There's a lot of great things about this piece, but I'm kind of stuck on the "Hieronymus Bosch Butt Music". Listened to it a bunch of times now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnrICy3Bc2U
Maybe that's the point?
I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
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Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#22Although I appreciate the article, what's the deal with calling depth thickness? Is it because it looks like the meme word 'thicc'? > If you allow for the existence of secret treasures that can only be accessed with effort and analysis, then you empower the elitists and the snobs. “Buddy, don’t even talk to me until you’ve been in the cave!” I don't agree with this statement. Being a snob and/or elitist means looking…
I don't think the author is claiming you HAVE to be a dick about it. But that the pursuit of "thickness" does in reality give ammunition to a lot of people who are inevitably dicks about it seems observably true to me.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#23Although I appreciate the article, what's the deal with calling depth thickness? Is it because it looks like the meme word 'thicc'? > If you allow for the existence of secret treasures that can only be accessed with effort and analysis, then you empower the elitists and the snobs. “Buddy, don’t even talk to me until you’ve been in the cave!” I don't agree with this statement. Being a snob and/or elitist means looking…
I imagine the word thickness represents the great number of (metaphorical) layers of a painting, since paintings are the reoccurring symbol to talk about art in this essay.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#24I really enjoyed reading this and I've been thinking along similar lines when I imagine viable careers of the future. No one will care if code is "thick" but why would anyone buy a novel written by AI? What does the reader get out of it? It seems like the humanities might be the most stable career path available.
i’m working on a little ios widget display currently. even a tiny little one view box has hundreds of nuanced design and structure decisions behind it.
That reasoning is the thickness not the amount of code that powers it though they are somewhat interrelated.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#25I'm confused; why is this hitting #2 on HN? I don't see the H or the N in this.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#26Although I appreciate the article, what's the deal with calling depth thickness? Is it because it looks like the meme word 'thicc'? > If you allow for the existence of secret treasures that can only be accessed with effort and analysis, then you empower the elitists and the snobs. “Buddy, don’t even talk to me until you’ve been in the cave!” I don't agree with this statement. Being a snob and/or elitist means looking…
> what's the deal with calling depth thickness
It's almost as though the author thought about and cared about the content and exact words he chose. "Thick or Treat" and "Thickening agents" and "Slim pickings" even immediately evoking imagery of a thin slop gruel in my own head.
By using an unexpected word I think I thought more critically about it, in fact. Had the author used depth I would've immediately had more superficial imagery in my own head.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#27Really loved this essay, loved the irreverent style. I had a similar literary journey as this guy.
I think I would take it a step further though. It's not just that great literature has details and motifs that line up perfectly, it's not just that it took great effort to produce, or has some musicality or rhythm that is beautiful to take in experientially. It's that the thing that is communicated is truthful. Great fiction wipes away the noise of one's day-to-day thinking into some deep and essential truth about the human experience.
Which is difficult, because that type of truth is not mathematical, it cannot be arrived at through some standalone logical path. I think students suffer because instruction by its nature is framed as teaching a path to get to some destination. The author mentions this with the egg cracking metaphor. The reason that fiction can produce this type of truth and non-fiction cannot is that fiction relays a human experience, it's relational and personal and that is the whole point of it. And you get that transcendental truth out of it because our life experience is fundamentally relational, it is how we see ourselves in relation to others or god or nature or what have you.
Seeing fiction that way is the main difference between myself at 16 and myself today.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#28I'm confused; why is this hitting #2 on HN? I don't see the H or the N in this.
As you delve further into the article, and (ironically, based on the topic) consider the ideas presented, it becomes more clear. Or skip to near the end to see.
TLDR: AI and generic pop culture artifacts have something in common - a lack of a certain type of depth that makes art great.
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#29I'm confused; why is this hitting #2 on HN? I don't see the H or the N in this.
Because it's about AI
Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers
#30I'm confused; why is this hitting #2 on HN? I don't see the H or the N in this.
Because it's thick.