Maybe generative AI will get to the point where a single author can create a comic, movie or game with similar depths as that of books but it hasn't yet.
The modern stuff feels like total fluff compared to a book, which in turn feel like total fluff compared to the academic papers it is based on. These days I would rather spend 2 hours reading a good book or paper than 10 minutes watching an engagement-optimized edutainment video.
And for the really good stuff you have to go even more legacy – conversation with an expert. A medium older even than books. That’s where you get the stuff that hasn’t made it into papers yet, let alone the downstream half-digested edutainment stuff.
Yep, it appears that the deepest format we have today is long-form hypertext. Often containing a few 10min videos itself.
Some people do equate those with books, but it's far from unanimous.
Lots of surface level books that are the length of a book and the value of a 5min tiktok too.
For anyone who wants to get back into reading books my advice is to start with whatever sounds fun. A lot of people fall into a trap of feeling like they need to read something useful or serious and just get turned off to the idea. But reading lighter books are still great and provide a lot that you won't get from tv and similar mediums. Over time your interests will evolve naturally into new areas.
Modern 8 to 10 episode series can get close to being as nuanced as a good book. You simply need space to go deep, no amount of cleverness will help you do that in a short format.
I'd love to hear of one that was though.
Mainstream gaming is still getting there, but to me titles like The Last of Us Part 2 are on par with classic HBO shows like Six Feet Under.
What makes LotR a "great artistic work"? What makes Stardew Valley not a "great artistic work"?
Just like some books, films, or other art can resonate and have a profound impact on a person, so can video games.
That's a great question. It's a mixture of technical skill and intellectual depth.
For example, throughout Scotland placenames are a mixture of old Gaelic, modern Gaelic and Norse, and then there are the Anglicised versions on top. So learning what placenames mean is something I did in school and it's a fascinating subject.
So when Gildor is talking with Frodo, and mentions the "...Branduin, that you call the Brandywine..." (quote from memory; might not be correct), that's exactly what happens with placenames. It's that level of depth (in all aspects, this is just an example) that makes it a great work. You can read more on just the name of a river at https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Baranduin
Enjoyment of art is, as you say, totally subjective, but anyone who's artistic can generally identify when something is a great work even if they don't personally like it.
Edit: if you like this kind of stuff, there are also some cool blog posts on the logistics of the Battle of Gonder: https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondo...
As literature goes it has tons of shortcomings.
Tell me I'm wrong.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is one great artistic work. If you haven't played it, you haven't experienced the peak of a massive wildly recognized medium. Last of Us (the show) was essentially copied verbatim from the video game, scene for scene.
On the entire opposite side of the complexity spectrum, both Limbo and Inside are great artistic works.
There is no music that compares to "War and peace" or paintings like "1984", nor is the movie "Alien" like any book. Describing H R Gigers monster design with words will not have the same artistic impact.
I think different creations can be be great artistic works on entirely incomparable axes.
Hardly it almost always a shortened more approachable summary of something described in a book. Also (IMHO) videos are a horrible format for transferring knowledge, it’s slow AF compared to reading and impossible to search, you have to consume it mostly sequentially
Sure, you could buy a book about snes (not even sure if any good ones exist) and read about that... but you're not that interested into the topic, because it's something old and not something you'll actually do... but here's a 6 minute video, that you'll probably watch... and if it's interesting, you'll go down a playlist and see "how thing were done" "back then" and learn something new.
Ever heard of Tefifon music player? Neither have I, until i saw the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqfVS6ahArs ... i would have never bought a book on ancient music players, but I learned something new by watching a short video.
Ever heard of purple gold? Neither have I, again, until the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Pcp944sRI
Compare this to eg. book bestsellers: https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/combined-print-an...
Sometimes all you need is a summary, you're not a chemist, SNES programmer or an old music player collector, but you still learn a lot, and all those things are topics, where you just don't buy a book, because th 10, 20 minute video covers all that you need and want to know.
Certainly. However a text summary is still much more efficient (unless you’re watching the video mainly for entertainment).
If you enjoy reading that's one thing but there's not much point otherwise.
Reading a summary of the book in Wikipedia/Blinkist/ChatGPT is definitely not the same as the reading book.
Sure, you may grasp at the central idea or argument superficially, but to understand it fully, with its caveats and nuances, and overarching context?
You can regurgitate but not assimilate.
You're putting way too much faith into people's intelligence (or projecting your own onto them) if you think people are picking up the nuanced bits just by reading.
Which still to the thread starts point. All of that stuff could be captured in a diff medium and to my point if it's worth capturing in the first place can be summarized and the additional stuff you're mentioning written as bullet points.
Of course no one - no matter how intelligent! - will pick up every bit of nuance. That's why engaging with what other people think (also a process!) about [whatever] is an important part of skill development. I don't think anyone is incapable of engaging in this - even if their sophistication will always be limited by their intelligence / affinity / time / etc etc etc.
This is a useful paradigm under which to consider other skills. Computer code (product) is (approaching...) wide availability from LLMs, but the skills necessary to be a good developer come through a process that involves independently solving problems and asking questions that have (at least at first!) already been addressed by others.