You get it. There is something to be said for having your finger on the pulse like this: I find Weir to be utterly unreadable, but clearly, most of my countrymen disagree with me!
Wow, strongly agree with all of this. I just made a very similar argument in long post I wrote about Shy Girl, LLMs for fiction, and ghostwriting. Would love to know your thoughts if you check it out!
Not because I disagree with it, but because it means while I consistently feel my work is not good enough to get paid for it, this now opens up the horrifying possibility I'm too good to be successful because I write in a way the midwit readers don't want. I might just be screwed.
I wouldn't consider "truly masterful literature" to be IQ-gated. It's something-gated, and there is a subset of it (e.g. Borges) easily arguable to be IQ-gated, but I don't think you could say with any confidence what Dostoevsky or Dante would have scored on an IQ test. That's your blind spot here, otherwise the article is good.
Read this as a spiritual sequel to Sontag's "On Camp". It's ok to like bad and/or popular things! Or as Sue put it "there exists, indeed a good taste of bad taste. The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating." True then, true now.
Well written and thorough exegesis. I love this, “And none of this bothers me. Because (a) I’m playing a different game, and (b) at least a human wrote it.”
A damn good article on where we as creators are in our fight against the machine (LLM) and its grubby-fingered greed-bag owners.
“… the volume of books published every year is basically inconceivable.”
Well, there are numbers. But, yeah, it’s approaching the National Debt. And I have a theory. The more books Big NYC Publishing drops every day, the more unlikely people are to discover and read mine, which are better. Did I ever tell you I was paranoid?
What’s that? Okay. By the way, your article gives me hope, ‘cause, my stuff might be just okay, but I at least can go to the grave knowing it was not “fucking Chinese hypersonic missile of Anglo-cosplay slop.”
Like yours, I’m sure, my stuff is original. And every day that it rains thousands and thousands of more books, it gets even more original.
As far as Rowling is concerned, who’s that? I’m not sure. And if I’m not, I’ll bet my thirty-five-year-old daughter know who she is, and has read all of her books, twice. I don’t write that stuff. I write serious literature. Yeah, hardly anyone reads it. But that’s how I know it’s serious.
I never read Hunger Games, but I did see the movie, the first one. That was after I noticed the nationwide interest in archery among young girls. Everywhere I went I saw young girls armed with bows and arrows, shepherded about by Mom and Dad to look for targets. It reminded me of the coon skin cap craze back when I was a boy. Davy Crocket won our hearts, and we all longed to kill a Grizzly Bear with our bare hands.
As far as Hunger Games being a LARP that soothes the consciousnesses of Americans about the “mass murder of poor people and children with advanced military technologies… “ I’m not so sure. The world is a big bad place, and all over it, women and children are subject to slaughter by machete, spear, clubs, organ harvesting while alive, all kinds of shit.
Yes, I’m a boomer, but I’m not down with that. And even if I was, my bite is not what it used to be. And with the arthritis, I don’t know that I could any longer run down and catch a child to take home and torture or cook. Of course, that’s just me.
I like what you say about Twilight for a couple reasons. One, I’m proud to say I’ve never read it. Two, I have a writer buddy friend that wrote a couple vampire novels and he’s often at the same local writer sales as me and always sells twice what I sell.
Not that he’s a better writer (he might be, but I would never admit it), but because women are drawn to vampire novels. I’ve watched them attempt to walk past his table only to freeze and stare at his book covers. There’s something about lying in bed with the window open, curtains moving gently in a breeze, with the possibility (an ever increasing one, given modern phenomena like open borders and lawless law enforcement organizations) that a man wearing black will enter, give said woman a long chilling gaze, and then begin sucking her neck. That kind of thing doesn’t have the same affect on men, at least straight ones.
I like the quote from Murakami, and what he says about the challenge or writing in the POV of the blue-eyed, pale white denizens of Svenland. I’ve never tackled that myself, but I have penned a tale or two from the heads of aboriginal peoples, alien space blobs, even lesbians. So, take that Murakami!
I’m also proud to say I don’t know Michael Bay. That means he’s likely very famous and rich and his poems sell like street tacos.And I’ve never done robots. So, a grudging at-a-boy to him.
BTW, I agree that there may be an LLM out there—likely wearing a silk robe and smoking a Dr. Grabow pipe—that can “’output’ a novel so penetrating and captivating that it subsumes the beauty of any other human produced work of literary art that you’ve ever encountered.”
And yes, you’ve said the magic word—it can ‘output’ one. But only after it steals one from several million people.
Thanks again for this informative and provocative article. It livened up my morning.
“If and when the machines can produce works of such great stature and beauty, my soul will die.” Same. I think it’s only a matter of time sadly.
Are there any good examples of highwit literature? I always thought it was generational, never read Harry Potter or any of that
Very much read Tolkien and CS Lewis, George Orwell etc
Cervantes, Illiad/Odyssey. Perhaps Stoner or Lolita. Stuff like that.
Where do you draw the line between successful slop-as-midwit-whisperer-genius and slop-as-lucky-or-astroturfed?
judgment call in all cases imo
You get it. There is something to be said for having your finger on the pulse like this: I find Weir to be utterly unreadable, but clearly, most of my countrymen disagree with me!
Wow, strongly agree with all of this. I just made a very similar argument in long post I wrote about Shy Girl, LLMs for fiction, and ghostwriting. Would love to know your thoughts if you check it out!
You considering writing another book?
been putting it off but yes, and I want to write it much faster this time
Have you figured out a positive vision yet, not just a critique of manosphere nihilism (although you did a great job of that)?
wait for my next one :)
That's fair, but how about if I just settle for hating the retards that consider slop high art?
You could have just written a note that said yeah ok Taylor Swift songs are catchy
Based. You guys should all become paid subscribers of mine because it's my birthday this year.
I don't like this.
Not because I disagree with it, but because it means while I consistently feel my work is not good enough to get paid for it, this now opens up the horrifying possibility I'm too good to be successful because I write in a way the midwit readers don't want. I might just be screwed.
I wouldn't consider "truly masterful literature" to be IQ-gated. It's something-gated, and there is a subset of it (e.g. Borges) easily arguable to be IQ-gated, but I don't think you could say with any confidence what Dostoevsky or Dante would have scored on an IQ test. That's your blind spot here, otherwise the article is good.
Great article. I think your use of the term genius is appropriate. Really enjoyed this.
Read this as a spiritual sequel to Sontag's "On Camp". It's ok to like bad and/or popular things! Or as Sue put it "there exists, indeed a good taste of bad taste. The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating." True then, true now.
Well written and thorough exegesis. I love this, “And none of this bothers me. Because (a) I’m playing a different game, and (b) at least a human wrote it.”
A damn good article on where we as creators are in our fight against the machine (LLM) and its grubby-fingered greed-bag owners.
“… the volume of books published every year is basically inconceivable.”
Well, there are numbers. But, yeah, it’s approaching the National Debt. And I have a theory. The more books Big NYC Publishing drops every day, the more unlikely people are to discover and read mine, which are better. Did I ever tell you I was paranoid?
What’s that? Okay. By the way, your article gives me hope, ‘cause, my stuff might be just okay, but I at least can go to the grave knowing it was not “fucking Chinese hypersonic missile of Anglo-cosplay slop.”
Like yours, I’m sure, my stuff is original. And every day that it rains thousands and thousands of more books, it gets even more original.
As far as Rowling is concerned, who’s that? I’m not sure. And if I’m not, I’ll bet my thirty-five-year-old daughter know who she is, and has read all of her books, twice. I don’t write that stuff. I write serious literature. Yeah, hardly anyone reads it. But that’s how I know it’s serious.
I never read Hunger Games, but I did see the movie, the first one. That was after I noticed the nationwide interest in archery among young girls. Everywhere I went I saw young girls armed with bows and arrows, shepherded about by Mom and Dad to look for targets. It reminded me of the coon skin cap craze back when I was a boy. Davy Crocket won our hearts, and we all longed to kill a Grizzly Bear with our bare hands.
As far as Hunger Games being a LARP that soothes the consciousnesses of Americans about the “mass murder of poor people and children with advanced military technologies… “ I’m not so sure. The world is a big bad place, and all over it, women and children are subject to slaughter by machete, spear, clubs, organ harvesting while alive, all kinds of shit.
Yes, I’m a boomer, but I’m not down with that. And even if I was, my bite is not what it used to be. And with the arthritis, I don’t know that I could any longer run down and catch a child to take home and torture or cook. Of course, that’s just me.
I like what you say about Twilight for a couple reasons. One, I’m proud to say I’ve never read it. Two, I have a writer buddy friend that wrote a couple vampire novels and he’s often at the same local writer sales as me and always sells twice what I sell.
Not that he’s a better writer (he might be, but I would never admit it), but because women are drawn to vampire novels. I’ve watched them attempt to walk past his table only to freeze and stare at his book covers. There’s something about lying in bed with the window open, curtains moving gently in a breeze, with the possibility (an ever increasing one, given modern phenomena like open borders and lawless law enforcement organizations) that a man wearing black will enter, give said woman a long chilling gaze, and then begin sucking her neck. That kind of thing doesn’t have the same affect on men, at least straight ones.
I like the quote from Murakami, and what he says about the challenge or writing in the POV of the blue-eyed, pale white denizens of Svenland. I’ve never tackled that myself, but I have penned a tale or two from the heads of aboriginal peoples, alien space blobs, even lesbians. So, take that Murakami!
I’m also proud to say I don’t know Michael Bay. That means he’s likely very famous and rich and his poems sell like street tacos.And I’ve never done robots. So, a grudging at-a-boy to him.
BTW, I agree that there may be an LLM out there—likely wearing a silk robe and smoking a Dr. Grabow pipe—that can “’output’ a novel so penetrating and captivating that it subsumes the beauty of any other human produced work of literary art that you’ve ever encountered.”
And yes, you’ve said the magic word—it can ‘output’ one. But only after it steals one from several million people.
Thanks again for this informative and provocative article. It livened up my morning.
bingo