On taste

I don't know much about art, but I know what I like.
— apparently nobody knows who said this

“Level up your taste.”
— Rick Rubin, The Creative Act

One of my (many) contrarian beliefs is that we do not have strong enough preferences. We often blame social media or the speed of information as the reason why we’re easily distracted, but the real reason behind our inability to focus has less to do with the sheer quantity of media and more to do with our laziness when it comes to distinguishing wh... See more

Developing taste is an exercise in vulnerability: it requires you to trust your instincts and preferences, even when they don’t align with current trends or the tastes of your peers. Because while having taste is cool, taste itself reflects a certain type of uncool earnestness – a commitment to one’s own obsessions and quirks.

Elizabeth Goodspeed on the Importance of Taste – And How to Acquire It

“One of the misconceptions about AI is that it lessens the need for skill and expertise. I think the opposite is true: the more I use ChatGPT, the more I realize how valuable expertise is. Chatbots excel with specific prompts. If you ask it to challenge your brand positioning strategy, you'll get a generic answer. But if you ask it to challenge it

From Ezra Klein:

AI might be able to churn out content faster than we can, but we still need a human mind to sift through and figure out what’s good. In other words, A.I. is going to turn more of us into editors. But editing is a peculiar skill. It’s hard to test for, or teach, or even describe. But it’s the crucial step in the creative process that

But “good” taste is all relative — or, even more devastating, it’s all incredibly arbitrary. So many of the things people associate with “good” taste are just white bourgeois taste. They aren’t better or smarter or more beautiful or creative, they’re just at a price point that says “good taste,” or at least orbits in the same aesthetic univers

I think there’s a lot of depth to be found in the pursuit of beauty, I just think we tend to underestimate the extent to which our taste can be meaningful, rooted in something true about us, rather than reactive and trend-driven. Lately, when I find myself wanting something new, I’ve been considering whether the lack I’m feeling is more fundamental

“Why did I love that essay and not this one? What about that painting made me stop and stare?

Someone’s sense of taste also involves recognizing the gap between what they have made and what they intended to make.

To train our own taste, we must become cooks who aren’t scared to make food that may end up tasting terrible. To live in ‘the gap’ as Ira G