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The State of the Culture (2023)

6 points by jger15 4y ago

LatteLazy 4y ago
This seems to rely on the idea that there is such a thing as good culture (movies but not youtube apparently; books but not podcasts). And that we can measure culture by looking at one dimensional numbers (like book sales counts). I don't think either of those things are true. Culture is whatever bubbles up when humans do things without a purely economic or practical motive. It's not possible to say one piece of cultural output (a comic book say) is better than another (an opera say). For literally centuries, we have lived in a cycle where older forms are (arrogantly) considered better than newer forms (movies are good apparently and tiktok is bad, but 100 years ago plays were good and movies were bad for instance). I cannot tell you whether "our" culture is healthy or not. But I can tell you there probably is no definitive measure. And the measures used here have been shown to be bad already.
- jschveibinz 4y ago
  > Culture is whatever bubbles up when humans do things without a purely economic or practical motive. I think you have a good take on culture. I would suggest that culture is emergent. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259006095_The_Emergence_of_Culture_The_Evolution_of_a_Uniquely_Human_Way_of_Life https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259006095_The_Emerg...
- rcarr 4y ago
  I agree with a lot of the sentiment around what you're saying, that new forms shouldn't be dismissed as inferior to old forms. What I would say, is that we tend to value the structure and organisation of ideas and information into systems and larger works tend to be more impressive and valuable than shorter form works. For example, in the architectural space, large cathedrals tend to be more impressive than small chapels (unless there is something particularly intriguing about the small chapel). Similarly, movies tend to be more impressive than YouTube videos and books tend to give a more detailed and better structured condensation of a topic than a podcast. I'm not saying that the shorter form doesn't have value, it absolutely does, and you could argue that long form is just an amalgamation of short form. Both have their time and place. But the long form versions are more complex and therefore tend to take more time, effort and skill to assemble and that's why we generally value them higher than the short form counterparts.
guestbest 4y ago
The POTUS isn’t required to give a state of the union speech. It only states he give Information from ‘time to time’. He could send a letter by courier or mail and there is no annual requirement
rcarr 4y ago
> The real question is whether those huge dinosaurs—major record labels or movie studios or non-profits—start working in the same direction. If they start helping out in our project to build an audience and infrastructure for bold creative work, we have a golden age of artistry and culture ahead of us. They absolutely will not unless they are literally backed into a corner and this is the only thing that will increase profits and shareholder return. These corporations release art but they do not care about art. Art is their product. You wouldn't expect your average supermarket to stock every regional variety of artisanal tomato sauce. They might stock one or two if the profit margins are good. Otherwise they want the store space for stock with better margins. For these companies, your attention is the store space. They only have a limited amount of it they can take a day so they want to maximise the profit they can extract from it. Profit per square foot of attention. So yeah. Until the law is changed so that companies have other legal obligations other than maximising shareholder profit expect nothing to change. And expect the mindset to continue to cause similar damage in other industries to culture, communities and the environment.

6 points by jger15 4y ago

This seems to rely on the idea that there is such a thing as good culture (movies but not youtube apparently; books but not podcasts). And that we can measure culture by looking at one dimensional numbers (like book sales counts). I don't think either of those things are true. Culture is whatever bubbles up when humans do things without a purely economic or practical motive. It's not possible to say one piece of cultural output (a comic book say) is better than another (an opera say). For literally centuries, we have lived in a cycle where older forms are (arrogantly) considered better than newer forms (movies are good apparently and tiktok is bad, but 100 years ago plays were good and movies were bad for instance). I cannot tell you whether "our" culture is healthy or not. But I can tell you there probably is no definitive measure. And the measures used here have been shown to be bad already.

jschveibinz 4y ago
> Culture is whatever bubbles up when humans do things without a purely economic or practical motive. I think you have a good take on culture. I would suggest that culture is emergent. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259006095_The_Emergence_of_Culture_The_Evolution_of_a_Uniquely_Human_Way_of_Life https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259006095_The_Emerg...
rcarr 4y ago
I agree with a lot of the sentiment around what you're saying, that new forms shouldn't be dismissed as inferior to old forms. What I would say, is that we tend to value the structure and organisation of ideas and information into systems and larger works tend to be more impressive and valuable than shorter form works. For example, in the architectural space, large cathedrals tend to be more impressive than small chapels (unless there is something particularly intriguing about the small chapel). Similarly, movies tend to be more impressive than YouTube videos and books tend to give a more detailed and better structured condensation of a topic than a podcast. I'm not saying that the shorter form doesn't have value, it absolutely does, and you could argue that long form is just an amalgamation of short form. Both have their time and place. But the long form versions are more complex and therefore tend to take more time, effort and skill to assemble and that's why we generally value them higher than the short form counterparts.

guestbest 4y ago

The POTUS isn’t required to give a state of the union speech. It only states he give Information from ‘time to time’. He could send a letter by courier or mail and there is no annual requirement

rcarr 4y ago

> The real question is whether those huge dinosaurs—major record labels or movie studios or non-profits—start working in the same direction. If they start helping out in our project to build an audience and infrastructure for bold creative work, we have a golden age of artistry and culture ahead of us. They absolutely will not unless they are literally backed into a corner and this is the only thing that will increase profits and shareholder return. These corporations release art but they do not care about art. Art is their product. You wouldn't expect your average supermarket to stock every regional variety of artisanal tomato sauce. They might stock one or two if the profit margins are good. Otherwise they want the store space for stock with better margins. For these companies, your attention is the store space. They only have a limited amount of it they can take a day so they want to maximise the profit they can extract from it. Profit per square foot of attention. So yeah. Until the law is changed so that companies have other legal obligations other than maximising shareholder profit expect nothing to change. And expect the mindset to continue to cause similar damage in other industries to culture, communities and the environment.