[OliverM]

I like the sentiment but this could have been a tweet. If it was it wouldn't be preaching to the choir.

I am being glib above but in the spirit of useful feedback, the article needs editing for length. It's not that it's badly written, I just found that it took too circuitous a route to make its point.

[pipo234]

I, for one, learned a new word: Ennui. And I believe I finally understand what people mean when referring to a cargo cult. A tweet most definitely would not have sufficed.

Thanks for the long read, interesting an well written.

(And: true, I'm probably living under a rock for being so ignorant) :-)

[meandthewallaby]

Because of the curse of the autodidact, do note that "ennui" is pronounced "on-wee," as it comes from French ("ennui" is "boredom" in French). It is not, as I found out rather embarrassingly, "en-you-eye".

Incidentally, I agree with you. While there could be some editing for length (oh well), the point was well made with a great example to start out with, and a bit of a discussion about some of the effects of being trapped in the Ennui Engine. It definitely hit on something I've noticed about myself.

I have a pile of books I've been meaning to read but haven't gotten to. I have lots of articles that I'd like to read but haven't made time yet. But I'd pull up Reddit and just scroll there. I deleted Twitter when Elon bought it and decided to burn it to the ground, and I'll be deleting Reddit now. Not so much to make a stand, but really just using this opportunity of upheaval as a way for my old head to extricate itself from the Ennui Engine.

[jjkaczor]

'It is not, as I found out rather embarrassingly, "en-you-eye"'

Don't worry, as someone whose vocabulary was extended through voracious reading, I have made several of those "fox passes" over the years... (with that being the most memorable!)

[parpfish]

i remember when i tried to read "oaxaca" off of a menu

[angst_ridden]

I too have made "bow-coupe" such errors.

[zafka]

Funny indeed. My wife was just making fun of me the other day becuase of the way I pronounced this. This was the answer to Wordle last week. I new the word by sight, but like a lot of us, had never heard it spoken. I sent her a link to this article just because ennui was embedded in the title :)

[klik99]

Everyone learns these things from different places! I used to get annoyed at content explaining things I already knew well until I realized that I once learned it from somewhere that wasn't the "original place". I forget who said it, but someone said good writing isn't about writing something new, it's about saying existing truths in interesting ways. This piece didn't really land for me, but glad it did for you.

[nehal3m]

There's a scene in the movie 'Flash of Genius'. The movie tells the story of a guy who invents the mechanism for intermittent windshield wipers and has the design stolen from him by Detroit auto makers.

In a court scene the main character is on the stand, and he reads the first few words from 'A Tale of Two Cities' and asks the lawyer for the other side if Dickens had invented any of those individual words.

That always stuck with me; it's the configuration of over-the-counter parts or ideas that makes something novel. Sometimes articles explain ideas with a twist, a different order or a different interpretation, and furthermore, when you yourself reconfigure a set of ideas under the shower or in a comment section, you should realise that you're doing worthwhile creative work.

I see the two ironies here: I might be explaining things that you already knew, and this comment will probably be skimmed over (as the article puts it) as another pull of the slot machine. :-)

[kedean]

> If it was it wouldn't be preaching to the choir.

I'm not so sure it is. I think the target audience here are people who have already been desiring to break the cycle and might be currently more receptive to long-form content. A lot of people I know have been expressing the feeling this talks about lately, mostly due to the impending downfall of Reddit (how many people have said something along the lines of "i'm glad it's going away, that's one less thing to mindlessly scroll")

[toss1]

YES

Maybe not quite a tweet, but certainly editing it down to 25%-35% of the original length would have resulted in a much higher quality article.

Which gets to the main point that he only grazed but didn't hit, and of which this article is a fine example. There is a resistance to engaging in longer-form works for exactly the same reason he derides the short form (tweets, spouts, TikTok vids, etc.) — there is no guarantee that the quality will be there, and it is a larger investment of time & effort to consume the long-form content, so the potential waste & disappointment will be greater. It's a worse risk/reward ratio than reading a tweet.

Yet, his underlying advice — to be conscious of what you consume and whether it ACTUALLY SATISFIES your needs — is valid, important, and actionable.

I've found that one of the keys is information density. It needs to be at a certain level to be worthwhile (and that level is different for different purposes). For example, I found some 20 years ago that almost all content on cable TV was far too dilute, so I cut the cord. I found that a default Twitter feed has a similarly high trash/value ratio, but this could be fixed by using carefully curated lists of high-value feeds to get high-density info much earlier (this has significantly degraded since Nov-22, I'm finding other better options such as Spoutible).

It does take conscious effort to maintain our entertainment and information feeds to be sure they actually meet OUR needs, but it is worth it.

(maybe that's the 1-tweet version?)

[masswerk]

I, on the other hand, enjoyed a well written piece. It's both and argument and a narration, which sets about the right mood for a critique of narratives. (Also, there seems to be a tactical side to this: as we enjoy the story, spend time over and with this, as we invest energy, we also align with the piece… much like we identify with a protagonist, by the perspective of whom we reconstruct the diegetic world of a novel or a movie.)

[Animats]

> the article needs editing for length

That's 30 to 45 seconds of reading time. Admittedly it could be shorter, but still, it's not excessive.

[davidthewatson]

I disagree, while liking the tone of the piece and the style of the writer.

However, the appropriate length that the original commenter refers to is, in fact, a tweet.

The reason is simple: the SOTA in internet criticism is quite old whether you read Neil Postman, Mitch Kapor, Sherry Turkle, or David Courtwright. The Turkle and Courtwright quotes are easy to find being more recent. The Kapor quote from the EFF dates to 1993 and so Google et al have found a way to lose it, and if you can find it, you may not be able to read it.