Wow, what a great spread. I love your analysis of the state of the blogosphere, too--it’s an exciting time and the evidence is right here. Thanks for doing this, and thanks to everyone else who participated, I’m really excited to explore the list!
Erik, thank you so much for doing this. I’m looking forward to reading and enjoying the other submissions. I found another recipe that I’m going to try: Vegetable Pie (page 242). The funniest thing is that for all of the intricacies of these recipes, this one uses frozen pie crust! Thanks again and cheers 🥂 to Champagne Slurpees.
Incredible lineup! I can’t wait to dig into these. I feel like the state of blogosphere 2.0 reflects Harris’s premise about classic vs. modern literature. People are doing it better now -- from an idea and craft perspective. We’ve come a long way since livejournal.
> Looking at, say, contemporary literary fiction, I don’t think the midlist is very strong, mostly due to self-similarity, and I think that spells trouble in the long run for the viability of it as a genre.
I've noticed the same thing. Anyone have any thoughts as to why contemporary MFA literary writing all feels so redundant and unimaginative?
Sep 27, 2023·edited Sep 27, 2023Liked by Erik Hoel
Humbled to be included here and even more excited to discover so many bright minds I can learn from! Thank you for the time and effort you put into going through all these diverse pieces of writing, Erik - that is such a generous offering to all of us! One small clarification - my research is not actually on shame (which is the topic of the article I submitted), but in adult developmental psychology and the focus is on understanding the phenomenology of consciousness and particularly the way individuals experience consciousness shifts from less to more complex stages of development - I'm exploring what triggers such shifts and whether they can be fostered through curated learning experiences. I'm fascinated to take in the vastly different perspectives on consciousness you brought together here - particularly those at the intersection of human-AI.
Thanks for this list. Quite a mix, an impressive array of thinking and writing from your posted submissions here. You do them and us both a great favor, much obliged.
I like the variety, how do you find time to read all of these? Although I am not a paid subscriber, I would like to use this comments section like a shameless busker to shill my own wares...
This one might fit with the theme of emerging consciousness -- it's a rant about how the education system and a reliance on llms might be turning us into llms ourselves.
"Each essay, utterance, and blurb one writes adds to a paper trail of practice paving way to novel ways of thinking. They are the screws that fasten a lightning rod ready to channel divine inspiration. No machine can channel this as they’re limited to pillaging a small subset of the known rather than diving into the unknown corpus. And they can’t dive out of a genuine curiosity, an urge to go to greater and greater depths to the point of drowning; they only work out of utility or request. Artificial intelligence is rootless without naive curiosity. But a machine can’t be naive, it can only be binary: right or wrong, only capable of being on the upside or downside of its own training, but never outside of it. A tool that can only predict your thoughts at the most rudimentary level of words. It can combine them with other thoughts and ideas like oil over water, but at best it’s an emulsion, it can’t truly integrate them at the microscopic level like your closest friend or or enemy. There's nothing it can integrate these stray thoughts back into other than additional surface level thoughts. There is no core personality, no emergent identity. A serverfarm sized bowl of alphabet soup."
Wow, what a great spread. I love your analysis of the state of the blogosphere, too--it’s an exciting time and the evidence is right here. Thanks for doing this, and thanks to everyone else who participated, I’m really excited to explore the list!
Erik, thank you so much for doing this. I’m looking forward to reading and enjoying the other submissions. I found another recipe that I’m going to try: Vegetable Pie (page 242). The funniest thing is that for all of the intricacies of these recipes, this one uses frozen pie crust! Thanks again and cheers 🥂 to Champagne Slurpees.
Incredible lineup! I can’t wait to dig into these. I feel like the state of blogosphere 2.0 reflects Harris’s premise about classic vs. modern literature. People are doing it better now -- from an idea and craft perspective. We’ve come a long way since livejournal.
Honored to be included and can't wait to catch up on the others in this list! Glad to see some familiar names.
This is killer.
It's fascinating how, no matter how many writers touch on AI as a subject, there's always something you hadn't thought of yet.
Lots here - saving to savour.
> Looking at, say, contemporary literary fiction, I don’t think the midlist is very strong, mostly due to self-similarity, and I think that spells trouble in the long run for the viability of it as a genre.
I've noticed the same thing. Anyone have any thoughts as to why contemporary MFA literary writing all feels so redundant and unimaginative?
Humbled to be included here and even more excited to discover so many bright minds I can learn from! Thank you for the time and effort you put into going through all these diverse pieces of writing, Erik - that is such a generous offering to all of us! One small clarification - my research is not actually on shame (which is the topic of the article I submitted), but in adult developmental psychology and the focus is on understanding the phenomenology of consciousness and particularly the way individuals experience consciousness shifts from less to more complex stages of development - I'm exploring what triggers such shifts and whether they can be fostered through curated learning experiences. I'm fascinated to take in the vastly different perspectives on consciousness you brought together here - particularly those at the intersection of human-AI.
Love this, especially the emergent focus on consciousness!
Thank you so much for including my contribution! These all look fantastic - looking forward to working through these and following some new people.
Thank you Erik, some fascinating pieces in there for sure, I'm looking forward to a good read.
Thanks for this list. Quite a mix, an impressive array of thinking and writing from your posted submissions here. You do them and us both a great favor, much obliged.
This is awesome. Thank you, Erik, for putting it together. I can’t wait to dive in and check out all the writers in the list. :)
Your public-spiritedness is very much appreciated!
I like the variety, how do you find time to read all of these? Although I am not a paid subscriber, I would like to use this comments section like a shameless busker to shill my own wares...
This one might fit with the theme of emerging consciousness -- it's a rant about how the education system and a reliance on llms might be turning us into llms ourselves.
https://thescreed.substack.com/p/accidentally-1984
"Each essay, utterance, and blurb one writes adds to a paper trail of practice paving way to novel ways of thinking. They are the screws that fasten a lightning rod ready to channel divine inspiration. No machine can channel this as they’re limited to pillaging a small subset of the known rather than diving into the unknown corpus. And they can’t dive out of a genuine curiosity, an urge to go to greater and greater depths to the point of drowning; they only work out of utility or request. Artificial intelligence is rootless without naive curiosity. But a machine can’t be naive, it can only be binary: right or wrong, only capable of being on the upside or downside of its own training, but never outside of it. A tool that can only predict your thoughts at the most rudimentary level of words. It can combine them with other thoughts and ideas like oil over water, but at best it’s an emulsion, it can’t truly integrate them at the microscopic level like your closest friend or or enemy. There's nothing it can integrate these stray thoughts back into other than additional surface level thoughts. There is no core personality, no emergent identity. A serverfarm sized bowl of alphabet soup."
Midlist ftw ✊️😤