This is where I save interesting links.
-
Is now the best time to write a novel?
From this post, “The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction.”
I think the most important conclusion is that all of this is actually good news for aspiring writers: it’s not that the philistine dopamine-addled masses will never be capable of giving you the praise you deserve, it’s just that (1) basically no one is writing literary fiction and (2) the present-day norms of literary fiction mean that the general reader will never like anyone who is. Both of these problems are easier to fix than drastically changing the reading tastes of the entire population. But how will they be fixed? I’m not sure.
I don’t think magazines with short stories are ever coming back. The situation in academia will likely not improve. But I do suspect Substack will play a role in broadening norms and making it easier to write literary fiction. I think the advent of the internet, though it killed the magazines, will someday be seen as a godsend for writing. Although on the topic of technology, if LLMs or AI have any part to play in this story, it will likely not be a good one. But knowing that the fate of literature is still in the hands of writers, I’m optimistic.
If I read correctly, the typical explantations for decline in readership, especially fiction, don’t suffice.
The author says it’s a supply side issue that effects the demand side. A few pipelines to producing great literary writers have gone away:
- The magazines all went bust, relative to their height. You can’t make a living writing short stories anymore and therefore less writers are going to print. They went to TV instead (Game of Thrones, Mad Men, etc.)
- The academic track is unrealistic. Thousands of PhD’s, ~100 tenure-track positions. More academics meant more writing in the magazines, meant more writers in the pipeline.
All of this influenced the editors and publishers. They believed there were less readers out there, so they optimized their books for other critics. Status was found in inward instead of outward (book sales).
The supply side argument is interesting to me which makes the Conclusion – basically no one is writing literary fiction and if writers and editors start publishing for readers instead of critics again then there’s hope! – an exciting opportunity.
Maybe it’s time to write that novel.
-
Feeling cautiously optimistic about American democracy
A clear eyed commentary on the question of this authoritarian moment and the movement between Collapse and Resistance. Maybe we’re always in between those two, but this indicates the pendulum is swinging back to the middle.
A few excerpts:
Essentially, Trump seems to be governing like…a President in his second term. Typically, two-term Presidents try to change the country during their first four years, but in their second term they tend to mostly reign over the status quo. Trump’s allies and supporters clearly hoped that Trump’s second term would be very different, because of the Biden interregnum — that Trump would come back riding a wave of popular anger and essentially have two first terms. But Trump is ruling like someone who’s wary of being unpopular, and so he’s chickening out on his most extreme ideas.
And:
Democracy is working — the moderate, reasonable, freedom-loving country that you and I grew up in is rising up to protect itself.
And:
America is facing an authoritarian movement, but it’s one that’s turning out to be far more irresolute and incompetent than we had dared to hope a few months ago.
-
Which Countries Won’t Exist in the 22nd Century?
From Tyler Cowen in the FP:
The biggest mistake we could make is to assume that political evolution is over, and that history represents ongoing directional progress toward ever more well-run nation-states. Port-au-Prince still has something to teach us in this regard.
I’ve been thinking about why it would be that the United States wouldn’t inevitably not collapse – mistakenly or intentionally – to some relative degree with the way things are going.
I have no reasonable thought as to why it wouldn’t. Tyler speaks to this well in this post.
The market is, I think, the best signal and right now the market is telling us that we have a high tolerance for letting Mr. Trump play god with our perceived and real grievances.
The response to the protests/riots in Los Angeles this week and the rhetoric out of the White House suggests we’re flirting with strict changes in the social contract (the Constitution, its reinforcing norms, and a fierce desire for Independence over Rule).
-
The Gentle Singularity
Interesting post from Sam Altman on his blog after the release of o3 Pro yesterday.
Proclaiming that we’ve entered the intelligence takeoff is more than notable. As he rightly notes, being where we are would have sounded crazy just five years ago and might sound crazier than where we’ll be in 2030 based on where we are now.
A few parts that stuck out below.
I often hear people say wild things about how much water and energy is used by a single exchange with ChatGPT. It’s never passed the smell test for me. I may be off, but I have the impression of people saying things like, “a gallon of water every time you say ‘thank you’”. These have felt to me like copes from upper middle class progressives types looking to insert their climate-conscious-bona-fides. But, the numbers seem quite low:
(People are often curious about how much energy a ChatGPT query uses; the average query uses about 0.34 watt-hours, about what an oven would use in a little over one second, or a high-efficiency lightbulb would use in a couple of minutes. It also uses about 0.000085 gallons of water; roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon.)
On jobs change:
There will be very hard parts like whole classes of jobs going away, but on the other hand the world will be getting so much richer so quickly that we’ll be able to seriously entertain new policy ideas we never could before. We probably won’t adopt a new social contract all at once, but when we look back in a few decades, the gradual changes will have amounted to something big.
-
Tyler Cowen and Mexican Art
I think this is a prime example of Tyler saying that he’s writing for the AIs. Thankfully it’s fascinating for me, the human, as well.
Part 1 here and part 2 here.
-
Behind the Curtain: A white collar bloodbath
“Most human wins” continues to come to mind when I read these types of predictions. And this seems less a prediction coming from Dario.
Trying to become something like a ‘professional runner’ might end up being a very good option.
-
We are the Most Rejected Generation
This matches with my sentiment around the topic.
A few quotes that stuck out:
Finance and consulting firms now take advantage of this craving by making job offers to some students during their sophomore year. The kids are 19 or 20. Most of them probably haven’t had time to explore the secrets of their hearts’ desires. But here comes a prestigious job offer that takes away all the uncertainty. You’ll be forced to work on PowerPoint decks through your 20s, but at least you won’t have to risk more rejection.
And:
One young woman lamented to me that she wished she’d been young in the 1990s; it would have been easier. I told her I was relatively young in the ’90s, and it was.
And:
It’s just phenomenally hard to be young right now. There must be an easier way to grow up.
“There must be an easier way to grow up.”
I think about this in my own context, as well as the kids.
-
Economic Lessons from the Screwtape Letters
Great post from Kyla Scanlon. Convenience alone cannot satisfy the human soul. A mention about the slow rise/return of indie bookstores which I found encouraging:
And not to get too abstract here in my economic newsletter – but rejection, convenience, and absence of surprise are all economic questions. When enough people choose friction over convenience, markets respond. We’re seeing early signs of this: the (slow) revival of independent bookstores, the rise of deinfluencing, the growing market for durability over disposability, especially as the economy turns.
-
Big Jim’s Boozy Bike Trip to Braemar
The algorithm served me up this gem last night and I absolutely loved it.
There’s a term I can never remember, but it has something to do with being nostalgic for a time in life that you never experienced.
Whatever you call this – not necessarily a desire to drink whiskey and ride my bike 20 miles through Scotland – I feel like I missed out on it.
Although, I could experience it in my own way if I really wanted to experience it; to live it:
I could delete Instagram from my phone.
I could delete my Strava.
I could write letters.
I could go on runs in the woods without my phone.
I could write on a typewriter.
I could get the TV out of the house.
I could show up to a friends house in hopes they’re free to sit on the porch and talk.The cultural current is strong against these things.
But I could still do it if I wanted.
I could live a bit more like Big Jim.
Dare I?
-
WWEconomics: Kayfabe and the Trade War
Another Kyle Scanlon piece that doesn’t miss. She seems to have endless ability to create new terms out of pop culture and political slop that is excellent.
It’s all designed to keep the crowd (the global public) engaged with a performance. Flood the zone, etc.
https://kyla.substack.com/p/wweconomics-kayfabe-and-the-trade