261–270 of 360 posts
The thing about treasure is that you often have to find it for yourself, it can be hard to find, butt when you do find it you get some legendary booty. The thickness of some caves in terms of genuine girth is truly something to marvel at.
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…
I'm not sure I would necessarily agree with "strange torture" more like "sore muscles from exercising mental muscles". Yes I remember hating The Great Gatsby when I was 14 and having to read it critically in school, I sure didn't have a lot context, but I remember having to do it, and I can look back after years of secondary and post secondary schooling and appreciate the exercise. I think we should be much denser an…
My opinion of 1984 also dropped when I reread it. Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, Canticle for Leibowitz, The Chrysalids, and Lost Horizon are all books I liked more when I reread them as an adult.
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…
> 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. I think you just had bad teachers. Historical context was always part of the English language/literature curricula at my high school, and it definitely made a difference. I didn’t even go to a good school. Our district was the worst…
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…
Play "Fuck Tha Police" for someone.
Usually, they are shocked that someone would listen to a song with so many swear words and clearly so disrespectful to an institution most have been brought up to respect. The sheer anger in it...
And then you put it in context. The societal mores of the time, the specific events, how this album landed and why it resonated.
Just look at the lyrics and count swear words? It means nothing.
In the context of it's time? Scintillating.
This is one of the better written things I have read online in a long time. The quality of the prose almost makes the subject irrelevant.
I’ve long held the opinion that humans ‘over’-value complexity . It’s why we can spend so much time tasting, analyzing, and enjoying fancy coffee or whisky - despite the fact that almost everyone is repulsed by them the first time they try them. Literature might be the same? To be clear, I enjoy all three!
The anecdote about the garden of earthly delights is going to be relatable even for art students. I've met art teachers that ended up "trapped" in Madrid by the Prado Museum: A green, American future Ph.D student that was heading to Greece to specialize in old greek art. But instead of flying straight there, they stopped at Madrid to see the Prado, and were never able to leave. Changed their direction immediately, an…
Saturn Devouring His Son was similar. Haunting. I still think about that painting often, many years later.
> Why this word, this scene, this character, and not some other one? The "why this not that , even when it looks like that would do just fine" style of differential analysis is an exquisitely powerful analytical tool. Asking this question is probably the single most powerful method I know of to generate deep thought, in absolutely any aspect of life. If you haven't tried it... go for it! (Sample question: why'd I cho…
I disagree with many of the points. First, as a point of style it makes no sense for the author to have chosen “thick” rather than the more common adjective “deep”. They describe the same thing, and “deep” even works much better for the cave analogy which is central to the author’s argument. Deep also has ties to game theory, where increasing depth introduces exponential complexity. The deeper you calculate in chess…
Reading this article felt like a breath of fresh air, like a vice had been released from my head. Not just the broader point about our increasingly slop-filled world resonated with me, but the writing itself felt like it just flows effortlessly.
I guess I’ve been suffering for too long, pouring over claude code jargon-filled responses and going in circles trying to understand its convoluted sentence construction and terminology. I think I’m burnt out on working with agents all day long…