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I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

experimental-history.com

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Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#101

Post by blobbers »

adambb wrote: post #28
blobbers wrote: post #25

I'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.

I think that's not the author's point; he's mostly talking that time solidifies ideas as shown by the evolution of points of view. At the same time, his picture of the wave shows that over time the painting feels more distilled and simplified. So is his point actually that simple ideas persist and are appealing? It isn't clear? That an art improves?

I think slop-pocalypse misses one thing. AI's time of thinking is very different than ours.

A "thick" argument that could take a lifetime in human terms could happen in minutes of AI.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#102

Post by blobbers »

jihadjihad wrote: post #38
blobbers wrote: post #25

I'm confused; why is this hitting #2 on HN? I don't see the H or the N in this.

It's always funny to me how often comments like yours show up, despite a long history on here of diverse thoughts and intellectual curiosities, technological or otherwise. But especially funny and bewildering in this case is that you have this in your About section of your HN user account: > A journey from the liberal arts to hacking the latest gadgets or statistics.

I find it slightly creepy that people are reading my past thoughts. Time to look into privacy settings.

I just felt like the article wasn't particularly well written.

Just because AI can produce slop, doesn't mean humans don't either.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#103

Post by frollogaston »

lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

It's this, and also a lot of required readings were just girl books even in hindsight. I wasn't part of the intended audience. It's like if some day Twilight becomes an American classic.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#104

Post by dd8601fn »

PsylentKnight wrote: post #48
pavel_lishin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It felt even worse when reading Shakespeare, which is nominally the same language you and I speak, but just barely. Add the fact that it's a play, where the performance carries a lot of the meaning. The end result was that I - and as far as I could tell, 99% of my classmates - got basically negative value out of sitting in class and reading lines we didn't understand out loud, without even time to try and parse it ou…

I have heard that Shakespeare is much easier and more enjoyable for non-English speakers, because they get modern translations and we do not Linguist John McWhorter says that Shakespeare is often an "the Emperor has no clothes" situation. No one wants to admit to themselves or others that they don't understand it, and the people who think they understand it are often misunderstanding a lot of it

We often didn’t just get sent home with a copy of Romeo and Juliet and then get asked to write an essay.

We went through it, a bit at a time, in class. With a very good teacher. Not just helping with word and phrases, but digging in a little bit. And at the end we watched a performance of it.

I think that made it so much easier to appreciate, and it made it a ton easier to read and appreciate Julius Caesar or whichever ones we did next.

And like… that was 30+ years ago for me, but I feel like I see echoes of that stuff all the time.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#105

Post by dredmorbius »

NobodyNada wrote: post #56
pavel_lishin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It felt even worse when reading Shakespeare, which is nominally the same language you and I speak, but just barely. Add the fact that it's a play, where the performance carries a lot of the meaning. The end result was that I - and as far as I could tell, 99% of my classmates - got basically negative value out of sitting in class and reading lines we didn't understand out loud, without even time to try and parse it ou…

I had the same experience reading A Midsummer Night's Dream in high school -- I could follow the story, but it was a slog to get through and I didn't understand what was supposed to be so great about it. Then I saw an actual performance of the play recently, and it all clicked. It was just as understandable as any contemporary film, and easily one of the most fun and entertaining stories I've seen.

I've had a similar experience, with the same play, but in an absolutely minimalist setting. No sets, the only props were a few chairs, and costumes were the same white slacks and smock worn by all the players.

And it absolutely worked.

This wasn't long after my secondary education --- I'd just started uni. But enough had happened that I got it.

As I've commented recently, even as an excellent reader, there's something that hits quite differently from hearing fiction (or even nonfiction) not just read but acted. Selected Shorts is an excellent source for this. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49163756>.

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#106

Post by allturtles »

lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

> Like if you read Dickens, will you know enough about the industrial revolution, the condition of cities at the time, and such?

We did talk about these things in English class in high school. The teachers would lay out the historical/social/cultural context of each book we read. Did your school not do that?

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#107

Post by thrtythreeforty »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #74
thrtythreeforty wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lake?

No, the very first meeting with the Emergents, where ... I forget the character's name (Trixia?), but she's a linguist and she figures out that there's something odd about the painting-carvings in the Emergent habitat. She can't put her finger on it until she spends more time studying their language, and figures out that they... well, we're getting into spoiler territory, so rot13: Fur svtherf bhg gung gurl gnyx nobh…

I had forgotten that section. Time to reread, I guess!

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#108

Post by gloryjulio »

lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

This. I am late bloomer in humanity subjects. I was a typical stem students that didn't really understand any of those classes.

It was not until working after finishing Universities, I started to get back to understand those topics. It also became much more enjoyable once I had the contexts. And learning the contexts is a actually a bigger part of the fun

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#109

Post by SilasX »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #36
lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

It felt even worse when reading Shakespeare, which is nominally the same language you and I speak, but just barely. Add the fact that it's a play, where the performance carries a lot of the meaning. The end result was that I - and as far as I could tell, 99% of my classmates - got basically negative value out of sitting in class and reading lines we didn't understand out loud, without even time to try and parse it ou…

Rant: I missed lot of Shakespeare appreciation when they somehow failed to teach that (other) people actually like how iambic pentameter sounds, and this is critical to enjoying it. Nothing about how Shakespeare is voiced has ever registered as sounding particularly pleasant to me. The word choice, sure, but not the meter or stressing.

They taught that Shakespeare used iambic pentameter, and how you're "supposed" to stress it, but it came off to me as "technical curiosity you're supposed to memorize" not "universal experience of enjoyment" that I apparently don't share.

My lighting talk about this: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZUcvP8CWhB/

Non-social media link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G58CMUDf-M4loe3MeEus-9gNA5T...

Re: I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers

#110

Post by dredmorbius »

lordnacho wrote: post #33

As an old man I now think the art and humanities classes in school landed at the wrong time. You need context to really understand a book or a work of art. You want to know what kind of environment produced it, what it's talking to. But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it. S…

The real value isn't in getting it at the time, it's having those seeds planted, among a population who will likely read very little after graduation, to find fertile ground later.

There's all manner of things I'd Studied in School (primary, secondary, uni) which only became clear to me many, many decades later.

I'm helping an older friend with their one remaining pastime, audiobooks, many of which are re-readings of works they'd first encountered as a teen or young adult (now in their 10th decade). As TFA notes, there's a thickness to many of these works, and even having read them several times already, there's a reward in hearing them again, 60 or 70 years after first encountering them.

I listen in on some of the books. They've covered over 2,000 titles, which is impressive for anyone. One aspect that stands out to me is that I now catch the references to many of them: Herman Hesse commenting on Dante Gabriel Rosetti's "Beata Beatrix" (at the Tate), several references to Erewhon, and numerous places, people, and historical events of which I now have far more context.

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