Does the advice offered so widely on Substack to publish every week help feed the culture of slop? If so (I think it does), doesn’t this suggest that the writer who wants to resist slop should only publish when they feel they have something worthy (sacred?) to offer?
Slop, in all its various forms is a collective action problem. As you note, the incentives all push towards the creation of slop. One of the reasons it’s so pervasive is that costs to create slop are very low so it doesn’t need much incentive to make it worth it.
The individual can resist slop through your points 3 and 4, but I would also add that one can consume high quality media as an antidote. I have been reading what I think of as “real books” and recently finished “A Canticle for Leibowitz” and am making my way through Kurt Vonnegut’s catalogue. I have noticed that my own writing has improved from reading high quality prose as it resets my brain and flushes out crummy AI writing patterns that are completely hackneyed.
I've been reading more books, too, as well as subscribing to high quality writing online. I was studying for a master's degree and realized I needed to retrain my reading skills to be able to read academic writing.
“It’s not even quite the platform’s fault.” Is it? These systems are deliberately designed to maximize engagement and keep people scrolling, even if that means leaning into addictive patterns, because that’s profitable.
Fentanyl patches suit many patients better than morphine.
When my late mother was dying painfully from metastatic gall bladder cancer that had blocked one of her biliary ducts causing jaundice and intense itching she needed to be prescribed fentanyl patches, which our NHS England local health care trust refuses to approve even though other NHS England health care trusts have approved fentanyl.
Instead my mother was given morphine, which she had stated explicity she did not want because in the past prescribed morphine had made her nauseous and constipated.
Here in the UK, we live in a sick society in every sense of the word.
The USA is in many ways even sicker than the UK.
Socrates condemned wilful ignorance.
Far too many highly schooled but poorly educated arts and humanities graduates in the UK & USA are wilfully ignorant of STEM, especially mathematics, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, human anatomy & physiology, pharmacology.
Our national discourse is dominated by on one side by feminists with degrees in arts and humanities, on another by attorneys and medics, on another by venal businessmen like Trump and others, all who have their own specific agenda, which are not based upon the pursuit of scientific knowledge, but rather seek political outcomes derived from oversimplistic, outdated political categories such as left and right, which are no longer relevant to the complexities of the modern era.
Learn about pharmacology. If we have an IQ above about 120 then it's not hard. There's no excuse for being wilfully ignorant.
I’m guessing slop’s ancestral root is rumor and gossip. Which takes us all the way back to the origins of our species. That makes slop pretty deeply ingrained. Technology changes and each change engenders howls, about manuscripts (reading ruins your memory), then printed book reading (not for lower classes and definitely not for women), radio (that music is ruining our youth), tv (people’s ability to read is shrinking), texting-videos-social media (now we’re ruined for sure). What’s kind of amazing is that through all these technological and societal changes, the content and even the style, of basic slop doesn’t change much.
Depends on the gossip I guess. I wouldn't like to depend on gossip for a moral or ethical litmus test. It's rarely accurate, and it often springs from jealousy, envy, greed, prejudice, and self righteousness. Not a great moral arbiter.
My dad is visiting and keeps watching videos on his phone without headphones. I'm like, you know those AI voiceover videos are probably also written by AI, right? It's so easy to keep listening because the stories are designed to keep your attention though...
"If you want to combat a spiritual threat, make everything sacred." That was beautiful... anyways, trying to make things pretty and meaningful is a bit harder today cause (in my surroundings and my experience) people say anything pretty is not trustworthy, and anything meaningful is a sort of performance or is just fake
Does the advice offered so widely on Substack to publish every week help feed the culture of slop? If so (I think it does), doesn’t this suggest that the writer who wants to resist slop should only publish when they feel they have something worthy (sacred?) to offer?
yes, communication is sacred and we should treat it as such
Slop, in all its various forms is a collective action problem. As you note, the incentives all push towards the creation of slop. One of the reasons it’s so pervasive is that costs to create slop are very low so it doesn’t need much incentive to make it worth it.
The individual can resist slop through your points 3 and 4, but I would also add that one can consume high quality media as an antidote. I have been reading what I think of as “real books” and recently finished “A Canticle for Leibowitz” and am making my way through Kurt Vonnegut’s catalogue. I have noticed that my own writing has improved from reading high quality prose as it resets my brain and flushes out crummy AI writing patterns that are completely hackneyed.
I've been reading more books, too, as well as subscribing to high quality writing online. I was studying for a master's degree and realized I needed to retrain my reading skills to be able to read academic writing.
“It’s not even quite the platform’s fault.” Is it? These systems are deliberately designed to maximize engagement and keep people scrolling, even if that means leaning into addictive patterns, because that’s profitable.
Jreg and the consequences of society.
The poison is in the dose ~ Hypocrates
Fentanyl patches suit many patients better than morphine.
When my late mother was dying painfully from metastatic gall bladder cancer that had blocked one of her biliary ducts causing jaundice and intense itching she needed to be prescribed fentanyl patches, which our NHS England local health care trust refuses to approve even though other NHS England health care trusts have approved fentanyl.
Instead my mother was given morphine, which she had stated explicity she did not want because in the past prescribed morphine had made her nauseous and constipated.
Here in the UK, we live in a sick society in every sense of the word.
The USA is in many ways even sicker than the UK.
Socrates condemned wilful ignorance.
Far too many highly schooled but poorly educated arts and humanities graduates in the UK & USA are wilfully ignorant of STEM, especially mathematics, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, human anatomy & physiology, pharmacology.
Our national discourse is dominated by on one side by feminists with degrees in arts and humanities, on another by attorneys and medics, on another by venal businessmen like Trump and others, all who have their own specific agenda, which are not based upon the pursuit of scientific knowledge, but rather seek political outcomes derived from oversimplistic, outdated political categories such as left and right, which are no longer relevant to the complexities of the modern era.
Learn about pharmacology. If we have an IQ above about 120 then it's not hard. There's no excuse for being wilfully ignorant.
I’m guessing slop’s ancestral root is rumor and gossip. Which takes us all the way back to the origins of our species. That makes slop pretty deeply ingrained. Technology changes and each change engenders howls, about manuscripts (reading ruins your memory), then printed book reading (not for lower classes and definitely not for women), radio (that music is ruining our youth), tv (people’s ability to read is shrinking), texting-videos-social media (now we’re ruined for sure). What’s kind of amazing is that through all these technological and societal changes, the content and even the style, of basic slop doesn’t change much.
to align slop with rumour and gossip in that way denegrates gossip's powerful social function as a moral and ethical litmus test
Depends on the gossip I guess. I wouldn't like to depend on gossip for a moral or ethical litmus test. It's rarely accurate, and it often springs from jealousy, envy, greed, prejudice, and self righteousness. Not a great moral arbiter.
My dad is visiting and keeps watching videos on his phone without headphones. I'm like, you know those AI voiceover videos are probably also written by AI, right? It's so easy to keep listening because the stories are designed to keep your attention though...
"If you want to combat a spiritual threat, make everything sacred." That was beautiful... anyways, trying to make things pretty and meaningful is a bit harder today cause (in my surroundings and my experience) people say anything pretty is not trustworthy, and anything meaningful is a sort of performance or is just fake