Maybe kids of the future will be studying ASOIAF and writing about Cleganebowl

>Maybe kids of the future will be studying ASOIAF and writing about Cleganebowl.

do you agree? is this man the Shakespeare of our time?

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youtube.com/watch?v=QmKhGqWcJGY
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_bestselling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1900s
twitter.com/AnonBabble

You couldn't even get away with asking this on /tv,
try reddit.

no
but it's cool that people are dieing all the time.
we might see more of that.

Why would kids be studying a series that was never finished?

I saw a thread about him there yesterday, even /tv/tards can see that he's a hack.

He's not the Shakespeare of our time, he's one of a million generic sci-fi/fantasy writers who produce okay-ish pulp aimed at teens and young twenty somethings. Unfortunately our society is so stupid now that even fully grown adults actually like this trash. Fully ninety percent of all fiction is Young Adult, the dangerous stuff is the shit that isn't labeled as such.

I agree that society is getting stupider and stupider.

I am always accused of having rose-tinted glasses/etc; but this isn't nostalgia. Is it really such a stretch to posit that society, for some time now, has been getting successively more idiotic with each generation?

I can't say when the decline began, but imagine yourself being thrown out of a plane whilst sleeping; whenever you'd wake up, you'd not know when precisely you were thrown, but you'd sure as fuck know you are falling.

There's always been trash, and it has always been massively consumed.

People who make the 'rose tinted glasses' argument try to make it out like all of the past people who said people were getting stupider were misguided and that it didn't happen.

The average human cranial capacity has fallen by the volume of a tennis ball since the bronze age. All of the people who claimed that people were getting dumber over time were right. It's incredibly apparent in our educational system. One of my savvier professors gave the class a final exam from an 8th grade curriculum from the 1920s'. In a class full of college juniors only 25% could pass this test that was targeted at children.

This. I met a guy from the bronze age last week, real smart guy. Did you know that the average dick size has increased by two inches since the iron age? This generation is fucked.

Bigger dicks, smaller brains. That's humanity's destiny. Nietzsche was right, we're headed for lastmanhood.

Stop breaking the circlejerk, newfag.

>Is it really such a stretch to posit that society, for some time now, has been getting successively more idiotic with each generation?
Yes.

You know what isn't a stretch?

To posit that written works are more likely to be preserved, and without a doubt more likely to be remembered if they are of high quality. It is also not a stretch to posit that the lower classes have become more literate than they ever were before, meaning media that were previously restricted, or *more* restricted to the upper classes (with more time on their hands able to be dedicated towards learning) are now free for everyone (and thus full of as much shit as anything else).

>It is also not a stretch to posit that the lower classes have become more literate than they ever were before
>He thinks the ability to read implies literacy

But it hasn't always been true that culture has been defined by the trash. It used to be that culture was defined by the intellectual elites, i.e. the people with genuine liberal educations. Nowadays there's a tyranny of the masses when it comes to culture. It's defined by whatever has the broadest appeal.

When you want to know who defines the culture of the Romans you study Cicero and Virgil. When you want to know who defines the culture of the medievals you study Aquinas and Boethius. When you want to know what defines the culture of modernity you study J. K. Rowling and G. R. R. Martin. There are still people today who are at the level of Virgil and Aquinas, and they're probably read by around the same percentage of society, but it's not them who defines culture anymore.

It doesn't imply it, it means it.

To the Romans, games and shitty plays would've defined their culture as much as Martin and Rowling defines ours. But we don't exactly remember those shitty plays and games, because no one gave much of a real shit about them.

It's, as you say, about definition. In other words, it makes no difference.

His facial hair is fucking terrible, why doesn't he just shave it?

Great post! Keep it up!

r/asoiaf called, they want you back.

I can't help it, every time I see his meme face, I just can't stop shaking my head at his stupid hat, and garden gnome appearance

But it wouldn't be bait there.

Fat people do it to hide their infini-chin.

You're just proving your own modern attitude though, because you simply assume that what defines a culture is whatever is most popular. I however am claiming that that is not what historically has defined a culture (though it is what defines ours). What has defined culture in the past has been the cultural elite, i.e. not the things that were consumed merely by the most people.

Let me put it like this. Those who define culture are those who decide what intellectual direction it goes in. Most people in the middle ages did not understand Aquinas's natural law theory, yet society still operated according to natural law theory. So 100 years after Aquinas the common man was still more influenced by Aquinas's thought than he was by whatever was most popular in Aquinas's time.

Nowadays, (and I fully admit that I may be overestimating the power of the masses) the intellectual direction of society is decided by the most popular. The intellectual elite are relegated to their own little corner of whatever university will give them tenure, while society does whatever it wants.

Does this mean that I think Harry Potter will be what defines the common mindset in 100 years? No, because Harry Potter has no staying power. What it means is that no one today will define the common mindset in 100 years.

youtube.com/watch?v=QmKhGqWcJGY

>Nowadays, the intellectual direction of society is decided by the most popular.
Not the same user, but why on earth would you think that's the case? Is our scientific knowledge determined by 'the masses'? Our jurisprudence? Our theories of government? A society in which increasingly stupid people really determined the 'intellectual direction' would barely even function, let alone show unprecedented levels of technological development.

>(and I fully admit that I may be overestimating the power of the masses)
Pretty sure you are.

Idiots liking and buying your novel are not indicative of its staying power

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_bestselling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1900s

That said, Churchill was basically the Franzen of the 1900s

>Is our scientific knowledge determined by 'the masses'? Our jurisprudence? Our theories of government?

You tell me why gay marriage, transgenderism, and abortion are all considered acceptable (regardless of whether they should be or not) and I'll answer that question. Do you think those things are widely accepted because some professor of philosophy said they should be?

How about this: Who's today's leading moral critic? Who would you say are the people who nudge our society to accept or reject certain things? Who's interviewing the president, or commentating on what the Pope says?

We're a democratic society. Why would you not expect our culture to be democratic too?

>Do you think those things are widely accepted because some professor of philosophy said they should be?
Essentially, yes. They follow pretty logically from liberalism and the rejection of Biblical authority, i.e. from the intellectual trends of the Enlightenment. Of course people don't necessarily know that, just as most peasants couldn't tell you about Aquinas (although with mass education things have of course improved on that score).

Why did you ignore my mention of science and technology? I don't see how you can talk about 'the intellectual direction' of modern society without referring to them. Is it that they're inconveniently undemocratic?

why did they leave this out of the show?

I actually like ASOIF. I'm not a pompous edgelord like most of you. It's good for what it is, it's not trying to be some meme tier literature.

>Do you think those things are widely accepted because some professor of philosophy said they should be?

Where do you think these idea came from?