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It was the first example I thought of, as well. I don't really mean this as an accusation, but I suspect these death-bed demands are simply a pose. Not that th

It was the first example I thought of, as well. I don't really mean this as an accusation, but I suspect these death-bed demands are simply a pose. Not that they are essentially insincere, but rather a final gesture of conscientiousness that should be ignored. What is lost to the world by retaining the imperfect, incomplete?

virgildotcodes 3y ago
Presumably the image that the dead person was attempting cultivate about themselves and their work.
csallen 3y ago
I think a better explanation is that authors and other creators of public works are concerned with how they will be perceived. Otherwise, they wouldn't spend months and years meticulously editing and improving their works before release. It's uncomfortable, embarrassing even, to have your unfinished work consumed and reviewed as if it were finished, and as if it were an accurate measure of your intentions and talent.
- david-gpu 3y ago
  > It's uncomfortable, embarrassing even, to have your unfinished work consumed and reviewed as if it were finished Yes, but when the unfinished work is published, it is well known that it was incomplete. That said, I can understand the author not wanting it to be published. If is a shitty thing to publish it against the author's will when they are alive, it is equally shitty to do it when they have died.
  - dumpsterdiver 3y ago
    > Yes, but when the unfinished work is published, it is well known that it was incomplete. Just as a rose by any other name is still a rose, shit is still shit no matter how you frame it, and unfortunately shit tends to stick better than roses.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    I’m not sure about that. Presumably after they’ve died the only person that didn’t want it published has gone, so with only people left that want it punished, is that really such a bad thing?
  - dustyleary 3y ago
    > If is a shitty thing to publish it against the author's will when they are alive, it is equally shitty to do it when they have died. It's definitely not _equally_ shitty. It's arguable whether it's shitty at all. For an action to be a shitty thing to do, someone must suffer as a result. I can see a couple of ways to argue that the author's beneficiaries might suffer, and perhaps even that the author themself might suffer depending on your religious beliefs. But surely it's not anywhere close to _equally_ shitty. I am firmly on the side of releasing everything. Great works of art are so incredibly valuable (to the culture) that the chance of finding one that might have been missed trumps these other concerns. GP mentioned that most of Kafka's best works would have been destroyed if his stated wishes were honored (it is debatable whether these were his actual wishes). A web search turns up that Monet destroyed a lot of his works before he passed. How many Aeneid's are we 'missing' because the author was successful in destroying their unfinished work?
    - david-gpu 3y ago
      > For an action to be a shitty thing to do, someone must suffer as a result Does somebody suffer if you urinate on the grave of a random person who died a hundred years ago? Is it a shitty thing to do?
      - dustyleary 3y ago
        It is a shitty thing to do, but there is nothing particularly special about the fact that it is a grave, or that there is a particular person involved. Society suffers, because people do not wish to be subjected to the sight and smells associated with urination. A cemetery is usually something of a public park, of sorts. Urinating on a random grave is around the same order of shittiness as urinating on any part of a public park meant to be appreciated or contemplated by people. If the grave of the random person matters a lot to you, ask yourself, would it matter if the headstone were not there? Would it matter if you did not know there was a grave there? Every time you urinate on the ground, you are urinating on the remains of millions of people. With every breath you take, you are inhaling the remains of everyone who has ever been cremated longer ago than it took for their burn gases to homogeneously mix in into the atmosphere (which really does not take very long).
- brigandish 3y ago
  I think the more likely explanation is that they care about the work itself. If I were to write a book that no one else would ever read, I would still want it to be as good as can be. I wonder how many devs on here publish their feature branches prior to merge? Do they push up all the WIPs too?

virgildotcodes 3y ago

Presumably the image that the dead person was attempting cultivate about themselves and their work.

csallen 3y ago

I think a better explanation is that authors and other creators of public works are concerned with how they will be perceived. Otherwise, they wouldn't spend months and years meticulously editing and improving their works before release. It's uncomfortable, embarrassing even, to have your unfinished work consumed and reviewed as if it were finished, and as if it were an accurate measure of your intentions and talent.

david-gpu 3y ago
> It's uncomfortable, embarrassing even, to have your unfinished work consumed and reviewed as if it were finished Yes, but when the unfinished work is published, it is well known that it was incomplete. That said, I can understand the author not wanting it to be published. If is a shitty thing to publish it against the author's will when they are alive, it is equally shitty to do it when they have died.
- dumpsterdiver 3y ago
  > Yes, but when the unfinished work is published, it is well known that it was incomplete. Just as a rose by any other name is still a rose, shit is still shit no matter how you frame it, and unfortunately shit tends to stick better than roses.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  I’m not sure about that. Presumably after they’ve died the only person that didn’t want it published has gone, so with only people left that want it punished, is that really such a bad thing?
- dustyleary 3y ago
  > If is a shitty thing to publish it against the author's will when they are alive, it is equally shitty to do it when they have died. It's definitely not _equally_ shitty. It's arguable whether it's shitty at all. For an action to be a shitty thing to do, someone must suffer as a result. I can see a couple of ways to argue that the author's beneficiaries might suffer, and perhaps even that the author themself might suffer depending on your religious beliefs. But surely it's not anywhere close to _equally_ shitty. I am firmly on the side of releasing everything. Great works of art are so incredibly valuable (to the culture) that the chance of finding one that might have been missed trumps these other concerns. GP mentioned that most of Kafka's best works would have been destroyed if his stated wishes were honored (it is debatable whether these were his actual wishes). A web search turns up that Monet destroyed a lot of his works before he passed. How many Aeneid's are we 'missing' because the author was successful in destroying their unfinished work?
  - david-gpu 3y ago
    > For an action to be a shitty thing to do, someone must suffer as a result Does somebody suffer if you urinate on the grave of a random person who died a hundred years ago? Is it a shitty thing to do?
    - dustyleary 3y ago
      It is a shitty thing to do, but there is nothing particularly special about the fact that it is a grave, or that there is a particular person involved. Society suffers, because people do not wish to be subjected to the sight and smells associated with urination. A cemetery is usually something of a public park, of sorts. Urinating on a random grave is around the same order of shittiness as urinating on any part of a public park meant to be appreciated or contemplated by people. If the grave of the random person matters a lot to you, ask yourself, would it matter if the headstone were not there? Would it matter if you did not know there was a grave there? Every time you urinate on the ground, you are urinating on the remains of millions of people. With every breath you take, you are inhaling the remains of everyone who has ever been cremated longer ago than it took for their burn gases to homogeneously mix in into the atmosphere (which really does not take very long).
brigandish 3y ago
I think the more likely explanation is that they care about the work itself. If I were to write a book that no one else would ever read, I would still want it to be as good as can be. I wonder how many devs on here publish their feature branches prior to merge? Do they push up all the WIPs too?