Borrow a Thought, Leave a Thought

By in writing No Comments

Erik Hoel:

Which will win? Federated networks or walled gardens? Long-term my money is on the federated networks. Facebook is notoriously shy about posting user numbers, but it appears that the platform has been in decline for a couple years, especially among younger users. I can easily imagine a future without Facebook, say in 10 or 20 years, and it’s becoming easier to imagine a world without The Network Formally Known as Twitter as well. Meanwhile, it’s hard to imagine a future without Reddit. No, Reddit’s steady growth will continue, and Substack’s growth will continue too, no matter what happens with the other larger social networks, simply because the federated nature of the two makes them, well, a lot more useful. They improve the experience of being online.

So writers shouldn’t worry. It’s going to take longer, but eventually the federated model will prove superior, or at least, surprisingly competitively durable. And with the demise of the last big information clearing house in X’s turn toward being a walled garden, there is something freeing about all this. It means that the internet is what you make of it.

I suppose blogs will continue being the little free libraries they’ve always been.

Hat Trick

By in battling personal entropy 2 Comments

Last Tuesday, a new personal record on squats: 390. Last Thursday, a new PR on the bench press: 225. Tonight, a new PR on deadlifts: 475. A perfect hat trick of powerlifting PRs in a row. I may have strained a piriformis muscle in the process, but the bards only sing of glory, not the piriformis. It was a week, take it for all in all, I shall not see its like again.

You Don’t Go Out Looking for a Job Dressed Like That, Do You? On a Weekday?

By in foolosophy No Comments

Rich Lowry:

The Pennsylvania senator is the poster boy — if self-indulgent sloppiness is your thing — for the Senate dropping a dress code that required senators to dress in business attire when appearing on the Senate floor.

Fetterman briefly complied with the rule by making the sacrifice of putting on a suit and tie after he was first elected. Then, he reverted to his standard uniform that makes it look like he just arrived after sitting on his couch, surrounded by empty pizza boxes, watching football games all weekend.

There’s business casual, then there’s Fetterman’s garb. It wouldn’t be acceptable at many fraternity events around the country. Philadelphia Eagles fans dress more carefully on game days. If he showed up at almost any service or working-class job in America dressed this way, his supervisor would give him a stern talking-to and insist that he have more respect for himself, his colleagues, and his customers.

An employee of mine had a stroke a few years ago. If you didn’t know about it, nothing about his speech or mannerisms would make you wonder, “Did that guy suffer some brain damage?” He’s pretty close to normal, but it still affects him. He misplaces things more often than usual, forgets some details, and sometimes has what he calls “brown-outs,” especially in extremely hot weather. He can handle a warehouse job, but it would be cruel and unusual to force him to hold the responsibilities of a U.S. senator.

In Fetterman’s case, I think the amoral sociopaths around him who put him in this position deserve the contempt. The man clearly isn’t fit to function in that environment. We can only hope he improves enough to one day realize how little those ghouls care about anything other than using him as a rubber stamp. Lowry should have focused his ire there rather than take the opportunity to indulge in some petty snobbery. In the abstract, sure, it’s important to dress appropriately for special occasions. In practice, though, many of us manage to live complete lives without ever encountering such occasions. I’m not just saying it because I, too, favor athleisure clothing year-round. I remember seeing articles in the recent past complaining about women wearing yoga pants in public, which struck me as equally stupid. Not everyone wears business attire from 9-5.  Schedules and activities vary widely. A lot of this kvetching strikes me as a yearning for a bygone world where social roles were more clearly defined and regimented.

Looking for Love In All the Wrong Places

By in books, the geist of the zeit No Comments

Who am I? An illiterate peasant of the Middle Ages was better equipped to answer that question than many people in advanced societies in this century. He may only have lived until age thirty — but he spent his days among family and in towns, practicing a shared faith, and thus developed a vivid sense of those to whom he was elementally connected, not just in the course of his life but before birth and after death. Every one of the assumptions he could take for granted is now negotiable.

— Mary Eberstadt, Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics

I don’t think Eberstadt intended this little aside to be representative of her argument, which is that many of the social pathologies that plague us are traceable back to the detrimental effect of the sexual revolution on the family. One can certainly see how people with a weak sense of self could be attracted to fringe cults like gender-fluidity and ethnic pride out of a desire to belong to something, anything, although I don’t think that this is necessarily a rational response to circumstances. Sometimes people are just bored, stupid, or malicious, regardless of how well they’ve been raised. As long as we’re wishing upon a star, sure, it would be nice to make single-parent homes, divorce, and abortion rare and generally unnecessary. But as the above paragraph starkly illustrates, there’s always a trade-off. As long as there’s any freedom to choose, some people will choose unwisely and suffer for it.

Obiter Scripta, no. 127

By in obiter scripta, writing 2 Comments

Would that I had words that are unknown, utterances and sayings in a new language, that hath not yet passed away, and without that which hath been said repeatedly — not an utterance that hath grown stale, what the ancestors have already said.

— Khekheperre-Sonbu, quoted in The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians: Poems, Narratives, and Manuals of Instruction from the Third and Second Millenia B.C.

This week marked eighteen years since I first pushed off from shore in my little blog-boat. When I think of how little I know and how little I have to say about it, I’m amazed I’ve kept going so long. I’ve never really felt like I suffer from writer’s block per se, because I’ve never had to write on a schedule, but there have certainly been many times when I’ve felt lacking in inspiration, wondering if I’d ever have an interesting or amusing thought again. And yet, somehow I’ve managed to pile up all these tiny writer’s blocks and assemble them into a miniature pyramid. Something to be said for sheer diligence, I suppose.

On or About December 2007 Human Character Changed

By in books, the cult of multi, the great awokening No Comments

CBC:

She estimates more than 50 per cent of her school’s library books are gone.

In the spring, Takata says students were told by staff that “if the shelves look emptier right now it’s because we have to remove all books [published] prior to 2008.”

Takata is one of several Peel District School Board (PDSB) students, parents and community members CBC Toronto spoke to who are concerned about a seemingly inconsistent approach to a new equity-based book weeding process implemented by the board last spring in response to a provincial directive from the Minister of Education.

They say the new process, intended to ensure library books are inclusive, appears to have led some schools to remove thousands of books solely because they were published in 2008 or earlier.

“The Peel District School Board works to ensure that the books available in our school libraries are culturally responsive, relevant, inclusive, and reflective of the diversity of our school communities and the broader society,” said the board.

Directive 18 instructs the board to complete a diversity audit of schools, which includes libraries.

“The Board shall evaluate books, media and all other resources currently in use for teaching and learning English, History and Social Sciences for the purpose of utilizing resources that are inclusive and culturally responsive, relevant and reflective of students, and the Board’s broader school communities,” reads the directive.

PDSB’s “equitable curation cycle” is described generally in the board document as “a three-step process that holds Peel staff accountable for being critically conscious of how systems operate, so that we can dismantle inequities and foster practices that are culturally responsive and relevant.”

I would comment, but I’m too busy building an underground library before the Past Eaters figure out what I’m up to.

Whither Are We Moving?

By in books, the geist of the zeit No Comments

It’s strange that a book published in 2021 could already seem outdated, but that’s the case with Andrew Potter’s On Decline: Stagnation, Nostalgia, and Why Every Year Is the Worst One Ever. At fewer than 120 pages, it forgoes argumentation in favor of assertion, which leaves the author’s priors standing on their own. If you don’t happen to agree with those priors, it makes the experience irritating.

We’re told that “the bill for our exploitative approach to the natural world is finally coming due” in the form of climate change, which is happening even faster than we expected (allegedly).”Today the antipathy to reason is found predominantly (though still not exclusively) on the right,” he says (there is no mention in the book of the cultish belief in gender fluidity which has permeated all our major institutions). Cancel culture is acknowledged, but only as a reaction against the trollish provocations of the right. Reactionary populism comes in for a kicking — its characteristics include “the rejection of science and other forms of expertise, hostility toward immigrants [and] hatred of the mainstream media.”

This is what I mean about the book’s outdated feel — who, having witnessed the public health establishment commit reputational suicide in the summer of 2020, would not feel suspicious of experts claiming to speak for science? Who, having read the Twitter files, would not feel a healthy hatred toward the mainstream media? And where have the latest nativist protests against illegal immigration come from? Massachusetts and NYC, those…notorious strongholds of of Trumpist populism? As the old song says, there’s something happening here, and what it is ain’t exactly clear, but it seems evident that the world in which Potter’s version of liberalism made sense is changing fast. Even faster than the climate (allegedly).

Cloud Burst

By in music, technology No Comments

Ted Gioia:

I’d love to think I was wrong on this, but there’s simply too much evidence to support Theory #2. If Apple wanted to offer exclusive music to subscribers it wouldn’t buy a label that records so many works in the public domain. This is the first warning sign.

My favorite offerings on the BIS label are the Bach cantatas recorded by Bach Collegium Japan under Masaaki Suzuki. (I recommended them last year in my article about the cantatas.)

The BIS label has also released the full Beethoven symphony cycle—performed by the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä, as well as lots of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and other core contributors to the classical repertoires. However, unlike the cantatas, these other BIS albums are seldom the most esteemed versions on the market.

But how many music fans searching for Beethoven or Mozart on streaming are picky about conductors and orchestras? If the first search results are the Minnesota Orchestra are they really going to dig deeper to find the Berlin Philharmonic?

Of course, some unique offerings can be found on BIS—especially of obscure Nordic composers. But do you really believe that Apple made this acquisition in order to corner the market on Kalevi Aho or Geirr Tveitt?

The very idea is ridiculous.

If Apple wanted to offer exclusive music, they would cut a deal with Taylor Swift. They have the cash to do it. They wouldn’t waste time on locking up Kalevi Aho. That’s so obvious I shouldn’t even have to say it, but (given all the smoke and mirrors here), I really do.

So we’re clearly dealing with the bad Apple here. And the fact that the company refused to comment on the deal, when CNBC tried to get more details, is revealing. If they really were proud of their sexy new classical label, they would take the opportunity to boast.

In my opinion, Apple Music is the least worst option for streaming music in the background while doing something else. That’s not saying much, of course. I’ve hated everything about the streaming age since it began. For me, the last straw was going to one of my playlists and seeing that one of the songs had been greyed-out and couldn’t be played. OK, fine, that’s always been the condition of using their service. You don’t own any of the music you download through their app. You pay ten bucks a month for the privilege of listening to whatever they have to offer. But if they decide to stop carrying a certain artist, album, or track, you’re out of luck. In this case, I just went to Amazon, bought the mp3 for a dollar, downloaded it to my hard drive, and uploaded it back into my iTunes library. Ah, but you see, iTunes and Apple Music are not the same thing. When I tried to add the song back to the playlist, I got a pop-up telling me that if I persisted in adding this foreign element, the entire playlist would be removed from Apple Music and I would only be able to listen to it on this computer.

So, I finally took Charles Cooke’s advice and set up my Plex library:

Over time, I have ripped all my music, my movies, and my TV shows and put them into Plex. It doesn’t matter where the files originally came from — be it DVDs, downloads, or even my iPhone (for home movies) — Plex is agnostic as to the source of the material, and it’s capable of playing pretty much any filetype you throw at it. Once it’s up and running, adding new material is as simple as putting it into the relevant folder on your computer, and then entering the metadata so that it shows up nicely in your apps (this is largely automated, but occasionally you need to intervene and correct its guess).

Why do this? Well, because while Netflix, Hulu, Disney + and so on are terrific — and I subscribe to all three — I have no control over what they keep in their library, and how. There’s something nice about having a large collection of media that can’t be removed at some else’s whim, especially given that the scolds have started to scour old material and remove anything from the canon that they consider offensive. In effect, Plex gives me the best of both worlds: I don’t have 5,000 DVDs and CDs cluttering up my house, but I’m also not reliant upon mega-corporations for access to my entertainment. If you have the interest and a little technical know-how, I’d highly recommend setting it up.

By which I mean, I pitched the idea to the Lady of the House as the sort of fun technical project that she loves, and she set it up while I sat there looking pretty and offering moral support. The important thing is, though, that now I have all my music library in one location, backed up on a detachable hard drive, and synced up so that any track I purchase from any source goes straight into my library. I highly recommend it for any other music-preppers who rightly distrust the reigning corporate dictum of, “You will own nothing and like it.”

 

Nothing Was Inevitable

By in books, eric hoffer, juxtapositions No Comments

Howe’s prediction rests on a model that at its core is timeless and simple. In fact, it can be summed up by a four-line Internet meme: “hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times.” Howe’s version manages to fill most of 500 pages with further nuance, however.

At least in the Anglo-American world that Howe has surveyed, history appears to move in predictable cycles of about 80 to 100 years that, resurrecting a Roman term for the concept, he calls a saeculum. These cycles each have four distinct phases—or “Turnings”—of around 20 to 25 years that always flow in the same order: a “High,” an “Awakening,” an “Unraveling,” and a “Crisis.” Turnings are driven by the changing of generations, or those portions of the population whose collective character was shaped by coming of age amid the societal conditions specific to a previous turning. Each generation’s character, embodied by one of four generational archetypes (“Artists,” “Prophets,” “Nomads,” and “Heroes”) is largely determined by its proximity to the last Crisis. Howe goes into great detail about each generation, but for our purposes all you really need to know is that Prophets, coming of age knowing only the softness of a spring High, begin to dream of utopia during a hotheaded summer Awakening and rebel against the world that their Hero fathers built, seeking to tear it all down during a quarter-century-long autumn Unraveling. This process culminates in a winter of true Crisis (a Fourth Turning), which a new generation of Heroes must struggle to resolve, after which they establish a new order, leading to another High. And yes: the baby boomers of the 1960s counterculture are our most recent Prophets, which means the millennials will have to be our Heroes.

Don’t be (too) alarmed, Howe urges his readers. We’ve been here before, multiple times in fact, and managed not only to survive but also to thrive. Previous Fourth Turning crises (each occurring about a century apart) have included the Great Depression and World War II, the Civil War, and the American Revolution. Before that: England’s Glorious Revolution, the Spanish Armada Crisis, and the War of the Roses. Each was preceded by the same societal trends we’re seeing now, he argues, offering supporting data. But each cyclical crisis, in the end, gave birth to stronger nations.

Howe is grimly adamant, however, that “sometime before the mid-2030s, America will pass through a great gate in history” commensurate with these past crises.

— N.S Lyons, “Present at the Destruction”

****

Once events have taken place, a horde of learned commentators demonstrate that the unexpected was inevitable. Actually, chance, stupidity, and cowardice were chief factors. Nothing was inevitable.

— Eric Hoffer, Before the Sabbath

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