wedrifid comments on Helpless Individuals - Less Wrong

42 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 March 2009 11:10AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 03 December 2010 09:58:22PM 1 point [-]

Now, whether you would want to bother following a path to appreciation of contemporary music will depend quite simply on how much enjoyment you think you can get out of music in the first place.

Quite simply seems simply mistaken, even if you are mentioning one important factor.

If someone ended up as a advanced composer because they really liked Beethoven etc. when they were young, and subsequently followed their nose, up through Schoenberg, until they finally became Milton Babbitt, that should suggest that something may be going on other than a cynical pursuit of status.

Yes, the pursuit of status without cynicism.

Comment author: David_Gerard 03 December 2010 10:45:52PM 0 points [-]

In my experience of this sort of thing, it's motivated by the pursuit of a personal obsession. I've watched this in the rabid variety of record collector, back in the '80s and '90s when this sort of thing could be difficult and expensive. I've been that record collector. It involves turning into an obsessive crank, at a penalty to status.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 December 2010 01:53:44AM 1 point [-]

t involves turning into an obsessive crank, at a penalty to status.

How does it affect your enjoyment of the music?

Comment author: David_Gerard 04 December 2010 01:59:24AM *  1 point [-]

Sometimes it feels worth it!

Note that what you have created for all this effort (obsessive record hunting, studying twentieth century music, etc) is a subjective experience. This exists only inside your own head. Perhaps you can communicate it back out again - justify the effort by perpetuating the meme - perhaps you can only tell others that it's possible.

As I noted, at times it feels like being really fussy over the variety of heroin you're going to ruin your life with.

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