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The author is basically taking a situation open to interpretation and using it to slam capitalism as producing mechanical literature? His conglomerate/nonprofi

The author is basically taking a situation open to interpretation and using it to slam capitalism as producing mechanical literature? His conglomerate/nonprofit dichotomy is more accurately free-market vs. state-sponsored. The "conglomerates" which come off as evil in the story have to prove their value to their customers who voluntarily fund them. The "non-profits" are free from the constraint of needing people to actually want to read their books because the population is forced by the government to fund them via taxes. There are very interesting questions of how economic forces affect art and culture but this author isn't asking them. If anything the machine learning model showed that when people voluntarily and intentionally fund the publication of books they prefer a certain type of language, but how this author sees this language as "mechanical" is beyond me.

Nasrudith 7y ago
Yeah - sadly it seemed "experiment tailored towards conclusions" as opposed to analyzing the reasons behind it. Especially if they had ones published by one author in one framework and one in another to compare. The supply side and logistics could make it "mechanical" because it is known to sell well but much of it seems to be anti-popular rhetoric that anything widely liked must be flawed. While there is a lowest common denominator drive from sheer weight of numbers (most money per person, targetting mean and below average getting good money per effort - frankly the higher brow crowd demand more effort) that doesn't mean they are automatically inferior nor those outside of its framework neccessarily advantaged. The converse doesn't mean "unpopular" are automatically better. Really popularity isn't that great of a heuristic either way. To get to a larger point qbout writing everyone produces to some sort of motivation or incentive. Even "pure" writers doing it not for making money have at least an emotional connection - let alone attempts at gaining status or promoting ideas.
claudiawerner 7y ago
>If anything the machine learning model showed that when people voluntarily and intentionally fund the publication of books they prefer a certain type of language This is really the springboard into what you just mentioned - economic forces affect art and culture but they also affect our desires. Exactly these "voluntary" and "intentional" purchases come about through what Patrick Murray calls imaginary subsumption under capital. This is a consequence of what the author addresses - real subsumption under capital. You need to ask why people prefer books that use a certain type of language and how the culture which prefers this type of language arose. Of course the answer isn't wholly economically deterministic, but it seems short sighted (and missing the author's point) to stop the back at "well people did it voluntarily, what more do you want?" - culture is a dialactical process.
icebraining 7y ago
Why state-sponsored? Lots of non-profits are funded by voluntary and intentional private contributions.
sterkekoffie 7y ago
>how this author sees this language as "mechanical" is beyond me Are you saying that you see no difference between the two sides of the word table, that the left side is not more perceptual, or that mechanical is not the opposite of perceptual?

Nasrudith 7y ago

Yeah - sadly it seemed "experiment tailored towards conclusions" as opposed to analyzing the reasons behind it. Especially if they had ones published by one author in one framework and one in another to compare. The supply side and logistics could make it "mechanical" because it is known to sell well but much of it seems to be anti-popular rhetoric that anything widely liked must be flawed. While there is a lowest common denominator drive from sheer weight of numbers (most money per person, targetting mean and below average getting good money per effort - frankly the higher brow crowd demand more effort) that doesn't mean they are automatically inferior nor those outside of its framework neccessarily advantaged. The converse doesn't mean "unpopular" are automatically better. Really popularity isn't that great of a heuristic either way. To get to a larger point qbout writing everyone produces to some sort of motivation or incentive. Even "pure" writers doing it not for making money have at least an emotional connection - let alone attempts at gaining status or promoting ideas.

claudiawerner 7y ago

>If anything the machine learning model showed that when people voluntarily and intentionally fund the publication of books they prefer a certain type of language This is really the springboard into what you just mentioned - economic forces affect art and culture but they also affect our desires. Exactly these "voluntary" and "intentional" purchases come about through what Patrick Murray calls imaginary subsumption under capital. This is a consequence of what the author addresses - real subsumption under capital. You need to ask why people prefer books that use a certain type of language and how the culture which prefers this type of language arose. Of course the answer isn't wholly economically deterministic, but it seems short sighted (and missing the author's point) to stop the back at "well people did it voluntarily, what more do you want?" - culture is a dialactical process.

icebraining 7y ago

Why state-sponsored? Lots of non-profits are funded by voluntary and intentional private contributions.

sterkekoffie 7y ago

>how this author sees this language as "mechanical" is beyond me Are you saying that you see no difference between the two sides of the word table, that the left side is not more perceptual, or that mechanical is not the opposite of perceptual?