[internisus]

I have to believe that, to a certain extent, all of the people who comprise a particular generation within a particular culture are voices of a single choir such that the ideas and work produced by that group are of a limited diversity.

For example, if an individual reads five (an arbitrary number for illustration) non-fiction books on a given topic of interest that emerge from a single culture and generation during his lifetime, there is little need to read any others because existing divergence should be adequately sampled within that set of five books. It's a kind of law of diminishing returns.

Similarly, if an individual reads five fictional stories in the same vein and, as before, from a single culture and generation, reading any other stories like these will increasingly be a waste of time and effort. While it matters in only a limited sense which particular stories are read, those chosen become an important part of that individual's life. As such, it is likely more fruitful and meaning-building to reread within those chosen stories rather than to continue, past a point, to read new stories that are similar to them. This means that, for example, you are all very important influencers in my life as you play a great role in introducing me to new media of all kinds.

It seems to me that this is not a blind notion; history has shown that many works ranging from scientific discoveries to literary movements are as much a product of period and culture as of individual effort. People independently make the same discoveries and create the same art, more or less. This is well-grounded, I think, in theories of history, psychology, sociology, etc.

Which is very convenient. Otherwise, how would anyone ever feel satiated? There is only enough time in one's lifetime to take in so much of humankind's work. A form of despair would surely follow if a reasonable amount of redundancy could not be assumed.

Unfortunately, the same observation can easily lead to complacency. If I do not make the extraordinary effort to do something great in my lifetime, it is likely not much of a loss as someone else must be doing the work I am not. Obviously, this violates basic Kantian ethical law, but it also reflects common feeling, I think.

What do you think about all this?

[CubaLibre]

Basically just keep reading Don Quijote and War & Peace until you fall over
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Felix]

i feel like this is not the point you started out trying to make, but somehow you ended up with a pretty optimistic take on the whole "the world has remarkably little use for us so let's give it a taste of its own medicine" quandary.

[BEIGE]

Yeah, it can rapidly overwhelm you. Even though everything may blend together, there's still an enormous amount of diversity.

That's what eventually you have to exercise MEME CONTROL and just look at the stuff that you find coolest.

Then you eventually contribute something to humanity's knowledge, thus adding even more for future generations to sort through.

[internisus]

[psiga]

Not sure if I ever put it into so many words, but that's basically the point that I hit a long time back.

I live like a beach bum on the surf scene of the internet. I spend essentially every day just listening to found music, hitting a few news blogs, reading esoteric web sites, tapping on the glass of a forum or two, watching teh animus intermittently, playing a game once every other blue moon, and still I am in a state of information overload.

Despite my abundance of free time, I am literally physically incapable of catching up with this. And every day is just another day that more is added.

I could drop everything else and devote my life to nothing but books, yet never be able to read them all. I could drop everything else and devote my life to nothing but music, yet still never be able to hear it all. But so what? As you implied, after a while it gets pretty routine and unenlightening.

At this point I have just enough balance to find myself never bored on the internet. Being anywhere from impressed to awed multiple times a day, every day.

At this point all I would really actively want to change is just to streamline that. Better sound, better vision, more comfort, and more security (in the sense of being financially independent enough to not mind that I spend so much time being impressed and awed).


But yeah, a bit more on the topic, I have controlled a certain amount of the media that I have consumed, specifically to guide my character into certain directions.
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[CubaLibre]

Personally, I find cultural guides to be very helpful with this conundrum, and actually I feel it is one of the (very few) uses of academia. If something is an honest to god "classic," there's probably a good reason.

Like, if you ever read one Tolstoy you should read War & Peace. How do I know that? Cause there are a bunch of tweed-wearing professors who have literally devoted their lives just to Tolstoy's work and that's what they say.

Obviously there are giant caveats in selecting what media you will consume in this way, but it's a better starting point than most.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Mr Mustache]

Also, it's a good read.
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The people are like wool to me

[psiga]

[Gironika]

I did notice that just some days ago when I started to read another book about Wankel/Rotary-engines. They all basically have the same approach towards that type of engine and way too often you might (or even might not) come across a short paragraph that deals with other fields of use despite as a engine for cars Mazdas.

An interesting read, however, was the book I read before that. This took a different approach and tried to outline how the rotary-engine appeared in newspapers/mags/books by using archive material collected by several people/institutions/Wankel himself.

That was one of the rare chances to read something I didn't know before in a specific field of "science" if you may call it like that.


[edit]
And I'm always amazed by the interweb offering something like this and the accompanying spin-offs or whatever started this kind of thing, it's results are sometimes pretty noteworthy (at least for those who care) - though that is really weird.
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[Hot Stott Bot]

I think you are judging things based on how the end-result appears and not seeing the underlying cause and effect.

You might look out at all the works and say, "hey these are the same whatever," but I think when you look under the surface there's a rippling chain of causes and effects that creates that homogeny, and were one of those things not to exist the ripples would result in a whole different homogeny.

So, in fact, by virtue of the fact that you see such homogeny in the works of a generation and culture I think only goes to show how much impcat a single work can have!

If you didn't see that homogeny, I think that would mean that those individual works are not having a major impact. They exist in a vacuum. Hence, I would take virtually the exact opposite viewpoint.

[Mr. Apol]

i'm enjoying catcher in the rye so far.
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