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> To be honest the overwhelming impression I get from this author is that he's just massively up his own arse.

I mean, he's writing on Substack; I'm pretty sure that's a signup requirement for Substack.

But yeah. If you told me that this was, rather than someone's personal blog, a piece of first-person 'Frasier' fanfiction, I'd probably buy that.

> If you told me that this was, rather than someone's personal blog, a piece of first-person 'Frasier' fanfiction, I'd probably buy that.

One can argue that ±65% of blogging is first-person fan fiction.

Subasstack

Saying that you could have meaningful conversations with experts I would interpret as that the method works, and experts probably like talking about their domain as well with hobbyists even if theres an air of naive showmanship from the hobbyist. Some slight pretension is better than some saintly masochism where nothing happens at all from time and effort, as opposed to sharing cool stuff that people might otherwise not be motivated to look into if not for the sense of joy that a slight pretension can give socially as initial motivation. Sure earnestness is better but ego is convincing since many of us want to be just as confident, for a hobbyist to other hobbyist I give it a pass. If we were afraid of looking pretentious all the time we would share less beautiful experiences

> To learn he's an American Jazz critic makes perfect sense, it's almost exactly who you would expect to be this pretentious.

As someone who's not into jazz critique, i've only ever seen "I read books on topic X so I'm an expert now" levels of hubris from developers. Another thread on the frontpage right now has people discussing how they don't need a therapist because they can just read therapy textbooks!

I'm a developer and never read a book.

Imagine the hubris.

lmao

Strangely, he is the brother of Dana Gioai, who I find to be absolutely lovely and not pretentious. He was the poet laureate of California, and ran the national endowment for the arts and is a pleasure to listen to: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/dana-gioia/

I’d be incredibly surprised if this smug attitude would last someone til their deathbed. I truly don’t understand how when faced with your own mortality you wouldn’t suddenly see through your own BS and realised you’ve dedicated this much time to manicuring your public image in an attempt to impress other over-educated faux-intellectuals.

It’s a great example of there being These Sorts Of People in all communities, classes, cultures, etc. it’s why I’ve gotta roll my eyes when someone implies that people that write software for a living are somehow impartial, infallible, logical, gods amongst men. We’ve got all this same shit going on in our professional community, just like everyone else. Remember Kenneth Reitz? How about the hoards of self-professed YouTube educators? Or those few greybeard hackers that rose to and maintain their notoriety pretty much entirely because they were in Berkeley in the ‘80s or whatever. We just fall for it when people dress down and wear glasses or whatever.

> To learn he's an American Jazz critic makes perfect sense, it's almost exactly who you would expect to be this pretentious.

TFA: "Most young people listen to new music and only become less interested in the current hits when they get older"

"I did the exact opposite. I learned the tradition and heritage first, and only then felt I had the proper perspective for the current day."

"I wasn’t quite as extreme in my music listening habits, but I still focused primarily on the tradition when I was learning how to be a pianist and critic. Today I’m much more focused on new music."

All this reading and it's right over his head his "most people x when it comes to music, i am not them" deeply contrasts proceeding to devote your life to "old people music." (sorry jazz fans)

To learn he's an American Jazz critic makes perfect sense, it's almost exactly who you would expect to be this pretentious.

Love it!

To add to this sentiment: I increasingly find the idea of "reading a book" (in the sense of "completing a book") when talking about serious works of literature, philosophy (or even technical books) somewhat nonsensical.

In technical books people often criticize recommendations of TAOCP or SCIP because "nobody really reads those", however this misses the point that books of this nature are perpetual projects for the reader. I have moved my eyes over every word in SCIP, done ~20% of the exercises, but would still say I haven't "read it" in the sense of completing it.

This is even more true for works of philosophy. I would be far more impressed with someone saying that had spent the last 3 years working through the first section of Spinoza's Ethics (a fairly lean volume) than someone who claims to have read Heidegger's Being and Time over a break.

I was talking to someone recently who remarked that it's embarrassing to see a bookshelf covered with bookmarks visibly only part way through the text, implying the reader has never "completed" the work. I found this view somewhat shocking as the older I get the more I realize you never finish a good book.

Some books, like Thomas Mann's Zauberberg also get better the second time you read it, like a good record .

I think you are assuming a lot of things. He seems to care a lot about reading and accumulating knowledge, that's all.

But yeah, reading a book about a subject doesn't get you anywhere near the ballpark of professors in that subject from any university at all.

Is that not what college is about? Reading the textbook written by the professor teaching the subject?

Am I missing something here?

Textbooks don't usually contain everything a professor knows.

Having a conversation about problems in a subject space or field of work does not require years of specialization. A handful of books does suffice.

Our world leaders and billionaires have these conversations everyday. Many are well read.

If you're talking about having conversations in the same light as a Solvay Conference, sure. The context I got from the article is that they are talking about the former, not the latter.

I was about to say the same thing: this just came across as snobbery, especially when he tells you that classroom learning is worthless.

So worthless, yet he couldn't miss the opportunity to brag about his top-tier college education.

He's just saying that because any pleb can go to class, study, and get an A. Only snobby smartypants people can read an excessive number of books and reach "nirvana."

His background is broader than just that. (VC, Stanford, Oxford)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Gioia

> When Gioia worked amidst Silicon Valley's venture capital community on Sand Hill Road, he was known as the "guy with the piano in his office."

And? Citing this as a sign of legitimacy is incredibly Hacker News.

Not a sign of legitimacy, just that he’s more than just a snobby jazz writer.

A very Nietzsche approach to ego-driven writing. I don't disagree with the points the author makes. I just disagree with the way he makes them like you do.

I want to like Ted Gioia, but I've always gotten the same impression of him that you have. XD

You're not alone in your thinking!

I’ve always much preferred Dana of the two Gioia brothers, and mostly for this reason. Ted is a great jazz critic and historian, but his constant sense of being impressed with himself is just too much. I had a friend in grad school—an exceptionally good amateur historian of music himself—who got into a fight with Ted about music on Ted’s Facebook page. My friend offered a pretty cogent and insightful defense of popular music, to which Ted responded with disdainful bloviating. Ted is the kind of elitist who is is adamant that he isn’t one—as though his background somehow precludes it. (Nevermind that background, while beginning in a working-class milieu, also includes two degrees from Stanford, a degree from Oxford, and a stint at McKinsey.)

To own my own biases: nothing interesting has happened in jazz for at least a half century. I have as much use for a jazz critic as I do for a telegraph operator. (All of the really good shit in jazz is live, not on record, anyway.)

Not to mention the fact that I have about zero fucks to spare for a critic who isn't a musician.

I also don’t get the sense that if anything interesting had happened, Ted would think it was worthwhile in any way, lol.

…would not?

Rephrase: "Ted would not recognize an important moment in jazz if it happened in his presence."

That’s correct. I was insufficiently caffeinated when writing that comment, and clarity suffered accordingly!

Would is correct there (i.e., “I don’t think Ted would think”), but my syntax is very convoluted. Thanks for the catch.

No your writing is technically correct. My reading comprehension was just off there

The less we know the more confident we are. Some books’ messages do not sink in until you’ve lived through some of the events described therein.