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A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

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Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#71

Post by mcv »

Gatsky wrote: post #58
nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

I think you have this the wrong way around. The article is undoubtedly correct to my mind. The most popular content creators are basically doing nothing. Looking at the truly huge Youtubers, people on Patreon, Instagrammers, streamers etc it is clear that mundanity with high production values is what people want. This is non-art served up with the orchestra and vino that you are criticising as bourgeois. Reality TV g…

> "Looking at the truly huge Youtubers, people on Patreon, Instagrammers, streamers etc it is clear that mundanity with high production values is what people want."

How about just looking at Hollywood box office numbers? A Michael Bay explosion spectacle makes way more money than some insightful art house movie dealing with complex issues.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#72

Post by mcv »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49
nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

> Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent I didn’t find the author criticism the artists as much as their subject matter. Talking about Elon Musk or nuclear technology or philosophy is transcendent. Talking about the everyday life of a Charleston crab fisher is ordinary. I like both! But I agree that pop culture fetishises the latter while looking down on the former. (It reminds of o…

Rather than rock or opera, give me a rock opera. The most interesting art comes from mixing things up. In that sense, Youtube is a massive driver of art today, with its many mash-ups and other crazy ideas that would never have been allowed by more traditional art gatekeepers. Of course it's mixed in with lots of pulp, but there's plenty of art on Youtube that's far more transcendental than yet another ballet.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#73

Post by fareesh »

For those who work there - I am curious, I occasionally come across complaints online that much of Silicon Valley and tech companies have a large "dirtbag left" (not my term, I am referencing what is written in the article) contingent of employees, who actively "cleanse" their ranks of all right-leaning employees.

I am inclined to believe this because of past stories involving the Mozilla CEO and the Occulus CEO and James Damore all being fired for basically not having heterodox views.

From the comments that I read across various forum websites whenever this topic comes up, the takeaway seems to be a chilling effect POV of "if you're right-leaning, make sure nobody finds out, and just do your job".

Of course it's very difficult to form an opinion sitting in another country based on what you read on the internet, so I was curious to know how true it is.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#74

Post by deogeo »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #66
deogeo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An omniscient god can guide random processes as it wishes. Or it can create a system where the desired outcome will come to pass, without controlling every detail. Like how each molecule of water moves randomly and unpredictably, but the river flows downhill and to the ocean.

Anything “can” happen if you want to define that it can. The point is that the why in many religions can lead to people thinking humans have a special status, vs the how indicating there is no reason to assume that. The problem comes when people make decisions based on god making the desired outcome to pass, such as “don’t worry about climate change, everything happens for the better and god will take care of us”. Th…

Yes, religious belief can have adverse consequences - but that's a pragmatic argument on how to act, and has no bearing on the underlying truth of whether or not some god, however defined, exists. Or if there exists more than mechanistic, mathematical nature - after all, religion and belief in an omnipotent god are not synonymous.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#75

Post by Intermernet »

baud147258 wrote: post #10
SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #5

Culture evolves, and people increasingly question tradition for tradition's sake. Belief in God is at odds with a scientific view of the world, the decision to have children or not has many contributing factors (economic, for one), and it's hard to be patriotic when every country has so many skeletons in the closet you'd think it's perpetually Halloween.

> Belief in God is at odds with a scientific view of the world I'd say both are orthogonal to each other. The religious view of the world explain the "why do we exist?" and the scientific view the "how do we exist?".

Most religions purport to explain both, and science has little interest in the former, as it has traditionally been impossible to come up with falsifiable experiments as to "why do we exist".

This is, like your comment, taking strict definitions for both "why" and "how".

"why" we exist can have answers ranging from "we're the current latest bunch of mutants resulting from this whole evolution thing" all the way to "as self-realized, intelligent beings, we inevitably ask this question, and asking this question is the only predictable outcome of being intelligent and self-realized."

"how" we exist can be answered anywhere from "with a whole lot of luck" to "badly".

You need to specify what you mean by "why" and "how" for your distinction to have any debatable qualities.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#76

Post by Intermernet »

deogeo wrote: post #74
lotsofpulp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything “can” happen if you want to define that it can. The point is that the why in many religions can lead to people thinking humans have a special status, vs the how indicating there is no reason to assume that. The problem comes when people make decisions based on god making the desired outcome to pass, such as “don’t worry about climate change, everything happens for the better and god will take care of us”. Th…

Yes, religious belief can have adverse consequences - but that's a pragmatic argument on how to act, and has no bearing on the underlying truth of whether or not some god, however defined, exists. Or if there exists more than mechanistic, mathematical nature - after all, religion and belief in an omnipotent god are not synonymous.

If that's the case, then does it matter at all if a god exists? It becomes a purely self perpetuating, entirely abstract question like "does the future exist?"

Also, culturally, in the majority of the "Western" nations, religion and belief in an omnipotent god are synonymous. There are outliers and exceptions, but they have little to no sway on the zeitgeist.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#77

Post by Intermernet »

baud147258 wrote: post #62
adrianN wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can credibly be a theist and believe in science, but it's a lot harder to really believe in one of the big religions and also believe in science.

Why? I'm a believing Catholic and believe in science too.

What, in this instance, defines "Catholic" and "science"? Science relies more on disbelief than belief. Faith is anathema to the scientific method. You can disagree, but you should be able to make a cogent argument as to why what I just typed is incorrect.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#78

Post by nindalf »

chippy wrote: post #50
nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

> Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent I think the author gives us a hint about what is ordinary: "They tend not to be representations of noble ambition, or of a classical or romantic vision of how human beings might achieve greatness." As an aside and don't take this personally - perhaps your question was actually "I am sure what they mean but I'm trying to disagree" ? Or perhaps…

No it was genuine curiousity driven by ignorance.

> a classical or romantic vision of how human beings might achieve greatness

How does a singer-songwriter provide this but not the minecraft shader guy? Is there something I'm missing?

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#79

Post by Intermernet »

baud147258 wrote: post #64
TeMPOraL wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then if Occam's razor tells you the random process[0] will manage just fine, you have to push God's guidance further away still. At some point you might ask yourself, if increasingly sophisticated phenomena keep turning out to be explainable without any reference to God, if anything science touches turns out to be devoid of God, then why should we expect to find Him? -- [0] - an important realization is that evol…

> if anything science touches turns out to be devoid of God, then why should we expect to find Him I don't think science can be used to find any proof of the existence of God

>I don't think science can be used to find any proof of the existence of God

Can anything be used to provide any proof of the existence of God? If not, why continue to argue for the existence of God?

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#80

Post by SiempreViernes »

nindalf wrote: post #78
chippy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent I think the author gives us a hint about what is ordinary: "They tend not to be representations of noble ambition, or of a classical or romantic vision of how human beings might achieve greatness." As an aside and don't take this personally - perhaps your question was actually "I am sure what they mean but I'm trying to disagree" ? Or perhaps…

No it was genuine curiousity driven by ignorance. > a classical or romantic vision of how human beings might achieve greatness How does a singer-songwriter provide this but not the minecraft shader guy? Is there something I'm missing?

I don't think there is a very serious theory behind this text, it feels more like someone complaining that what they find on patreon wouldn't belong in their museum of art.
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