Patronage/Matronage

[Alphaville]

another issue could be that more people read now than ever, so it’s no longer a form of conspicuous leisure but something as utilitarian and ordinary as plumbing.

and with globalization now billions of people also read in english as their second language, and overcomplication would be a market share killer.

[7Wannabe5]

Current society is majority illiterate in many important languages — Latin, Greek, Python, Elizabethan English, music, bridge bidding systems, etc., mainly to the consternation of specialists. What’s one more? :p Not saying literacy isn’t valuable, just that all of the above have declined because people have judged them less valuable than whatever they spent time learning instead. Words (written and spoken) are themselves only a model!

True, but there is something to be said for achieving reasonably high level of literacy/mastery in at least one or two languages, as well as smattering of competencies in variety of other languages. You made me chuckle with your listing, because I realized that I would rate my level of literacy in both Python and Elizabethan English as “competent reader/incompetent writer.”

the return of oral culture from the temporary dominance of the written word.

One thing I really enjoyed about my experience with Islam was the mix of oral and written tradition. The Quran being created with express purpose of verses being both written and chanted.

OTOH, I reflect on my experience tutoring basic reading to inner city kids. It was very clear that major reason these kids were having difficulty with reading was that their verbal vocabularies were also quite limited. Like if/when they went through toddler phase of pointing and asking “Doggie?”, either somebody replied “Shut up.” or they were left alone in a dirty playpen.

The deal with reading, though, is that you can't do other activities while you engage in it. Whereas if you listen, you could at the same time be taking a walk, doing chores, engaging in simple exercise / stretching...

True, we are all compelled towards multi-tasking towards productivity. But, maybe it might be better to attempt to trade-off some of the time spent doing one tedious task combined with a moderately engaging task for time spent engaging in activities which are just challenging enough to create “flow.”

another issue could be that more people read now than ever, so it’s no longer a form of conspicuous leisure but something as utilitarian and ordinary as plumbing.

I always thought that one of the great things about enjoying reading as a hobby was that many other people regard it as a productive activity, so they leave you alone while you are engaged. That’s why I also frequently refer to my hobby of walking as “power walking”, because vigorous exercise = moral 21st century pursuit, and wandering about looking at field weeds or thinking about books or peeking in dumpsters, not so much.

[Alphaville]

@7w5

yeah while we had writing for millennia the era of writing supremacy came only with the printing press, protestantism, commercial printing of vernacular books, and the newspaper. then it began to end with the radio. writing supremacy was short-lived.

before that written words were mostly read aloud, chanted, recited, performed, etc. now we’re more or less back to that model, electrically amplified and digitally reproduced.

reading is “productive” only for a very limited population of a) students or b) middle-class knowledge workers perusing professional journals. rural kids would get told to stop lazing about and tend to the crops/cattle/chores etc.

if you remember the introduction of don quijote, reading is described as a bit of a vice, and in the novel itself also, as a cause of madness, at least in the first part.

roland barthes in the pleasure of the text also sees reading as “aristocratic.” leisurely reading anyway, not professional literature. business people have rarely cared much for books.

these days reading i believe continues as a sign of conspicuous leisure among urban hipsters. e.g. see portlandia’s “did you read” sketch. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6JLWQEuz2gA (that there is short-form literature: satirical flash fiction)

visual/media literacy is superimportant too, first so as not to get easily bamboozled, and afterwards, to enjoy sophisticated forms of it. one has to know how to read television. reading/writing supremacy was short-lived. now literature is happening on television.

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

Granted. However, fact remains that reading is much faster than listening. Whenever anybody points me to a podcast or a video clip of a lecture or interview, I immediately look for the transcript. Unfortunately, transcripts are often not available or full of garbled junk. So, I have no choice but to spend 40 minutes listening to something that would take less than 10 minutes to read. Also, like many or most people, my auditory comprehension/retention level is much lower than my reading comprehension/retention level, so it is even a greater waste of time towards erudition to favor use of these mediums.

[Alphaville]

oh yeah, same here, no doubt. having gone through an educational process which more or less crippled me for practical labor by demanding excessive reading, i’d much rather scan text looking for significant points than listen to a long peroration, especially from someone lacking oratory skills. podcasts! lol.

the economists has some good readers though. fun to listen to.

[IlliniDave]

Granted. However, fact remains that reading is much faster than listening. Whenever anybody points me to a podcast or a video clip of a lecture or interview, I immediately look for the transcript.

Interesting. I do agree that transcripts are faster, but I enjoy actually listening to the speaker because it rounds out context and intent. Too easy to misinterpret transcripts of things that aren't formally prepared remarks when they are reduced to squiggles on the page.

Actually, since a recent election where I was aghast at what a participant was accused of saying and went back to listen to alleged statement, I've become aware of the widespread dishonesty in the attribution game, and pretty much go to the live, unedited source whenever possible. I don't even trust machine transcriptions. Time consuming to be sure, but I have no patience for parties that try to manipulate me.

[jacob]

In case I wasn't the last person in the world to figure it out, youtube allows you to speed up videos to 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x, or 2.00x (use Shift-< and Shift-> or playback speed under the settings wheel icon in the video). The sound is modulated to preserve frequencies so the speaker doesn't sound like Mickey Mouse. This bumps audio(visual) information rate to 200-300 WPM making it tolerable as an information source. I've previously filed podcasts, interviews, talks, ... under the "later/probably never" header because I didn't have the patience to endure the time-ROI. Possible side-effects include a strong desire for a button to "speed up" live humans around you as well, like, "if you could talk a bit faster than that already?!"

[Alphaville]

Possible side-effects include a strong desire for a button to "speed up" live humans around you as well, like, "if you could talk a bit faster than that already?!"

i often yell this at the screen, but with humans who know me i’ll just say “start at the end” or “what’s the conclusion?”.

the speedup function i think is in response to demand rather than a driver though. but it could possibly create a cultural feedback loop.

still, speed is no cure for poor structure.

[7Wannabe5]

@IlliniDave:

I agree that journalism has reached a new low in out of context attribution. My solution is that I don’t read much journalism and stick mostly to books and papers.

@jacob:

Thanks! I tried it out at 2X on a Ted Talk with captions and it worked great. Since I grew up in a household with 3 borderline hyper-manic sisters, two of whom became lawyers, 2X speed is not much beyond my normal range

@Alphaville:

My BF made me watch a terrible action movie featuring an ensemble cast of men in their 60s behaving like Level 2 adolescents the other night. As far as I can recall all the dialogue consisted of grunting noises. He also has the habit of walking into a room where I am reading a book and turning on the television to a show like “Gilligan’s Island”, saying “Here’s something you’ll like.” , then exiting the room himself. Do you think this qualifies as a passive-aggressive form of media abuse?

[IlliniDave]

In case I wasn't the last person in the world to figure it out, youtube allows you to speed up videos to 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x, or 2.00x (use Shift-< and Shift-> or playback speed under the settings wheel icon in the video).

I am maybe the penultimate member of the 21st century in that regard. Initially I was slowing music down to better hear what was going on before I finally figured out one can go in the opposite direction and speed up talk. I now do that frequently, and often combine it with chores that require hands but not the linguistic channels of my brain: folding laundry, tying fishing rigs, repetitive practice on a musical instrument, etc. I dedicate almost no time to simply listening. If I'm reading there's not much room for multitasking.

[Alphaville]

@Alphaville:

My BF made me watch a terrible action movie featuring an ensemble cast of men in their 60s behaving like Level 2 adolescents the other night. As far as I can recall all the dialogue consisted of grunting noises. He also has the habit of walking into a room where I am reading a book and turning on the television to a show like “Gilligan’s Island”, saying “Here’s something you’ll like.” , then exiting the room himself. Do you think this qualifies as a passive-aggressive form of media abuse?

hahahaha i think im familiar with the washout franchise or what was the name of it.the unmentionables. the disposables. the leathery steroidal. i forget!

but to quote william burroughs’ “words of advice for young people” (see video here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8wj21sYKkk0 ) “never interfere in a boy-and-girl fight.”

anyway without taking sides here 2 possibilities for alternative action films, both of which are hilarious satires of fascism:

-death race 2000
-starship troopers

some viewers of those films might feel incited towards fascism though, so tread carefully

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

Not really a fight. Just some gossip (‘cause you asked for it) mixed with thought pertaining to the sharing and/or lack of sharing of media in modern (Level 4 ish) relationships. Besides, I’m not likely to be fretting about “media abuse” from somebody who says stuff like “If you lost some weight, you could get any men you wanted, even some in their 20s.” Like I’m the one who wants a partner in his/her 20s Like I didn’t tell him that I am now self-describing as Asexual-Non-romantic

Anyways, I have now downgraded the likelihood of continued lentil-buddy style mutualism-mooch in this situation to 3 months max

[Alphaville]

re: “gossip” yeah i do appreciate significant illustrations of concrete scenarios hahaha— thanks!

and 3 months is the early fall, so—did you finalize the sale of your last shared project? and how is your land search going?

ps i shouldn’t comment again on other items

here’s the musical version of the above which is my preferred form of it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aia3b1AFcTU

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

Finalizing the sale will take at most a few days of effort, given that I’m willing to deal with a bit of Covid risk.

My new thought is that buying private property for myself isn’t very Level 5. Instead, I should just attempt to make choices in favor of complexity at the margin. I think this would be roughly equivalent to application of permaculture philosophy/design practice wherever I find myself.

Also, I probably should lose some weight.

ETA: My maternal grandmother worked for the company founded by Burroughs father. Every summer we stayed at a resort provided for the employees by the company. It was very nice.

[Alphaville]

My new thought is that buying private property for myself isn’t very Level 5. Instead, I should just attempt to make choices in favor of complexity at the margin. I think this would be roughly equivalent to application of permaculture philosophy/design practice wherever I find myself.

en inglés, por favor

ETA: My maternal grandmother worked for the company founded by Burroughs father. Every summer we stayed at a resort provided for the employees by the company. It was very nice.

i hope nobody played william tell there

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

Level 5 is like a ledge to which I am barely clinging and not yet able to hoist my fat butt over, so it is difficult for me to explain my thoughts. Something like the concept of private property is Level 4 and it still exists at Level 5, but much more like a mesh work than anything solid. It has to do with those psychological studies on attention that demonstrate that if you direct human lab rats to count how many times a tennis ball is lobbed back and forth, most of them won’t notice the guy in a purple gorilla suit crossing the court.

In more practical terms, I think it makes more sense for me to start with a minimalist foraging project.

[7Wannabe5]

Here's a link to a very high Level 4 paper that describes the corescience behind the Lentil Baby/Buddy concept. If the science is like a reasonably mature tree, then a related narrative would be like an intertwining fruiting vine, and practical boots on the ground real life experience might be like the soil microbial layer, and something else would be the shrub layer, and something else would be the fungal network, and something else might be the amphibious layer, etc. etc. etc. This is how you apply the practical design philosophy of permaculture to something that isn't just a garden.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1810510/

[Alphaville]

@7w5

please define “level 5”?

re: property: the lillies in the field, something something? no idea.

rats: nobody can see the fnords?

minimalist foraging: ah! so, you’ll hang on to the cash, and remain mobile? sounds smart.

my everpresent concern with low-income homesteading as expressed before has to do with the possibility of becoming trapped and then having no money to escape the place. retiring loaded is one thing, having all assets in a homestead frontier-style is to risk cannibalism.

so, on the foraging front, here’s an idea for you maybe? not sure but i’ll share: if you have the right network and references, you could live rurally (or anywhere really) for free as a caretaker. i have a friend who does that and has the run of a little mansion for 11 months out of the year. with many rights, i might add, like the owners can’t show up unannounced at random times. it’s almost like a union job,

now i’m not the type of person who’d pull that off, or much less enjoy it, but maybe you could/would. eg. properties in the resort lake you mentioned, during the off season?

—

imma read the paper now

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

At the cusp of Level 3/4, you start to develop your own ideology and/or lifestyle. At the cusp of Level 4/5, you start to be able to hold the tension between ideologies (without compromise) that would have seemed to be strictly competing at the cusp of 3/4.

For example, many years ago I joined a support group for people in sex-starved marriages. The group started working with a very basic self-help type book on the topic, and was very much divided into two camps; the low sex drive partners and the high sex drive partners. At some point, a sub-set of this group started reading “Passionate Marriage” which was meant to facilitate development from Level 3 through Level 4 and up towards Level 5. It was tough work, but those of us who eventually “grokked” it were able to drop our entrenched positions based on identification with relative sex drive, and then the conversation became much more nuanced and interesting. By analogy, imagine a conscientious frugal vs. irresponsible spendthrift OR mean miser vs. generous soul marriage/divorce support group adjunct to this forum taking the discussion to a higher level.

Anyways, even though I still didn’t do a very good of communicating, the example of “caretaker” you offered is exactly in alignment with my thoughts on Level 5 take on concept of private property, because it has to do with the dialectic between care/responsibility and authority/power within the overlay of “ownership” or “having” or “possession.” My take being that most adult Americans “own” more stuff than they can actually “care for” or “possess.” So, some degree of “possession” of stuff “owned” by others is generally fairly easily achieved simply by manifesting behavior in alignment with care/responsibility/maintenance, and this sort of behavior manifested beyond respect for rigid egalitarian ideology will minimize resource waste.

Simple example would be going over to a friend’s house and cooking something for dinner for both of you out of the odds and ends near expiration to be found in her fridge or garden vs. chipping in 50/50 to order a pizza with her. The natural extension of this example is also why I claim that it is better to be “all in” in a marriage.

[Frita]

Pulling the Emily Litella (Gilda Radner character on early SNL) card here with a big, “Nevermind,” biggest storm in 40+ years here. Sleep deprived and with the aftermath...