I’m many things. Here’s perhaps a few worth knowing.

I’m:

  • an M.A. in #Philosophy
  • a teacher, mostly #teaching #academic #writing
  • a committed #FOSS user
  • a #Fediverse enthusiast

If you’re into Mastodon, you can also find me @UdeRecife@firefish.social.

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  • 75 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 30th, 2023

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  • Thank you for your comment and for bringing in some sanity.

    I’m a former cellist, who has been trained in the western cannon, and you’re absolutely right.

    Music is music. The so-called classical tradition is just hyped up musical culture from the rich and powerful European elite of those days.

    There’s nothing in it more special or high minded except for the fact that it was a learned tradition. It was especially cultivated to cater to those who were wealthy enough to actually pay for the privilege of having music played to them whenever they feel like listening to it.

    I’m over-simplifying, but that’s pretty much the gist of it. In the 19th century, and with industrialization, more and more people came to have their own pianos at home, so they too could have music at home whenever they felt like listening. Guys like Brahms made a huge buck back in the day catering to this new public.

    The point being that classical music is just a fancy name for that music tradition which, as you correctly pointed out, is a white European thing used to assert a supposed intellectual dominance over other peoples and their own cultures.

    Remember, music is music. There’s nothing inherently good about classical European music. Actually, if you hear that tradition thoroughly enough (I did), you’ll quickly find out that some of it is actually really badly written, even by the so-called great (I’m looking at you, Beethoven, and your Op. 91, Wellington’s Victory “Battle Symphony” – what a piece of crap!).

    tl;dr Classical music is indeed a politically charged term with nasty political implications. As a musical tradition, it is indeed over-hyped and made up to be something bigger than it actually is.











  • Sorry if I mistake your intention. If that’s the case, it’s just me making a wrong guess.

    You’re probably misreading this.

    I authored THE NAME. If you prefer, I’m the name-giver, the author in this sense.

    Linus is the namer and the creator of that kernel.

    As creator he is by right allowed to name his creation whatever he likes. Just like me, as the cat ‘entity creator as a pet’ am allowed to name it whatever I like.

    No outsiders input required. You get now what I mean by author?

    Whatever your reply may be, let me thank you already for engaging. It’s nice to be pressured to explain something in simpler, more accessible terms.




  • Maybe you’ll like it more under this new guise: I named my cat Goofyball. But since Linnaeus named the species Felis catus, you remind me that my cat’s name should ackchyually be Felis catus/Goofyball. To which I reply, very appropriately, ‘it’s MY cat’. So Goofyball it is.

    Understand now the authority argument? Authority in the sense of authorial, having an author.






  • Philosophically, the premise is flawed. Best life… according to whom?

    I mean, the best life for a slug or a fly won’t cut it for you. I can imagine a fly being born in such conditions that from that fly’s perspective it would be ‘the best life’ imaginable… for a fly.

    There’s this passage from Roger Crisp’s Mill on Utilitarianism, where he proposes this thought experiment. There one reads:

    “You are a soul in heaven waiting to be allocated a life on Earth. It is late Friday afternoon, and you watch anxiously as the supply of available lives dwindles. When your turn comes, the angel in charge offers you a choice between two lives, that of the composer Joseph Haydn and that of an oyster. Besides composing some wonderful music and influencing the evolution of the symphony, Haydn will meet with success and honour in his own lifetime, be cheerful and popular, travel and gain much enjoyment from field sports. The oyster’s life is far less exciting. Though this is rather a sophisticated oyster, its life will consist only of mild sensual pleasure, rather like that experienced by humans when floating very drunk in a warm bath. When you request the life of Haydn, the angel sighs, ‘I’ll never get rid of this oyster life. It’s been hanging around for ages. Look, I’ll offer you a special deal. Haydn will die at the age of seventy-seven. But I’ll make the oyster life as long as you like…’”

    So, a pig or Haydn? A fly or your own life right now?


  • Not being open source is the great… sin for me. Note taking is an investment in the future, and betting on a closed source platform is a big no no—for me, that is.

    I know the content is safe in Obsidian, since it’s just Markdown files. But the workflow? Not so much.

    And I know the developers behind Obsidian have their reasons to close source it. Nothing against that. But since that’s their way, it’s not my way.