> Why this word, this scene, this character, and not some other one?
The "why this not that, even when it looks like that would do just fine" style of differential analysis is an exquisitely powerful analytical tool. Asking this question is probably the single most powerful method I know of to generate deep thought, in absolutely any aspect of life. If you haven't tried it... go for it!
(Sample question: why'd I choose the word "exquisitely" in the above sentence?)
> In the short term, thinness prevails. ... The real question is not “which of these things looks nicer when you look at them for two seconds?” but “which of these things will stand the test of time?”
That tracks with another thing I've noticed I approach differently. I've recently joined a book club and everyone loves to talk about how many "stars" they gave a book. I've never really been able to rank things like that. Aside from there being no such thing as a total ordering of books (or movies or ...), who's to say what five stars from you means, compared to five stars from me? Instead I've started thinking about books in terms of "book of the month", "book of the year", "book of the decade", "book of the century", et cetera. Is this going to be the best thing I read all month or all decade? Am I going to remember this for a year or forget most of it next week? Is everyone still going to be talking about this one in 80 years? I think that's a much better scale than "one to five stars (but actually three to five stars)", and much more interesting. It also bakes in both the inherent subjectivity and inherent fuzziness really well.
(Yes, some things... plenty of things... are thin enough to be candidates for "book of the day" or "book of the hour". Few things are forgettable enough to go below that, though there have been some attempts; mostly at that level things underflow and you get in to Mystery Science Theater 3000 territory, which is its own special kind of thing.)
> Is this going to be the best thing I read all month or all decade?
Many times it is only possible to know that post hoc. There are several books I've read that, in the moment of completing them, stand as the best I'd read in the past few years. Others I finished and figured I'd never think of them past the current month.
But books and their impact upon you can be surprising sometimes. There are some books I think about often, and that I would say have even influenced me greatly, that I wouldn't have guessed would have that impact when I read them. And others that I figured would remain "book of the decade" that barely made it to the two-year mark before being surpassed by something else.
That's part of why I like the fuzziness. And why it's a really great system looking back retrospectively. I don't keep a reading journal, but if I glance over physical books in my house or reading history on my ereader, rankings of past things read get really clear really fast.
I agree with your sentiment about ranking -- the gamification of art is pointless -- but I'd go even further: often you won't agree with yourself from the past about a book or movie! Sometimes you just need to be in the mood for a work you previously considered average to really hit you. Other times you revisit music that felt really powerful in your youth, but hearing it again only evokes a mild nostalgia and a feeling of "why did I ever like this?".
THANK YOU! This is why I hate security questions that ask for my “favorite” whatever. That’s going to change! My favorite movie, or supervillain or whatever is going to change - hopefully - within a couple years if good artists are out there making good art. So why the hell would I answer that question the same 5 years from now as I would today?!
Robin Hobb (a very successful fantasy author) rates books on Goodreads. To her, anything over one star is a good rating. Even two stars means she liked it.
I am always hit hard by the paradox of choice, it is very hard for me to just rank something, But it is easy to compare two items. Considering the metaphysics of this a little too hard I put together this silly little web toy to explorer my ideas on ranking things. https://compare.outband.net/compare/app/compare.html
It still sort of sucks and you can tell I am not a web dev, but it was interesting to think about.
> Instead I've started thinking about books in terms of "book of the month", "book of the year", "book of the decade", "book of the century", et cetera. Is this going to be the best thing I read all month or all decade? Am I going to remember this for a year or forget most of it next week?
I like my five stars, but I always preface any rating with a description of how I define my ratings:
5: This book changed the way I think.
4: I enjoyed reading this book. It was interesting and engaging.
3: This book is OK. I wouldn't read it again.
2: This book had parts where I wanted to drop it.
1: I couldn't finish the book. It's actively bad.
As always with scales like this, any definition is subjective and scales shouldn't be used without understanding their impact. I'd never apply this scale to an Uber driver. Also, scales shouldn't be used for stack ranking. At least not without defining the heuristics first.
To me, scales are a way to focus my qualitative impressions into something that's not an essay. It's a good starting point for a discussion about the merits of the work. It definitely has its footguns, though.
I love it because it put something into words that I was thinking about the last season of the show Succession. All I could say before being armed with this, was something along the lines of it feeling like it was suddenly "all over the place."
This guy's blog is great by the way, I went and subscribed.
I have had similar thoughts about "x of the week/month/year". But every now and then there's a dirge or deluge of good things and years aren't even comparable because the fourth best thing one year might have been the number one in any other year of the decade.
I think a good example for me personally is 2019 in music. And I assume most people reading this list will shake their head at my (in their view) poor taste.
1. Rammstein released their untitled album which to me remains the best they've ever made.
2. Slipknot released "We are not your kind" which I played on repeat for so long. Nero Forte remained my first or second most listened to song for three years in a row.
3. Lars Winnerbäck also released Eldtuppen, causing the one and only time someone else than AC/DC became my most listened to artist for a year
4. While I didn't like the 2019 Korn album "The Nothing", it made me realize I'd missed their 2016 release "The Serenity of Suffering", which remains one of my favorite albums of the last decade.
The nice thing about "ranking" stuff for yourself and not for anyone else is that some years can have three "best of the year" and some can have none. Embrace the fuzziness inherent in the system.
Because, man, some years really were just that good.
Because an AI company made their LLM "roll a dice" that was loaded in a specific way to choose that word, so they could claim ownership of your document later.
I'm not sure if you're just choosing not to engage fully with what I wrote or if you're trying to make some other point, but for what it's worth I do not and did not write any of my comments here with AI.
The "why this not that, even when it looks like that would do just fine" style of differential analysis is an exquisitely powerful analytical tool. Asking this question is probably the single most powerful method I know of to generate deep thought, in absolutely any aspect of life. If you haven't tried it... go for it!
(Sample question: why'd I choose the word "exquisitely" in the above sentence?)
> In the short term, thinness prevails. ... The real question is not “which of these things looks nicer when you look at them for two seconds?” but “which of these things will stand the test of time?”
That tracks with another thing I've noticed I approach differently. I've recently joined a book club and everyone loves to talk about how many "stars" they gave a book. I've never really been able to rank things like that. Aside from there being no such thing as a total ordering of books (or movies or ...), who's to say what five stars from you means, compared to five stars from me? Instead I've started thinking about books in terms of "book of the month", "book of the year", "book of the decade", "book of the century", et cetera. Is this going to be the best thing I read all month or all decade? Am I going to remember this for a year or forget most of it next week? Is everyone still going to be talking about this one in 80 years? I think that's a much better scale than "one to five stars (but actually three to five stars)", and much more interesting. It also bakes in both the inherent subjectivity and inherent fuzziness really well.
(Yes, some things... plenty of things... are thin enough to be candidates for "book of the day" or "book of the hour". Few things are forgettable enough to go below that, though there have been some attempts; mostly at that level things underflow and you get in to Mystery Science Theater 3000 territory, which is its own special kind of thing.)