complete. Yes, this means that a lot of crap will get written, but I still think it’s more fun this way than tiling the galaxy with James Joyce. But de gustibus non est.
Yeah, it is undermining. But it’s funny! You’re reading along and then you see “Let’s ban new books”, which although a fairly logical extrapolation, is still something that no one would expect to be seriously suggested.
More seriously, as I think I’ve already argued here, blog comments (and most websites in general) don’t affect the weakened argument about removing subsidies. Less Wrong receives no government support (if anyone mirrored us, would we actually sue them or even bother with DMCA takedowns? I note that we don’t work under any CC licenses, but that seems more like an omission than anything).
Alas, there is nothing new under the sun. (Oops.) But it seems to’ve been novel enough to most of the people who read it, and it’s not like non-philosophers read Schopenhauer any more.
As a student, my time is worthless! Essays like this may be useful as advertising, or spinning off into assignments; and they’re much better than playing Geometry Wars. (Also, is my phrasing that bad? I thought I wrote it pretty well. :()
I was also trying to show that it’s ‘not about Esthetics’ too: if it were, we would expect there to be a lifetime-length canon optimizing your esthetics-per-work count, with occasional tweaks (deletions & additions) by specialists when some work is realized to not be very good or just exceeded by some unincluded work. But that is manifestly not the case.
So this would fall under the ‘externalities’ category—people writing novels become better people for it?
Well, I’m glad you wrote it, but I’m not the one complaining that we produce too much text.
I think you’re underestimating long tail effects. There is a sense in which we can say that some authors are much better than some others, but people have extremely specific tastes, too: no one canon will suffice, not even canons for particular genres and subgenres. Consider that I like the particular philosophical style of Greg Egan; giving me a list of top “hard science fiction” won’t help me. Or consider that one of my favorite short stories ever is Scott Aaronson’s “On Self-Delusion and Bounded Rationality.” Now, Scott Aaronson isn’t a professional fiction writer; I don’t even think that story was even conventionally published in an official fiction venue; it’s not going in any accepted canon. But why should I care? It’s going in my canon. Or consider that there’s a lot of work on very specific topics that I have reason to believe doesn’t exist. So I’ll have to create it. Even if most of you wouldn’t understand or wouldn’t care; well, I’m not living for your sake. Some clever person updated Warhol, you know: “In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.”
Um, sure, although I’d phrase it differently. It’s not so much “doing this stuff will make you a better person” as much as, “the entire point of this being-a-person business is doing stuff, and it might as well be this as not.”
This sounds like an acquired taste; if you only came to like Egan’s style because it exists, and you would’ve come to like some style even if Egan had never been...
Well, OK. If writing books are leisure activities, then why does it need any protection or subsidies? You don’t hear many panicked cries that there is a papier-mâché deficiency which needs state intervention.