{"podcast":{"title":"Astral Codex Ten Podcast","slug":"astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483","podcast_index_feed_id":226483,"rss_url":"https://sscpodcast.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"http://sscpodcast.libsyn.com/website","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/1/2/d/4/12d4a6af46ce5199/SSC-Icon-large.png","author":"Jeremiah Prophet","episode_count":1170,"summary":"The official audio version of Astral Codex Ten, with an archive of posts from Slate Star Codex. It's just me reading Scott Alexander's blog posts.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-10T22:20:14.870262+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483"},"episode":{"title":"Contra Everyone On Taste","slug":"contra-everyone-on-taste","published_at":"2026-05-20T11:39:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483/contra-everyone-on-taste","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483","url":"https://sscpodcast.libsyn.com/contra-everyone-on-taste","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sscpodcast/Contra_Everyone_On_Taste.mp3?dest-id=586545","summary":"Last year I wrote a piece on artistic taste , which got many good responses from (eg) Ozy , Frank Lantz , and Sympathetic Opposition . I tastelessly forgot to respond to them until now, but I appreciate how they forced me to refine my thinking. In particular, they helped me realize that \"taste\" and \"good art\" are hard to talk about, because the discussions conflate many different things: 1: Sensory Delight. Ode To Joy makes the listener feel joyful. Michelangelo's David fills the viewer with awe at the human figure. The great cathedrals are impressive buildings, in a way that hits you like a punch to the gut. These judgments are preconscious, widespread, and don't necessarily require artistic sophistication. 2: Novelty and Innovation: Someone gets credit for doing art in a way that has never been done before. The early Impressionists invented a new way of looking at the world and explored all of its little corners. A modern Impressionist painter may be able to match their technical skill, but not their novelty; therefore, the modern would be a mere curiosity while the originals were great artists. For a modern person to be a great artist, they would have to explore entirely new media - hence the surprising and transgressive nature of modern art. 3: Paying Attention / Pattern Language: Tasteful people, viewing art over the generations and paying deep attention to it, have developed a sense of balance, composition, contrast, and what should and shouldn't be done. We can debate how predetermined the exact grammar of this language was a priori, but for better or worse people are sensitized to it and will judge works with it in mind. A good work of art should either conform to this language, or defy it deliberately and thoughtfully (that is, in a way that transcends it rath…","meta_description":"Last year I wrote a piece on artistic taste , which got many good responses from (eg) Ozy , Frank Lantz , and Sympathetic Opposition . I tastelessly forgo…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1893,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483/episodes/contra-everyone-on-taste/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/astral-codex-ten-podcast-226483/contra-everyone-on-taste.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}