Celine - I loved this conversation so much. I'd bookmarked it last week and wanted to give it proper attention. I listened to it on a drive - you'll appreciate the literary setting. Driving the moorland road from Hebden Bridge (birthplace of Ted Hughes and burial place of Sylvia Plath) over the tops to Haworth (home of the Brontes). Thank you for this generous conversation - I have much to think about. PS - yay for self-help, though I always call my writing 'how-to' - perhaps I need to embrace my explainers for what they are!
Love the setting (also funny because a friend of mine was visiting Sylvia Plath's burial place recently as well!)
It was so, so nice to talk to Jasmine about all these topics—she is so insightful/thoughtful on internet publishing, AI, and many more topics. And very glad she gave me a place to DEFEND SELF-HELP (which, admittedly, is a genre full of mediocre writing…but also some really great writing! I think of Oliver Burkeman's books as modeling the best of the genre)
Writers like Oliver do so much for the genre. He is also an unashamed fan of self-help, but a discerning reader. Which I suppose is the point. Have you read his book The Antidote? It's old now, but a lot of what he explores still stands. Waving from Yorkshire - perhaps one day I can tempt you over for a literary hike across the moors.
I always appreciate you appreciating others, your gratitude, your effort to see people and find their goodness. The other learning, books, how-tos, will come, but it comes faster and is more enduring and joyous when the process is kindness and gratitude. Thanks for being you.
Joan! this is such a lovely comment to receive and means a lot—what I care about MOST OF ALL is taking other people's work seriously and really paying attention to what makes other writers and thinkers great
I'm a certified AI hater but Mike Caulfield has been doing some interesting work on using existing LLM tools for fact-checking, so I will grudgingly admit that there may be a there there (at some point? maybe?) provided that people use it as a tool for inquiry rather than mainlining it as truth. But it's interesting what you say about sources as a signal to readers about taste. Source selection is certainly based on where the information/analysis is, but it's also very much about addressing the particularities of a rhetorical situation and meeting it with sources that'll establish your own trustworthiness with your audience. There's an element of that kind of heuristic approach to establishing authority that's a little gross, but it's what we have to do in a world that demands more of us cognitively than we can ultimately take on. But it's interesting to consider what kinds of aesthetic signals get lost when we use LLM tools to source materials out of contexts, and how that might subtly or not-subtly end up shaping what gets communicated. Another form of context collapse, maybe?
(Speaking of the flaws in the medium becoming its signature, I hope that the results of the poetry camera aren't too "good"--poetry should be janky.)
I always look forward to everything you publish and this was no exception - your work always pushes me to challenge the way I think and expand the media/ideas I engage with - at the risk of sounding a bit corny, as a 19 year old who feels a bit lost, you're someone I look up to and aspire to be like
this episode was so much fun!! i really enjoyed it! 🤍🤍🤍
thank you so much for listening!!
Celine - I loved this conversation so much. I'd bookmarked it last week and wanted to give it proper attention. I listened to it on a drive - you'll appreciate the literary setting. Driving the moorland road from Hebden Bridge (birthplace of Ted Hughes and burial place of Sylvia Plath) over the tops to Haworth (home of the Brontes). Thank you for this generous conversation - I have much to think about. PS - yay for self-help, though I always call my writing 'how-to' - perhaps I need to embrace my explainers for what they are!
Love the setting (also funny because a friend of mine was visiting Sylvia Plath's burial place recently as well!)
It was so, so nice to talk to Jasmine about all these topics—she is so insightful/thoughtful on internet publishing, AI, and many more topics. And very glad she gave me a place to DEFEND SELF-HELP (which, admittedly, is a genre full of mediocre writing…but also some really great writing! I think of Oliver Burkeman's books as modeling the best of the genre)
Writers like Oliver do so much for the genre. He is also an unashamed fan of self-help, but a discerning reader. Which I suppose is the point. Have you read his book The Antidote? It's old now, but a lot of what he explores still stands. Waving from Yorkshire - perhaps one day I can tempt you over for a literary hike across the moors.
I love this so much!
thank you!! was such a pleasure and so so gratifying to have a great conversation with a wonderful friend
there's at least 3 fitzcarraldos, does that count?
nice try…A for audacity…
I was coming here to say this exact thing ha-ha... back to the drawing (writing) board!
I always appreciate you appreciating others, your gratitude, your effort to see people and find their goodness. The other learning, books, how-tos, will come, but it comes faster and is more enduring and joyous when the process is kindness and gratitude. Thanks for being you.
Joan! this is such a lovely comment to receive and means a lot—what I care about MOST OF ALL is taking other people's work seriously and really paying attention to what makes other writers and thinkers great
LET THE RECORD SHOW, HOW FICTION WORKS & possibly FOWLER'S ENGLISH?
two out of three (I am very impressed btw!!!)
the volume that appears to be Fowler’s English is an anthology from Graywolf
I'm feeling very pleased with myself at this minor accomplishment.
I'm a certified AI hater but Mike Caulfield has been doing some interesting work on using existing LLM tools for fact-checking, so I will grudgingly admit that there may be a there there (at some point? maybe?) provided that people use it as a tool for inquiry rather than mainlining it as truth. But it's interesting what you say about sources as a signal to readers about taste. Source selection is certainly based on where the information/analysis is, but it's also very much about addressing the particularities of a rhetorical situation and meeting it with sources that'll establish your own trustworthiness with your audience. There's an element of that kind of heuristic approach to establishing authority that's a little gross, but it's what we have to do in a world that demands more of us cognitively than we can ultimately take on. But it's interesting to consider what kinds of aesthetic signals get lost when we use LLM tools to source materials out of contexts, and how that might subtly or not-subtly end up shaping what gets communicated. Another form of context collapse, maybe?
(Speaking of the flaws in the medium becoming its signature, I hope that the results of the poetry camera aren't too "good"--poetry should be janky.)
Fellow certified AI hater just saying HELLO, MN.
Love this. It’s refreshing to see a conversation about tech and culture that isn’t doom or hype, but curiosity.
I always look forward to everything you publish and this was no exception - your work always pushes me to challenge the way I think and expand the media/ideas I engage with - at the risk of sounding a bit corny, as a 19 year old who feels a bit lost, you're someone I look up to and aspire to be like