I'd really like to know if people on HN "share an absence of literary culture" as Taleb suggests. Can you please respond if you read literature other than science fiction?
I definitely read more than just sci-fi, but - while I am a fan of Taleb's work - I don't give two shits about his "literary culture". I enjoy "classics" from the Greeks (Plato, Aristotle, etc.); Enlightenment era philosophers, to more contemporary philosophers; history; biographies; science & nature; economics; etc. But I don't see how that makes me any more (or less) cultured than anybody else. There's far too much material out there for anybody to read it all, and we all have to pick our battles.
I guess I'd say my position is that I enjoy and read all kind of literature, but I dislike people who draw boxes around people, and put labels on them, based on what they read. "High brow" and "low brow" and "literary culture" are terms I find to be devoid of almost all value.
Of course Taleb would probably say that I just proved his point...
I definitely read more than just sci-fi, but - while I am a fan of Taleb's work - I don't give two shits about his "literary culture". I enjoy "classics" from the Greeks (Plato, Aristotle, etc.); Enlightenment era philosophers, to more contemporary philosophers; history; biographies; science & nature; economics; etc. But I don't see how that makes me any more (or less) cultured than anybody else. There's far too much material out there for anybody to read it all, and we all have to pick our battles.
I guess I'd say my position is that I enjoy and read all kind of literature, but I dislike people who draw boxes around people, and put labels on them, based on what they read. "High brow" and "low brow" and "literary culture" are terms I find to be devoid of almost all value.
Of course Taleb would probably say that I just proved his point...