Tagged “culture”

what a time to be alive

Can we reduce resource use and emissions more rapidly than increases caused by growing affluence? History does not think so.

from thread on Mr Beast

the downsides of places optimising for tourism and photography, rather than for being lived in. The problem of everyone wanting a particular special experience.

Not everything needs to be part of your 2-party political melodrama

The continuing value of the little solar system model.

Little planets are easier to comprehend than a probalistic cloud of electrons

Great movie. The music, the androids, the city, the aesthetic.

On length and style and cycles and narrative.
If you need to know anything about a piece before hearing he (he thinks not).
On the high/low division people make about pop music being silly.
Example of Vespertine by Björk, music that can exist in many different contexts and not seem out of place.

Had kinda sensed this trend, though some wild stats in there. There was also the turn to comfort music early in the pandemic.

old songs now represent 70% of the US music market.

The new music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.

the 200 most popular tracks now account for less than 5% of total streams. It was twice that rate just three years ago

Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact.

Have often wondered what the endpoint of this is. Or how much in impacted/unfluenced by sampling.

Some discussions and interviews on justice by twitter-mob.

By contrast, the modern online public sphere, a place of rapid conclusions, rigid ideological prisms, and arguments of 280 characters, favors neither nuance nor ambiguity. Yet the values of that online sphere have come to dominate many American cultural institutions: universities, newspapers, foundations, museums. Heeding public demands for rapid retribution, they sometimes impose the equivalent of lifetime scarlet letters on people who have not been accused of anything remotely resembling a crime. Instead of courts, they use secretive bureaucracies. Instead of hearing evidence and witnesses, they make judgments behind closed doors.

Added to watchlist

Always interesting, and very clever. Talks about upcoming technology (real and expected), cultural and institutional changes, government as buyer to incentivise development, a bunch on companies and employees.

From Vox explainer of Ready Player One

A look at the music industry. You can't make money from album sales, or from touring. Either have to do it as a hobby or get into the merchandice game.