One Sided Policy Debate - The Science of Literature

kremlin

On HackerNews, this article was linked. The general idea is that companies are studying what people like to read, to help authors produce books that people like to read.

Now, for me, when I look at this idea, I see some down sides, but I certainly see some benefits as well.

Almost none of the commenters on NYTimes seemed to see any benefit whatsoever to studying reader behaviour. There were a few who saw the downsides as more mild than the other commenters. But most of the commenters basically saw this technology as some sort of 1984-esque idea that will turn all books into uninteresting, unimaginative pieces of paper that would better serve as a door stopper than as something for literary consumption. Out of 50 comments that I've read, only one person has said something along the lines of, 'This technology can possibly offer something to help authors improve their books'.

Is this just technophobia? Or am I missing something, and this really is a horrible, evil technology that should be avoided at all costs? [That's a rhetorical question -- I'd be surprised if even one LWian held that position]

I guess what I'm asking is, what are the psychological roots for the almost-unanimous aversion to this attempt at gathering and using information about what people want?

On HackerNews, this article was linked. The general idea is that companies are studying what people like to read, to help authors produce books that people like to read.

Now, for me, when I look at this idea, I see some down sides, but I certainly see some benefits as well.

I guess what I'm asking is, what are the psychological roots for the almost-unanimous aversion to this attempt at gathering and using information about what people want?

In addition to ygert's good comment I want to mentioned that maybe there is a status thing involved too. Maybe you noticed that in the natural sciences and in engineering there is the meme that something is either mathematical or not worth doing. A more extreme form is to see themselves as the most important workers in the world. Ackknowledging that, yes, studying literature to learn what makes a great piece of literature just like studying engineering to learn what makes a great bridge is a worthwhile and valuable endaveour, will hurt their status in the hacker community. Just go to a site like reddit and see how English majors are bashed on by engineering majors.

I am guilty myself of hating the humanities. Until the exact day I realised what the subject is about and that studying at college does not have to be a purely economic decision.

There was a bit of ambiguity on my part: the commenters I was referring to weren't Hacker News commenters, but the commenters on the original article itself, on NY Times.