Dear readers, Here is another QnA podcast for you in which I answer questions from paying subscribers! In this episode I discuss the interesting female characters from Dostoevsky’s novels, the purpose of technology, the difference between intelligence and morality and finally, how we can enjoy classical music. I hope you enjoy the podcast and I look forward to doing more of these :) So grab a cup of tea or put this on for your commute today and take a listen!
Your point about technologists needing to focus on helping people live is very salient. In the past few years I have started to develop a bit of a moral compass as a young programmer working in video games. I am now at the point where I want to escape the industry and learn to do something more positive and real, but it's very hard to let go of the economic benefits (which at 21 have me earning more than my parents, saving up, and living very flexibly).
At the moment I'm hoping to slowly phase out my current work while replacing it with something better. Though I'm not sure what could be its equal economically. Perhaps I should just accept a bit of economic hardship on the path to betterment, the only person I need to put food on the table for is myself haha
Also, video games seems to occupy a weird space in the dichotomy of technology you made. Most games are very much in the space of empty entertainment and capturing the passions of young people (especially men). In the latter case its often because the games are competitive and difficult, which is not quite the same as passive entertainment because some skill and creativity is required. But it's still a closed system which has no relationship to the real world. However there are some games I think which are more artistic in nature, creating mini universes with different rules, and exploring the space of human learning and interaction and the way our minds respond to things. The Witness is an example. Just some food for thought!
First of all, thank you for answering the questions and thanks for the insights.
Regarding my first question, I did actually mean science, as I had written, and not technology.
As for Austen, the reason why I said female is because it is clearly present in the case of male novelists. (One may think for instance of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Melville, Cervantes, etc.)
After all, Austen could not have written something like what Homer did. Or, to make it less ridiculous and more plausible, something like Stendhal’s ‘The Red and the Black’.
And this might not be altogether too surprising given that men and women have a peculiar nature that is proper to them. So I think to "separate" them can be perfectly justifiable, and this does not necessitate a degradation of the work. Male novelists are not simply better than the female ones, but clear differences between the two will be found.
When I first read Austen (Pride and Prejudice) I had to put the book down at page 50 because I found it lame and boring. At some later time, I decided to read Sense and Sensibility. Having by that time acquired some more "experience" I was astounded by what could be found there if one approaches it in the right way: That is to say, by ‘listening’ with patience and attention to detail as one would listen to the closest of friends.
Even when comparing Austen’s work with something like Wuthering Heights by Brontë, there seems to be a strong difference. Brontë seems to speak from the heart and some form of intuition (regardless of wether or not her intuition guided her well). And while Austen certainly is not oblivious to this, there is something which constantly keeps this in check and which is attuned to the most subtle details.
And this philosophical aspect of course does not need to manifest itself through "simple" dialogue, but can do so through action, refraining from action, looking at who the character is talking to etc. One suspects, at any rate, something very wise about that woman.
I find it interesting that you say you don’t have the best musical taste. Most people would not be aware enough, of themselves and the "world around them", to say such a thing.
Perhaps you are right and most people do not really like the music that they profess to like or even love. But a lot of those people go to concerts to listen to that kind of music.
(Funnily enough, the disposition of the two can be seen in the crowd. On one side, composed; on the other, savage. It is interesting as well to note the dancing styles accompanying the different kinds of music, for they are not arbitrary at all.)
Do they, then, simply have bad taste?
"So what? I have my taste (opinion), you have yours." , such a person might say.
But there is, of course, something behind you saying you don’t have the best musical taste. We are not just in the realm of opinion anymore, but (also) in that of knowledge and thus, the objectively good and bad, the true and the false, the beneficial and the detrimental.
In the end, is musical taste in its essence really any different from one’s taste in architecture or books or art in general? These things imprint themselves on us and stick, like the blood Lady Macbeth so desperately tried to clean from her hands. For even when not physically present, they linger on in our very souls.
Every kind of art today seems to have been made in a kind of background. Music, movies, paintings which look like an "Oops I dropped the lemon tart" accident (this is real by the way, look up the 3-michelin star chef Massimo Bottura), lego architecture, so called "poetry", etc. Never has man been put on display more than today, and unfortunately they seem to care only for the ugly sides.
As for the movie. My bad, must either have switched up the movie with another or confused you with someone else.
Your point about technologists needing to focus on helping people live is very salient. In the past few years I have started to develop a bit of a moral compass as a young programmer working in video games. I am now at the point where I want to escape the industry and learn to do something more positive and real, but it's very hard to let go of the economic benefits (which at 21 have me earning more than my parents, saving up, and living very flexibly).
At the moment I'm hoping to slowly phase out my current work while replacing it with something better. Though I'm not sure what could be its equal economically. Perhaps I should just accept a bit of economic hardship on the path to betterment, the only person I need to put food on the table for is myself haha
Also, video games seems to occupy a weird space in the dichotomy of technology you made. Most games are very much in the space of empty entertainment and capturing the passions of young people (especially men). In the latter case its often because the games are competitive and difficult, which is not quite the same as passive entertainment because some skill and creativity is required. But it's still a closed system which has no relationship to the real world. However there are some games I think which are more artistic in nature, creating mini universes with different rules, and exploring the space of human learning and interaction and the way our minds respond to things. The Witness is an example. Just some food for thought!
First of all, thank you for answering the questions and thanks for the insights.
Regarding my first question, I did actually mean science, as I had written, and not technology.
As for Austen, the reason why I said female is because it is clearly present in the case of male novelists. (One may think for instance of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Melville, Cervantes, etc.)
After all, Austen could not have written something like what Homer did. Or, to make it less ridiculous and more plausible, something like Stendhal’s ‘The Red and the Black’.
And this might not be altogether too surprising given that men and women have a peculiar nature that is proper to them. So I think to "separate" them can be perfectly justifiable, and this does not necessitate a degradation of the work. Male novelists are not simply better than the female ones, but clear differences between the two will be found.
When I first read Austen (Pride and Prejudice) I had to put the book down at page 50 because I found it lame and boring. At some later time, I decided to read Sense and Sensibility. Having by that time acquired some more "experience" I was astounded by what could be found there if one approaches it in the right way: That is to say, by ‘listening’ with patience and attention to detail as one would listen to the closest of friends.
Even when comparing Austen’s work with something like Wuthering Heights by Brontë, there seems to be a strong difference. Brontë seems to speak from the heart and some form of intuition (regardless of wether or not her intuition guided her well). And while Austen certainly is not oblivious to this, there is something which constantly keeps this in check and which is attuned to the most subtle details.
And this philosophical aspect of course does not need to manifest itself through "simple" dialogue, but can do so through action, refraining from action, looking at who the character is talking to etc. One suspects, at any rate, something very wise about that woman.
I find it interesting that you say you don’t have the best musical taste. Most people would not be aware enough, of themselves and the "world around them", to say such a thing.
Perhaps you are right and most people do not really like the music that they profess to like or even love. But a lot of those people go to concerts to listen to that kind of music.
(Funnily enough, the disposition of the two can be seen in the crowd. On one side, composed; on the other, savage. It is interesting as well to note the dancing styles accompanying the different kinds of music, for they are not arbitrary at all.)
Do they, then, simply have bad taste?
"So what? I have my taste (opinion), you have yours." , such a person might say.
But there is, of course, something behind you saying you don’t have the best musical taste. We are not just in the realm of opinion anymore, but (also) in that of knowledge and thus, the objectively good and bad, the true and the false, the beneficial and the detrimental.
In the end, is musical taste in its essence really any different from one’s taste in architecture or books or art in general? These things imprint themselves on us and stick, like the blood Lady Macbeth so desperately tried to clean from her hands. For even when not physically present, they linger on in our very souls.
Every kind of art today seems to have been made in a kind of background. Music, movies, paintings which look like an "Oops I dropped the lemon tart" accident (this is real by the way, look up the 3-michelin star chef Massimo Bottura), lego architecture, so called "poetry", etc. Never has man been put on display more than today, and unfortunately they seem to care only for the ugly sides.
As for the movie. My bad, must either have switched up the movie with another or confused you with someone else.