Read old

Throughout my adult life, I have loved history. Interest in other subjects came and went, but always remained to history. I love documentaries and feature films about history, light books about those times, essays about famous people and events, scientific works, the history of Indian wars, memoirs of great people, books about great people written in our time, etc. , to infinity. My love for history even somehow led me to a history Olympiad, which, by some coincidence, I won by writing an essay about the first State Duma.

But I never understood why I love history. Not to say that I was very worried about this misunderstanding, but nevertheless this question periodically arose in my head. Every time I came to the conclusion that it was just some kind of innate tendency, like the love of some for chocolate, socializing, adventure, or red.

But now, the other day, reading “Sovereign” Niccolò Machiavelli, I understood everything. Including I realized that I understood everything a long time ago, and laid it on the shelves, only the last brick was missing. Immediately all the arguments that I formulated for myself during my life regarding the history and materials about it came to mind.

I will not talk about all kinds of materials, only about one - books. I will try to tell you why reading old is better and more useful. I do not pretend to the highest truth and the full disclosure of the topic, I just set forth my personal considerations.

Products

I'll start from the reverse side - the flaws of modern books. It is the “books” that are now being published a little, because they have been supplanted by “products”, with all the ensuing consequences.

You know well what a product is. This is some kind of crap, for which the characteristics are determined. Market, segments, audience, lifetime, age limit, functional requirements, packaging, etc. And sausage, and online services, and cowards, and books are created as products, according to the same laws, with differences in the methods of production and marketing.

The product has the only goal - sales. This goal determines how a product is conceived, born, lives and dies. The same goal defines the criteria for assessing the quality of the product. Sold - well, did not sell - bad.

When it is already sold, you can talk for other values. A good example (albeit from another area) is Christopher Nolan’s films. On the one hand, good - very well - are sold. On the other hand, they receive awards and high marks from critics and spectators.
Selling a product is a kind of trigger, after which the rest can be discussed. Entry ticket to the world. Accordingly, reading a modern book, we have to take into account its "product". The author wrote it to sell. Literally comes through on every page.

Flow

It's no secret that now all the information, or rather, the content is arranged in streams. With the development of the Internet, it would not have worked otherwise. There is so much content being created that it is impossible to control its elements - only streams, as an entity of a higher order.
Just look at any popular website or service that provides textual or video content, and you will see these streams, whatever they are called. Hubs, channels, categories, categories, trends, playlists, groups, tapes, series, etc.

It is increasingly common to manage flows using artificial intelligence or machine learning in order to make it as easy as possible for the consumer to search for suitable content and keep his attention on the resource for as long as possible, because attention is converted in time, and time is monetized.

Flows have become endless. As Maxim Dorofeev asked in one of his speeches, did anyone manage to finish reading the Facebook tape to the end?

I don’t want to say that flows are some kind of evil, and we must fight them. Of course not. This is an adequate response to the multiply increased amount of content. And then the feedback earned - people got used to the streams, it became more convenient for them, more familiar, and the content producers also restructured. Who made films, began to create series.

I told about the streams, because, in my opinion, they have a detrimental effect on the content.

For example, articles. In the stream, the lifetime of the article is a few days, usually one. She can murmur in any category - first “New”, then “In the center of attention” or “Read now”, if she is lucky - “The best of the week” or something like that, then in the newsletter she will flash and get a little more attention. . On some resources, sometimes, an old article may occasionally float, but this is rarely the case.

And imagine the author of the article who knows that his brainchild will live for several days. How ready is he to invest in this child? And how many articles will he write before he starts calling the child product?

At first, of course, will try. I often met the comments of beginning authors about how they wrote their article for a week, or even a month, read and edited it, collected practical material, searched for suitable media materials, etc. And then they faced a harsh reality - they were given a brainchild for only a minute to stand on the stage, after which they were driven away. Several people followed, asked for something else to perform, but after standing for a while and listening, they still returned to the auditorium - where the stream is shown.

Most novice writers drop this thing, thinking that something is wrong with them, or with their articles. They take offense at unfriendly sites, reproach themselves with lack of talent, and vowed to never write anything more.

Although, it is enough for them to understand that their article fell into the stream, and there are no other rules there. It is impossible to be the center of attention even for a week, even for reasons of honesty - the scene is one, and those who want to stand on it are dark.

Those who understand the essence of the work flow, and mechanisms for managing them at a specific site, can become a regular author. Only articles will now become products, or at least content. Quality requirements will have to be reduced, for purely economic reasons. Well, there really is no objective sense in spending a week on an article and earning as much as that guy who spent 2 hours (earn money - no matter what, even likes, even subscribers, even reading, even rubles).

Dreams about how the article will become a cult, or the most quoted, or someone will print it and hang it on the wall, or even solemnly bring it into the hall of fame of some library, quickly pass. All articles that have passed the stream, are sent to almost anywhere. They will be remembered by search engines and a few people who have bookmarked, then to re-read (not a fact, of course, that re-read).

Book Flows

Back to the books. They also lined up in streams, living by their own laws. Especially now, when electronic books and services on their independent creation, distribution and promotion have spread widely. The entry threshold has disappeared - now anyone can create a book, an ISBN will be assigned to it, and all decent sites will start selling it.

Books are already extremely close to the rest of the content, and rebuilt under the new rules. Unfortunately, quality also consistently suffers - for the same reasons as articles.

In the stream, the book will not live long, it is a reality. Even if it comes out on paper, it is only in quantities to satisfy the demand created by the author and marketers. Then the flow will take away the book of non-existence.

All this means that the author does not make sense to try when writing a book. Neither artistic value, nor bright humor, nor stunning plot will save. Now these are not characteristics of a literary work, but functional product requirements affecting market share, lifetime, NPV and SSGR.

For us, readers, building books into streams does not bring anything good, alas. First, the decline in quality will make us spend time reading in vain. Secondly, the repeated amplification of book flows makes it very difficult to find at least something useful - especially considering that there are no books on the Internet, and search engines cannot adequately answer whether the book is suitable for us or not. Probably, there will soon be a system of intellectual selection of books for the interests of the reader.

With the quality of books, the story is already funny. Take, for example, any book of the Myth publishing house and open it on the last pages - you will find blank sheets entitled “New Ideas”. And there is a technique of one of the creators of this publishing house, thanks to which these sheets appeared in books. In short, the quality of the book is evaluated by the number of new ideas that arose when it was read.

I will not discuss the methodology itself, the fact of its appearance is interesting - this, again, is an adequate response to building books into streams. Here and the quality is evaluated, and some sort of ranking is performed. Although, personally, I probably would not evaluate books by the number of new ideas, despite my love for numbers and measurements. Just because ideas are the fruit of human thought activity, and their occurrence or absence during reading may not correlate with the book. Someone after the “Dunno” will write two sheets, and some large Soviet encyclopedia will not wean out eating kozyavki.

So, I think, the books of modern authors have already ceased to be books. They became content and product. Similarly, songs ceased to be songs, but somehow became unnoticed tracks. Even experienced rockers, like Andrei Knyazev, now call the results of their work tracks.

I suppose that publishing houses will disappear soon, as a business - there will be no need for them. There will be authors, proofreaders, editors, services for the sale of electronic books, with the function of printing on demand, and of book printers. Found a book, bought an electronic one for 100 rubles, read it, liked it, ordered a paper one, subtracted 100 rubles from the final cost. Maybe even the layout of the book of his choice will appear - he pushed into the basket of articles on the chosen subject, he designed the service himself in a book, made a table of contents, placed his photo on the cover - and in print.

My attitude to flows

As I have already written above, the flows themselves, as a phenomenon, I do not blame. This is the part of reality that arose in response to changes in another part of reality. A new format for providing information has emerged, which, in turn, has generated the rules and practices for managing flows, monetizing, attracting consumers and authors. But personally, I try to avoid threads.

Speech, in general, about all the flow of information. I objectively understand that they contain a lot of useful and interesting information, but I don’t want to spend a lot of time searching for it, analyzing it, putting it into practice and formulating conclusions - this is inexpedient and inefficient.

But the main problem is not in efficiency, but in the unpleasant feeling that you are a cow on a farm, or a squirrel in a wheel.

I spent the first 16 years of my life in a small village. There were few books at home, but there was a library in the village. I still remember with pleasure how I went there and chose what to read to me. This selection process could go on for hours. Fortunately, there are not many lovers to read in the village - the people love to swell more and more, so the choice of books took place in complete silence.

The librarian was very helpful. First, it was a very clever and well-read girl - she graduated from school with a gold medal, then with distinction the institute of culture, but with some wind she brought it to our collective farm. Secondly, she once studied at school with my elder brother, and a good attitude towards him was projected onto me - it helped, prompted, did not swear when the book did not pass for a long time.

So, the choice of the book, i.e. I liked information for studying as much as the process of subsequent reading. Neither books, shelves, nor the entire library, nor its owner needed anything from me. The work of the library was not monetized - everything was free. No one there is not delayed marketing tricks.

You come to choose - and you feel yourself as the owner. Not books or libraries, but situations, states, freedom of choice. I came myself because I decided to come myself. Leave when you want. Nobody bothers you. The authors of most books have long died. The librarian is frankly indifferent, will you take ten books or none. Sheer pleasure.

What about the flow? The owner of the resource you need, in fact one thing - activity. Any kind.
Write articles, read articles, comment on articles, comment on comments, rate articles, comments, authors, commentators, repost, read to the end, be sure to subscribe in order to come back again and be active.

Feeling like you are minting money. Just went in the door - bang, and some equipment was imperceptibly hung on you, and the owner began to earn money on you. You sit in the corner - the money almost does not go, and you are shaken, you are invited - let's go, dance, or sing karaoke, or face it, we clean it up! The main thing is to show activity!

It seems, formally, I came myself. It seems that I read something and find something useful for myself. Sometimes it happens with interesting people to talk. Rarely, but even new pleasant acquaintances appear, or even business contacts. But the unpleasant feeling remains - after mints, assholes.

They brought me like an animal, put me in a wheel, showed me the bait - like, "read, read, there is definitely some useful and very valuable information here!" And moved aside, to connect the next lucky person. And I run until I stop any physical obstacle, such as the end of the working day, the deadline or the irresistible desire to sleep.

Flows are sucked, regardless of the degree of awareness. That is, of course, different resources - with different strength, but I, by my own experience, defined it this way: there is always a stream that will master you. They are too strong - this is not some kind of metaphysics, but the result of the work of a huge number of very intelligent people. Well, the ones who come up with algorithms for selecting interesting content, write articles, shoot videos and series, etc.

Actually, that's why I avoid flows. I know for sure that if I relax, plunge, I will be stuck for several hours, despite all my conclusions and conclusions. Therefore, my Facebook feed is empty, with a thousand and a half friends:

I do not impose anything on anyone, of course.

So, something has started talking, but it hasn’t been transferred to the old books. Next time then - I will write the second part, otherwise it will be too long.