Prismattic comments on Three Worlds Collide (0/8) - Less Wrong

48 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 January 2009 12:07PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 01 July 2013 03:58:11AM *  1 point [-]

'm willing to accept that JohnWittle means it literally, although, seriously? You'd trade Shakespeare and James Joyce--Neil Gaiman and Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin--for HPMOR? It's pretty hard for me to wrap my head around that.

  • Shakespeare I would trade for those weeks of my highschool life back, to spend on learning something more valuable.
  • James Joyce is an author I have heard of and have an intuition that I would experience social pressure against me if I did not assign him high status. From the reviews I read of Ulysses I would pay money to not have to read it. I don't object to other people reading it or enjoying the sophistication.
  • Tolkien's stories I would trade for MoR. His stories are rather dull. I wouldn't trade his world or, especially, the overwhelming influence he had on fantasy fiction in general and elves in particular.
  • Neil Gaiman's work I would trade, but reluctantly. I enjoyed Stardust. But Gaiman's work is more typical and substitutes more easily found. Extreme Rational characters and worlds are overwhelmingly rare.
  • Ursula K. Le Guin? Haven't read. Is her work closer in style and significance to Joyce, Shakespeare, Gaiman or MoR? If one of the last two I'd add her to my to read list.

I'm not sure "You'd trade?" is the right comparison to make. Perhaps "you would assign higher status to" or "you believe is more sophisticated and polished artwork" would give you the answer desired.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 July 2013 04:41:33AM 1 point [-]

Le Guin is a death worshipper. The major theme of the Earthsea is the folly of the quest for immortality or even survival, and the naturalness of death.

Comment author: Prismattic 01 July 2013 04:50:03AM 0 points [-]

Are you making an argument for aesthetic Stalinism?

Whether a work of art or literature is good is not necessarily related to whether it conveys lessons one agrees with.

Comment author: wedrifid 01 July 2013 05:22:00AM *  1 point [-]

Are you making an argument for aesthetic Stalinism?

No, quite clearly not. That being the case it is disingenuous to ask for rhetorical purposes.

Whether a work of art or literature is good is not necessarily related to whether it conveys lessons one agrees with.

Not necessarily, but it is a particularly strong reason. If a piece of fiction has the inferred purpose of conveying a lesson and that lesson is a bad lesson then the value of the piece of fiction could easily be negative. This is different to a non-fiction work that accurately conveys reality. Reality isn't something that we get to choose, lessons and values are.

Comment author: Prismattic 02 July 2013 04:52:35AM *  0 points [-]

I was asking it ingenuously and straightforwardly, actually.

If a piece of fiction has the inferred purpose of conveying a lesson

HPMOR is clearly didactic in this way; it's not at all clear to me that Le Guin's writing is (with the exception of Omelas).

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