One reason why so many people despair is because we’ve removed beauty from public life. We could have beautiful stations, beautiful trains. We could make this world so lovely.

Ted Gioia thinks our culture is stagnant. Hollywood's out of creative ideas, people don't trust the media, social media makes us addicted to distraction, and people don't read hard books like they used to. Timestamps: 2:30 The age of minimalism 8:45 Our crisis of trust 25:30 How songwriting has changed 36:15 Artistic formulas 40:48 Why our culture is stuck 1:08:14 Become a domain expert 1:26:45 Crazy dream stories 1:32:57 Lessons from The Beatles 1:33:45 Bob Dylan, Taylor Swift, Eminem 1:41:17 The homogenization of culture 1:46:25 Why we're so distracted 1:47:11 Dopamine culture I've shared the full interview with @tedgioia below. If you want to watch the full thing or listen on Apple / Spotify, check out the reply tweets.

Music was once rooted in magic, now it's rooted in math. @tedgioia

AI-driven writing may not be beautiful, but it is quite clear. Why is that? Steven Pinker has a theory: We know from the world of visual beauty that a composite image is often prettier than the average. For example, if you morph a bunch of faces together from a high school yearbook, the non-existent human being that comes out will be better looking than the average person — even if they aren't the prettiest or the most handsome. Might be true for AI writing too. @sapinker

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.” — G. K. Chesterton

I'm hiring a part-time YouTube title / thumbnail designer. You'll be responsible for the packaging of my YouTube videos and helping me with overall channel strategy. You must be obsessed with YouTube (like absolutely obsessed)... the kind of person who dreams about CTR and retention rates. And it's important that you've done work like this before. If you're interested in the role, redesign the packaging for three of my YouTube videos, and reply with a short write-up of why you made the decisions you made. If I like what you've done, I'll DM you.

Everyone working in a STEM field should read this - ‘writing is thinking’

Went to The Met Museum on Friday night. Long line for tickets. Packed galleries. Artists sketching. Lots of young people, many of them dressed up. Almost all the art galleries I visit are like this. Maybe people want an escape from the digital world; maybe people are starving for beauty; maybe people just want to take selfies in front of pretty paintings. I'm not sure. What's strange is how the galleries are so crowded at a time when cultural education is being degraded and Liberal Arts majors are becoming a thing of the past. My guess is that people are yearning for a deeper connection to their cultural roots, but aren't quite sure how to cultivate it. And they're frustrated because so much of what's produced today is either filled with propaganda, overly academic, or dumbed-down to appeal to the masses.

All around the West, people are feeling like their culture is dying. I was talking to an English guy a few weeks ago, who said: "You know why we love Wimbledon so much? Because it's the final remnant of an England that's just about dead now."