FiveHourMarathon
You can get anything here except red ink
1yr ago
I'm surprised he didn't link to this which seems directly on point.
But even more on point, to a wine aficionado, saying you don't appreciate good wine is just like saying to me that you would sooner buy a Lay-z-Boy recliner than an Eames lounger. If you don't see the difference, you just aren't one of our sort, which is a small subset of people but it's one to which I belong. I recall an argument here before where an interlocutor (since departed) told me that he saw no difference between consuming LibsOfTikTok and reading Marx's Kapital, I remember thinking this is just such a disconnect there's no way to even explain it.
A more Motte-ish analogy to the different studies Scott cites here: take three authors, Scott Alexander, Stephanie Meyer, and Honoree Jeffers. Scott cites studies where mass consumers are given different wines, if you gave mass book consumers passages from the works of each of those three authors most would prefer Meyer. Scott cites studies in which experts were given wines, if you gave literary experts passages from each they'd pick Jeffers every time. Yet I'd pick Scott every time, and there's a subset of people who would pick Scott who I align with, and to call literary skill "fake" is an absurd (repugnant?) conclusion.
I'd argue that wine is no more fake than literature.
I think the question at the heart of Scott's essay is would the experts really choose the same "best" wine every time? Say you had 10 high quality wines, 9 worth $200 and 1 an acclaimed award winning $10k bottle. The wine experts would all be able to tell all the wines are good wines, that none are cheap trash, but would they actually be able to pick out the $10k bottle? Not even necessarily enjoy it more, the price of the 10k is for its uniqueness not its quality according to other commenters, but even identify it. If the answer is yes, then wine is not fake. If the answer is no, then wine is kinda fake.
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Notes -
I'm surprised he didn't link to this which seems directly on point.
But even more on point, to a wine aficionado, saying you don't appreciate good wine is just like saying to me that you would sooner buy a Lay-z-Boy recliner than an Eames lounger. If you don't see the difference, you just aren't one of our sort, which is a small subset of people but it's one to which I belong. I recall an argument here before where an interlocutor (since departed) told me that he saw no difference between consuming LibsOfTikTok and reading Marx's Kapital, I remember thinking this is just such a disconnect there's no way to even explain it.
A more Motte-ish analogy to the different studies Scott cites here: take three authors, Scott Alexander, Stephanie Meyer, and Honoree Jeffers. Scott cites studies where mass consumers are given different wines, if you gave mass book consumers passages from the works of each of those three authors most would prefer Meyer. Scott cites studies in which experts were given wines, if you gave literary experts passages from each they'd pick Jeffers every time. Yet I'd pick Scott every time, and there's a subset of people who would pick Scott who I align with, and to call literary skill "fake" is an absurd (repugnant?) conclusion.
I'd argue that wine is no more fake than literature.
I think the question at the heart of Scott's essay is would the experts really choose the same "best" wine every time? Say you had 10 high quality wines, 9 worth $200 and 1 an acclaimed award winning $10k bottle. The wine experts would all be able to tell all the wines are good wines, that none are cheap trash, but would they actually be able to pick out the $10k bottle? Not even necessarily enjoy it more, the price of the 10k is for its uniqueness not its quality according to other commenters, but even identify it. If the answer is yes, then wine is not fake. If the answer is no, then wine is kinda fake.
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