TLDR Nation

Handsfree literature

Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something blue.

Unless you come from an Old School family in America, you probably don’t know what the above little rhyme is all about. On the other hand, you might not consider yourself Old School, or never trust anyone over 30, or think Boomers are sus for real for real. Whatevs, dude. It doesn’t phase me because I’ve got AI assisted copium.

Then
When I started writing, a lot of it was motivated by my own hunger to see the things I care about accurately represented in the mainstream media. As an OG blogger, I used all the skeptical terms like MSM (mainstream media) and Fisking, and god knows how much else. And since I enjoy writing for its own sake, I like to get into the prosaic weeds which sometimes made reading me a chore.

Now
Now I am shifting to a new mode of writing. I’m starting to do poetry and I’m working on a memoir. For the past two months I’ve been rearranging my mind for both the sake of sane survival and other unsettled things. I was struck by somebody calling me a ‘warrior poet’ and considering my longstanding admiration for Yukio Mishima and my new discovery of Miyamoto Musashi, it may be my final stance.

In the meantime, some part of me is preparing for America to go even darker. It becomes even more crucial for me to remain engaged in public affairs, and I’m recognizing, thanks in part to Braver Angels, that I need to temper even more of my standard rhetoric. I don’t want to obscure myself into a weird corner.

Four months ago I was setting AI loose on my codebases. Now I’m loosing it on my prose. For the former, it sorta works. For the latter it sorta works better, and that’s a surprise. So here are some Google processed abstracts into my latest essay on the Old School packaged in a new way for the TLDR demographics.

This is both a concession and an acknowledgement.

So here’s the 7 minute video:

Here is the 16 minute podcast:

I must say of the podcast, the AI entities vocalizing works surprisingly well on uplifting subjects. I suspect Substack will start providing more of these AI services in the future. I think I welcome that.

I’m still writing essays. That’s old.
I’m using AI abstracts. That’s new.
I’m depending on Google. That’s borrowed.

Let’s see if it gives us the blues.