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@WillManidis Hands down, the best article series on the app. Generational run.
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“This was not taste. This was intimate collaboration between capital, labor, and the divine. The ceiling exists because two difficult men were locked in a conversation with a transcendent third who could not speak back to them, and neither could have produced it alone.”
wow - you did it again
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i got some news for you buddy there is a thing called agency and it solves this
i mean on a serious note, i do think you raise some wonderful points about what i would call "knockoff taste"
but i think it's a bit reductive to shoehorn the good kind of taste in with the bad; i think it's more productive to point out that pattern-matching is not really that tasteful and we should all strive to be more generative and high-agency, which requires mastery and rebelliousness
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@WillManidis Phenomenal piece, really enjoyed this. But Julius picking Michelangelo IS taste. Patronage requires extraordinary judgement before the creation exists. The problem is taste pointed at nothing, performative taste. Taste in service of something beyond yourself builds cathedrals.
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@WillManidis enjoyed this essay and the Stravinsky mention felt pertinent, see: x.com/brunellaism/st…
Brunella@brunellaism
TS eliot on Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, 1921
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You're really onto something!
It's the patron's will that matters! What's taste? Trash! A pervision even! Michelangelo? He's important but really, how about that patron!
We must retvrn to the generative struggle of labor and capital. Without capital, all taste is just consumption actually! Only capital, which can remain aloof to the materiality of art, can point to god!
And if you think about it, if you simply reduce humanity to the mechanisms of machine learning, the discriminator, not the generator, is what is made redundant. Don't you see! Life is just the accumulation of data for the purposes of being increasingly accurate! To what end? Well, a pure life, away from degenerate conformity, is when you are put to productive effort, not when you apply discernment! See! Praise the boldness of the patrons for giving us something worthy to do!
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@WillManidis Hate hearing those sickos talk about “taste” thank u 4 this & right in time 4 Lent
Glory 2 God!!!!!!!
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Great post. Have always felt the issue with "taste" in the tech sense is that it confuses aesthetics for beauty. The first is shallowly enjoyable, the second has soul and meaning.
It's why minimalism is so popular. Something can't be uncomfortable if it has nothing to say. It's the lowest common denominator.
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@WillManidis VCs reading this and be like: yes i‘m that patron Will is describing
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On a long enough time horizon, God willing someday soon, we will realize that all of this “moving and shaking” we’ve been doing is no different than the writhing and thrashing of one suffering unimaginable pain.
Stillness centers, orients, calms, preserves. It is the necessary, restorative exhale that accompanies the intoxicating overwhelm of mainlined, capital-A Activity.
whitenoise.email/p/the-last-let…
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@WillManidis At the end you say… “This is what the patron and the mason had. This is what the taste thesis perverts.” Nah, I don’t think that’s right, but I did enjoy your Moses analogy.
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@WillManidis Nothing more lindy than the command to go forth, multiply, and replenish the earth. Poiesis.
Well done
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@WillManidis @jasonyuan People here love to talk about how important taste is and then their next post says SF has the best food in the world.
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@WillManidis Called it
x.com/dee_centralize…
Dayana Aleksandrova@dee_centralized
TASTE: what is it? why does it matter? why do so *few* have it? I am calling it now. In 2026, “taste” will become the meta that “storytelling” was in 2025. @lou3ee (director and filmmaker for @ethereumfnd), @ekang426 (serial entrepreneur and global event host), and I sat down for a fireside chat at @buidl_conf. Here are a few of the highlights: > to acquire “taste” you have to consume and curate content (don’t feel bad for scrolling) > you have to create with empathy and use AI only as a support tool > taste is sensory, it has to make your audience *feel* and immerse into your content > film will merge with tech (likely in San Francisco, likely led by @hf0, @a16zcrypto; cc @liangsays @richardzphotoz @katiekirsch) to upgrade production and raise standards > founders have to define their origin story, build a narrative around it, and repeat — in order to build trust > only 10% of content crushes it online and that falls in 2 categories: cinematic and raw/unfiltered Both can be tasteful. Anything in between will flop. It was a loaded conversation. Will share the recording soon. In the meantime, ask us anything about taste right here.
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@WillManidis I mean if you think about it, taste is no different than the concept of judgement by god to get into heaven. It’s just a reflection of our desire to be gods rather than human.
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@WillManidis yes although selection is itself a negentropic gesture, perhaps the essential type of human gesture in the singularity
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@WillManidis Tech VC people will read this and say "I am a Patron now, taste is so 2024"
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@WillManidis Patronage is in general an underrated contemporary philanthropic mechanic, particularly in the context of new divergent social ventures that buck consensus and require considered judgment.
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@WillManidis Will! i dont have the time to read all your stuff. but, alas, i must. tyvm.
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@WillManidis I think the argument is everyone is now Julius with their own Michelangelo. But point taken that it loses the magic if Michelangelo can anticipate Julius's feedback with superhuman ability.
Maybe you're really just articulating "we've lost god"
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@WillManidis “new” occurs when a transcendent gaze intersects with limitations
the patron may manufacture constraints but the true enclosure is physics
we may yet have the tools to fill the vessel
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@WillManidis to live is to create
it’s become too popular to taste-max from an armchair
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@WillManidis “ But what has been stripped from sprezza when we encounter it in 2008 Tumblr mensware posts and Buck-Mason Instagram captions today is the thing that actually mattered”
5/5 referencing
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