I know 5 people closely that have had long careers in the trades.

They are all physically damaged in ways I am not from sitting at a desk.

What I notice about the trades is that the conversation from the inside is mostly about retirement because the work is not fun the way I find my white collar work to be fun.

A spider obviously "knows" how to build a spider web.

Does a spider "understand" how to build a spider web?

From a pragmatic theory of truth, a spider obviously "understands" how to build a spider web. A spider understands how to build a spider web much better than a human.

But when it comes to LLMs we start adding all this extra nonsense. As if the spider is blanket "smarter" than me because I can't spin a web. If the spider is "smarter" than me then it must also have this Cartesian theater of the mind like many people think they do.

It is layered philosophical misunderstandings to talk about LLMs in this way.

I think Evening Tide, Barge off the Marsh looks really interesting because there is a jaggedness to the edges that is interesting to my taste.

What is the reason for a Burroughs cutup? One could argue almost the entire 20th century of art was a reaction against the idea of artistic choice you are referring to.

It is very strange to me too because when I actually lived in the 20th century, the idea of algorithmic music composition was considered the outer heights of serious artistic musical expression.

I did not expect the generations 25 years later to have an artistic taste that seems to have regressed to a type of pre-impressionism sensibility. The way Monet's critics considered his art a lesser form of wallpaper compared to the "old masters".

It is really one of the most disappointing developments because it is not like we have this cultural obsession with some neo-Rembrandt movement.

It is the cultural triumph of the art critic who produces nothing beyond critique.

I live in the future when it comes to my hobby of music making. I make my own little software tools that I did not have the ability to make 2 years ago. Little tools that are too specialized and specific for my obscure taste to have much wider economic value as tools in themselves.

Claude is also the greatest obscure book recommendation engine I have ever found so I have a lot more interesting books to read than in the past.

Outside of this, I basically live in 2019 but everything is more expensive.

I worry this is the future. It doesn't really feel much different other than things getting more and more expensive.