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What a Concept!!

2020-07-10 · letter vlog · Hank · 3:36 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion, community lore

After a week of talking about A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, Hank argues that the two ways its characters get ideas (synthesizing what's around you, and shaking a well-chosen problem with your toolkit) are the same thing, and that every new idea builds on the work of billions of normal-sized people before us, which makes ideas more amazing, not less.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — A week of talking about the new book; people ask where ideas come from

  • ★★ Hank has spent the week doing little but talking about his new book, which he has loved, because for two years he wrote it without being able to talk about it. — 00:00:00 · A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
  • ★★ A topic Hank keeps getting to talk about is ideas: people ask where he gets his ideas, and the book's characters talk about where ideas come from. — 00:00:00 · A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

00:00:29 — Almost everything is an idea; the book's two characters and their different takes on where ideas come from

  • ★★★ Where ideas come from matters to Hank, as a weekly video maker and as a person, because almost everything is an idea: justice, America, money, borders, political parties, businesses. — 00:00:29 · United States
  • ★★ One character in the book struggles with feeling he can't come up with original ideas, only synthesize what's around him into his own take. — 00:00:29 · A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
  • ★★ The other character's system: a well-understood, carefully selected problem plus all her tools, shaken in the brain bucket until something falls out; if not, change the problem, its scope or the toolkit. — 00:01:11 · A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

00:01:41 — Both takes are the same thing; new ideas depend on old ones; the shoulders of each other, music, toolkits and billions of people

  • ★★★ Hank says, beyond the book, the two are the same: the first character modifies his toolkit without identifying his core problem, which is that it is suddenly his job to have interesting takes. — 00:01:41 · A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
  • ★★★ Asked by an interviewer whether there are ever new ideas, Hank answered that there are, but every new idea is contingent on all the old ones. — 00:02:10
  • ★★ Hank first credits the 'shoulders of giants' saying to Newton, then checks: it is older than Newton, whose own version was 'If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.' — 00:02:10

  • ★★★ Flattering as the saying is, Hank says we stand not on the shoulders of giants but on the shoulders of each other, normal-sized people. — 00:02:45

    “we are standing on the shoulders of each other, of normal sized people”

  • ★★ Both of Hank's books talk a lot about music on purpose: music is the clearest example of how every creation is a collaboration with the past. — 00:02:45 · A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

  • ★★★ Ideas depend on toolkits that came from somewhere: how we imagine the world, the stories we tell, what we know about the universe, and the skills we've developed. — 00:02:45
  • ★★★ Ideas come from building on the work of billions of people over hundreds of thousands of years, which to Hank makes them more amazing, not less. — 00:03:14

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says inspiration is for Hank 99% things he already knows and 1% he adds; that is nothing to be ashamed of or feel like an imposter about, and the 1% is magic. — video description
  • ★ In a comment Hank says he really liked Ann Leckie's sci-fi, but The Raven Tower is really exceptional. — creator comment
  • ★ In a comment Hank calls Shades of Milk and Honey a great fantasy Jane Austen and recommends Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw, like Jane Austen but dragons. — creator comment
  • ★ In a comment Hank says a reader's apparent typo is intentional: Andy isn't as good at Spanish as he wants to think. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor · cumulative culture

Also: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing · border · business · Isaac Newton · justice · money · political party · United States

Only in the description or credits: All Star · Andy Skampt · impostor syndrome · Jo Walton · Shades of Milk and Honey · The Raven Tower · Tooth and Claw

Also centred on cumulative culture: I Gotta Go: Signing Off and Thinking about Inspiration · Redefining What it Means to Matter · 5 Songs You've Never Heard That You've Heard 1000 Times · Dear Young People, You Terrify Me · On Immunity, Inoculation, and Individuals · The Weirdest Post-Chemo Symptoms

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