Reading this felt like watching someone kick a dead horse for 30 straight minutes, except at the 21st minute the guy forgets for a second that he needs to kick the horse, turns to the camera and makes a couple really good jokes. (The bit where they try and fail to change the topic reminded me of the “who reads this stuff” bit in HPMOR, one of the finest bits you ever wrote in my opinion.) Then the guy remembers himself, resumes kicking the horse and it continues in that manner until the end.
By which I’m trying to say, though not in a top-tier literary way maybe, that you’re a cool writer. A cool writer who has convinced himself that he has to be a horse-kicker, otherwise the world will end. And I do agree that the world will end! But… hmm how to put it… there is maybe a more optimal ratio of cool writing to horse-kicking, which HPMOR often achieved. Which made it more effective at saving the world, more fun to read, and maybe more fun to write as well.
Though I could be wrong about that. Maybe the cool bit in the middle wasn’t a release valve for you, but actually took more effort than laying out the arguments in the rest of the essay. In that case never mind.
It seems you interpreted my comment as “the essay argues against something nobody believes anyway”. What I meant was more like “the essay keeps making its point in an angry and tedious way, over and over”.
Reading this felt like watching someone kick a dead horse for 30 straight minutes, except at the 21st minute the guy forgets for a second that he needs to kick the horse, turns to the camera and makes a couple really good jokes. (The bit where they try and fail to change the topic reminded me of the “who reads this stuff” bit in HPMOR, one of the finest bits you ever wrote in my opinion.) Then the guy remembers himself, resumes kicking the horse and it continues in that manner until the end.
By which I’m trying to say, though not in a top-tier literary way maybe, that you’re a cool writer. A cool writer who has convinced himself that he has to be a horse-kicker, otherwise the world will end. And I do agree that the world will end! But… hmm how to put it… there is maybe a more optimal ratio of cool writing to horse-kicking, which HPMOR often achieved. Which made it more effective at saving the world, more fun to read, and maybe more fun to write as well.
Though I could be wrong about that. Maybe the cool bit in the middle wasn’t a release valve for you, but actually took more effort than laying out the arguments in the rest of the essay. In that case never mind.
See Simon Lerner above on how dead the horse appears to be.
It seems you interpreted my comment as “the essay argues against something nobody believes anyway”. What I meant was more like “the essay keeps making its point in an angry and tedious way, over and over”.