I'm not trying to convince you to like hip-hop. I'm trying to point out the aesthetic that is there, that I like.
I understand, and you do a good job of explaining.
Hip-hop artists do it way better than my silly off-the-cuff example, but I think I got the Fibonacci-vs-Cartesian feel close enough to hear.
Even your efforts here feel somewhat more coherent than the poem and give a good indication of the aesthetic. I can see how it expresses the kind of cultural theme and attitude of those with whom it is most popular. Without, of course, needing to find either the cultural attitude or the style of expression even remotely appealing to me. Which is of course part of the point of music. It is an effective signal and screen to filter us into subcultures and identities that most suit our personality.
The content serves a similar purpose. I'm really not a 'humans, transhumanism, yay!' type so the poem wouldn't be for me even if it had wedrifid compatible styling.
I think I grok you, wedrifid. I agree on the content valence.
I respond now only to say that the poem may be appreciable in ways other than my feeling like it's sort of like hip-hop. I find myself the first totally positive critic here, but seriously, Swimmer, you have something there, if you want to do something with it. I'm just trying to offer my point of view.
**Note: I'm not a poet. I hardly ever write poetry, and when I do, it's usually because I've stayed up all night. However, this seemed like a very appropriate poem for Less Wrong. Not sure if it's appropriate as a top-level post. Someone please tell me if not.**
Imagine
The first man
Who held a stick in rough hands
And drew lines on a cold stone wall
Imagine when the others looked
When they said, I see the antelope
I see it.
Later on their children's children
Would build temples, and sing songs
To their many-faced gods.
Stone idols, empty staring eyes
Offerings laid on a cold stone altar
And left to rot.
Yet later still there would be steamships
And trains, and numbers to measure the stars
Small suns ignited in the desert
One man's first step on an airless plain
Now we look backwards
At the ones who came before us
Who lived, and swiftly died.
The first man's flesh is in all of us now
And for his and his children's sake
We imagine a world with no more death
And we see ourselves reflected
In the silicon eyes
Of our final creation