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In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

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Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#291

Post by llm_trw »

mandmandam wrote: post #264
alexashka wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's astounding how people can have all the facts and teachers in the world, while dodging genuine understanding of everything most important. You said they are dodging 'genuine understanding'. I am saying you aren't the final word on what 'genuine understanding of everything most important' is. In other words - you are using lots of words to say 'I want others to do more of the stuff I want them to do and less of…

So anyone who uses the phrase "genuine understanding" is secretly a wannabe power-hungry authoritarian? Dunno about that one bud. And anyone who calls out vapid conspicuous consumption, or the greedy exploitation of the planet for personal gain, that's not obviously perverse to you; it's just one person's opinion and easily disregarded - because they're not the final word on genuine understanding? Well, pick your pro…

>And anyone who calls out vapid conspicuous consumption, or the greedy exploitation of the planet for personal gain, that's not obviously perverse to you; it's just one person's opinion and easily disregarded - because they're not the final word on genuine understanding?

Pretty much, yes.

Yesterdays vapid conspicuous consumption is tomorrows minimum living standard.

Three meals a day every day forever?

Even medieval kings had to go on a diet when famine struck.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#293

Post by akkartik »

llm_trw wrote: post #288
akkartik wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I had to look closely as well to figure out what this was saying. The core reasoning seems to be this one sentence: "Printed books are a zone of resistance against the neon god of the algorithm since tinkering with code can’t delete their contents, as hackers recently did with the Internet Archive." But you don't have to retreat from software entirely. You can read offline to keep someone over the network from…

If only there was a place starting with p and ending with "irate bay" where you could get forever copies of books.

One problem, though: purveyors of forever copies don't themselves last forever.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#294

Post by collingreen »

magnio wrote: post #287
grayhatter wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use imagination when I read. The connections are instinctual, and the layouts are often irrelevant (which I can say because I've never attempted to consider them and don't ever find myself missing out on the story). I'd like to say I'm astounded when I hear other people visit other worlds when they read, but really that whole idea is so foreign to me, it might as well be a complete lie. I have no thread in wh…

> “Bitch,” he repeated. The mallet came down. She shoved herself upward and it landed just below her kneecap. Her lower leg was suddenly on fire. Blood began to trickle down her calf. And then the mallet was coming down again. She jerked her head away from it and it smashed into the stair riser in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, scraping away the flesh from her ear. Does your mind conjure no images while re…

Aphantasia is hard to explain, especially in a drive by comment.

I'm not the person you're replying to but the answer, for me, depends on what you really mean by conjuring images. Very technically no, I see no images for this but I don't know if that is truly the whole point of what you're asking.

I mostly understand what is happening but I also really struggle to get the angles right in my mind of someone swinging a mallet quickly and one time hitting a shin and the next aimed for the head so maybe I'm missing something.

There are other senses involved as well even though it isn't visual, including things like spatial reasoning or maybe even something like proprioception - like I said it's hard to explain.

I can imagine myself in this position better than I can "visualize" it happening to someone else.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#295

Post by martin82 »

mlsu wrote: post #195

The experience of passive consumption (cable TV, tiktok, etc, pointed out in another comment here) is essentially the experience of psychological obliteration. When you get sucked into reels, you go from "here" to "there," and in the process, while you are "there," your entire whole self is destroyed. The same psychological phenomena happens to gambling addicts, alcoholics, or users of heroin. It has fewer physiologi…

Is reading HN comments also passive consumption that destroys ones self?

Asking for a friend...

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#296

Post by esafak »

marcosdumay wrote: post #206
rixed wrote: post #156

Internet is a faster printing press therefore more people can be subjected to more lies than before, but the issue at hand, the one mentioned in Sagan's quote, is orthogonal to that question and predates it. Did the printing press started a revolution in knowledge, or wars of religions? Can printed books save us? I admit I oftentime rejoice that printing felt out of fashion, so the printed books that are left are sav…

> Did the printing press started a revolution in knowledge, or wars of religions? That's a great question. The answer is very well known. It started both.

The Ottoman sultans saw those wars and banned the press. The missed the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and eventually disappeared.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#297

Post by cess11 »

FredPret wrote: post #190
cess11 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no self-made wealth. You can't become wealthy without the labour of other people. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/03/all-billion... The article you linked was a bit fuzzy, seems they counted people like Thiel and Musk as 'entrepreneurs' rather than inheritance because they didn't keep running a family company. But them being wealthy is absolutely connected to their families being privileged and…

You know you’ve gone off the deep end when you call Musk an “entrepreneur” in quotes instead of what he is - a regular, if excellent, entrepreneur. Having a leg up due to coming from a well-off background invalidates nothing. These top entrepreneurs and politicians typically grew up upper-middle class or as members of the minor rich; they rise to positions of prominence from there. That’s fundamentally different from…

No, he's not, he's a douche born into criminal wealth that organisations he ends up in needs to protect themselves from.

Today he's also a fascist grifter who's entered into politics. For some reason usians don't revolt when their political system elects rapists, genocidaires and people on the far right, so I'm hoping it'll turn into something like a kingdom that they find it in themselves to overturn.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#298

Post by tomjen3 »

sourcepluck wrote: post #246

Someone mentions Postman below so I'm tempted to add: can the tech crowd try a bit of Neil Postman, Jean Baudrillard, Guy Debord and the Situationists, Mark Fisher, Marhsall McLuhan, presumably loads of others I don't know about who have done work in these areas, and then maybe Michel Desmurget on the more science-based side of it if they want to avoid any airy-fairy theory. It's arguably especially wild that Desmurg…

Any of them ran their own startups? Ported some code to jemalloc?

Then I am not interested in their idea on tech.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#299

Post by rsanek »

llm_trw wrote: post #288
akkartik wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I had to look closely as well to figure out what this was saying. The core reasoning seems to be this one sentence: "Printed books are a zone of resistance against the neon god of the algorithm since tinkering with code can’t delete their contents, as hackers recently did with the Internet Archive." But you don't have to retreat from software entirely. You can read offline to keep someone over the network from…

If only there was a place starting with p and ending with "irate bay" where you could get forever copies of books.

i think most folks have moved on from tpb to either zlib or DRM free legal sources (like Kobo)

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#300

Post by FredPret »

cess11 wrote: post #297
FredPret wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know you’ve gone off the deep end when you call Musk an “entrepreneur” in quotes instead of what he is - a regular, if excellent, entrepreneur. Having a leg up due to coming from a well-off background invalidates nothing. These top entrepreneurs and politicians typically grew up upper-middle class or as members of the minor rich; they rise to positions of prominence from there. That’s fundamentally different from…

No, he's not, he's a douche born into criminal wealth that organisations he ends up in needs to protect themselves from. Today he's also a fascist grifter who's entered into politics. For some reason usians don't revolt when their political system elects rapists, genocidaires and people on the far right, so I'm hoping it'll turn into something like a kingdom that they find it in themselves to overturn.

> Douche

No accounting for taste

> born into ... wealth

It's a very minor thing in the big picture to be born into a 3rd world country like South Africa's top 1%.

> criminal wealth

His dad likely had some dodgy dealings, but there's every indication that he made the bulk of his money legally. Anyway, how does that reflect on Musk? Did we go back to "sins of the fathers"?

> organisations he ends up in needs to protect themselves from.

Ah yes, it's pure coincidence that so many of these organizations go on to absolutely kick ass. Let's check in on the EV situation at, say, GM or BMW in an alternate universe without Tesla. Or on the progress at ULA or Blue Origin.

> fascist

I don't think you understand what that word means. A key part of fascism is unlimited government control - the exact opposite of what he wants.

> grifter

He sells stuff? I guess that's bad in your eyes?

> who's entered into politics

How very dare he!?

> rapists, genocidaires and people on the far right,

Nice linking those three things together.

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