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How We Write Now: pretentiously, with heapings of bullshit, apparently. > as the writing in our century, it seems, comes in sentences that are a tad more malle
by feoren 4y ago
How We Write Now: pretentiously, with heapings of bullshit, apparently.
> as the writing in our century, it seems, comes in sentences that are a tad more malleable, with the age of permanence pretty much at its end
Does the author even care if this has any resemblance to truth, or does he just think it makes him sound smart? The age of permanence is at its end? What is he even talking about? Is literally anything he says in this article backed by any sort of research or evidence?
This is a good example of the Uncanny Valley just before actual interesting writing. If it were a few Twitter sentences or a snarky YouTube comment it might be boiled down to an actual point or two. But clearly this author is too good for such philistine methods of writing. No, he's much, much better than you are, you Twitter users. He's a writer. A writer with absolutely nothing to write about, apparently. So he fills an article with almost-intelligent-sounding language and unsubstantiated claims and derisive assumptions about you and everyone else and "society" and "kids these days" and shakes his fist at some cloud we're not even sure is really there and fails to make a single rational point along the way. And then he preemptively insults you for not reading the whole thing, as if this somehow proves him right.
- jasode 4y ago>, comes in sentences that are a tad more malleable, >What is he even talking about? The "malleable" is referencing his later paragraphs about SEO A/B testing of headlines[1] and dynamically generated text of news by A.I. based on your personal data. Unfortunately, his writing style doesn't make it easy for readers to extract his main idea. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=a%2Fb+testing+headlines https://www.google.com/search?q=a%2Fb+testing+headlines
- falcolas 4y agoAs stated in TFA - with an emphasis on news articles - article titles, and the articles themselves are being modified in real time as the metrics collected with the article are aggregated and interpreted. We also see this with titles for YouTube videos, taking down social media videos which don't get much attention to create a specific narrative, and so forth. In other words, the media of today is not static, even once publicly published.
- froh 4y agoand _that_ imnsho is a serious problem for political discourse. in paper days you inherently knew that we both had read the same text in that same newspaper --- today you don't know that anymore. kind of byzantine generals all over the place.
- the_af 4y agoI think the article definitely overstates its case. It's not true (or common, at least) that you can discover anything by skimming through random shelves in a library. Libraries are big and this method is unlikely to expose you to the whole range of diverse ideas and works out there; you'll just find some, possibly filtered by your own choice of library sections. I do enjoy browsing the shelves of used book stores, though!
- froh 4y agobrowsing a well sorted library is rarely a random walk is it? usually you go to a specific section _because_ it will contain a plethora of views and ways to express them, in that section, and the librarian, if asked, will guide you to the core works and what to read first to get an overview, or has them singled out in an extra shelf or table. and in addition, your skimming is not page limited. discoverability is the second, subordinate case the article makes, though. persistence is the even bigger challenge: how do I know the article I've recommended to you is the article you're going to see? not just some little edition and helpful factual correction, but a subtle rewrite, twist in tone? or even worse, differently tuned articles depending on who we are, as identified by, say, our cookies, we see a 'libdem' and a 'repcon' version of the same article under the same headline? and we'll never know because your device shows one, my device shows the other one?
- the_af 4y agoLike I answered to a similar question, while your questions point to a plausible dystopian near future, this is not the situation right now. We don't see liberal vs conservative versions of the same article based on our browsing history. It could happen, but it doesn't right now, and therefore the article is overstating its case.
- benreis 4y ago> This is a good example of the Uncanny Valley just before actual interesting writing. I had a strange feeling while reading the article, and this describes it so well! This is what I imagine writing generated by an AI to sound like if you give it the prompt “pretentious”. And that’s coming from a self-described lover of pretentious writing.