I typically read a little, skim a little, read some more . . . but IIRC the Matrix one I actually read all the way through. No idea what was so offensive to 9 people, but I'm not a typical matrix fan. I'm only peripherally aware of the lore about politics and gender, etc but I appreciated that you acknowledged those but went deeper to more archetypal analysis, because it looks to me like that is where the symbols are pointing. Why would that arouse so much ire as to unsubscribe? I don't know, Matrix fans are funny, possibly only exceeded in their fanerdicalism by Trekkies.
I've been thinking about increasing my meagre contribution, but am currently, shall we say, between jobs, so it probably won't happen any time soon.
Do people unsubscribe over length? I would think they'd just skim/skip, which is what I do. You could probably tighten up most of your posts, but if I wanted high quality, dense reading that would make me work, I'd subscribe to academic journals and go to grad school. Sorry you lost so many people but I wonder how much of that isn't about anything you did or didn't do, maybe they're government workers who haven't had a paycheck in a month, or budgeting for the holidays, or whatever.
I read part of it and throughly enjoyed the part I did read, but I haven't seen the entire Matrix series (just the first two movies). I didn't finish reading it because it was so long, and I didn't have sufficient experience to properly contextualize the information.
I really enjoyed the post, it provided a fresh perspective on The Matrix that helped me to appreciate the films even more for what they offer, an opportunity to explore its themes and characters and dig deeper into how they can be interpreted.
Your post and a separate podcast about Isaac Asimov’s writings pushed me to explore Gnosticism and the link between the Old Gods of the world and modern Christianity.
Your writing inspires me in the search for enlightenment, and I find solace in knowing there are other people trying to find what is beneath the surface.
I prefer longer form articles. It's a bad habit from my run at academia: dense text, complicated sentences full of discipline specific jargon, and footnotes, are the things for which the internet was created.
I did not read it. I love longer form content from you, so I was happy to get this in my inbox. I opened the essay in a new tab to read it later. When I found it was a three-parter, I opened parts one and two to get the prologue and preamble of sorts. Upon discovering that part 2 was behind a paywall, I back-burnered the whole adventure and promptly forgot about the whole thing.
Nah man, that was an awesome piece. I honestly prefer longer content where you can explore deeper and hash things out further. I can't say why a few people left, but I dig your work and I'm sticking around.
I read it after this post notified me of it. I never got an email notification the matrix post was published.
was an interesting evaluation. I rarely dig into plot for movies, so I hadn't noticed much about the 2nd matrix movie onwards other than that they felt flatter than the first one.
It wasn't bad but I'd agree that it would've benefitted with a thorough proof-reading to trim some of the fat, or refine it while keeping a sense of brevity in mind. It has some good points and food for thought so I wouldn't write the whole thing off as an L, just something which has quite a lot going on for a single article.
The Matrix serves as your vehicle to explore the concepts of Agency and Gnostic ideas but I think they'd be better served in a separate piece that refers back to this one where appropriate, while expanding on them as the very interesting standalone concepts that they are.
tl;dr - Trim some of the fat, refine elements into a separate article, don't beat yourself up about it. People cancelling because they disliked a long form article juggling The Matrix and fairly dense philosophical concepts are probably better off exercising their pursuit of agency elsewhere, meanwhile it presents to you as something to potentially reflect upon or dismiss. You've opted for the former which is what any good writer ought to do. Keep on keeping on, I enjoy your work. (This wasn't very tldr of me- ironic eh?)
I typically read a little, skim a little, read some more . . . but IIRC the Matrix one I actually read all the way through. No idea what was so offensive to 9 people, but I'm not a typical matrix fan. I'm only peripherally aware of the lore about politics and gender, etc but I appreciated that you acknowledged those but went deeper to more archetypal analysis, because it looks to me like that is where the symbols are pointing. Why would that arouse so much ire as to unsubscribe? I don't know, Matrix fans are funny, possibly only exceeded in their fanerdicalism by Trekkies.
I've been thinking about increasing my meagre contribution, but am currently, shall we say, between jobs, so it probably won't happen any time soon.
Do people unsubscribe over length? I would think they'd just skim/skip, which is what I do. You could probably tighten up most of your posts, but if I wanted high quality, dense reading that would make me work, I'd subscribe to academic journals and go to grad school. Sorry you lost so many people but I wonder how much of that isn't about anything you did or didn't do, maybe they're government workers who haven't had a paycheck in a month, or budgeting for the holidays, or whatever.
I read part of it and throughly enjoyed the part I did read, but I haven't seen the entire Matrix series (just the first two movies). I didn't finish reading it because it was so long, and I didn't have sufficient experience to properly contextualize the information.
I really enjoyed the post, it provided a fresh perspective on The Matrix that helped me to appreciate the films even more for what they offer, an opportunity to explore its themes and characters and dig deeper into how they can be interpreted.
Your post and a separate podcast about Isaac Asimov’s writings pushed me to explore Gnosticism and the link between the Old Gods of the world and modern Christianity.
Your writing inspires me in the search for enlightenment, and I find solace in knowing there are other people trying to find what is beneath the surface.
TLDR; I thought it was good
I prefer longer form articles. It's a bad habit from my run at academia: dense text, complicated sentences full of discipline specific jargon, and footnotes, are the things for which the internet was created.
I did not read it. I love longer form content from you, so I was happy to get this in my inbox. I opened the essay in a new tab to read it later. When I found it was a three-parter, I opened parts one and two to get the prologue and preamble of sorts. Upon discovering that part 2 was behind a paywall, I back-burnered the whole adventure and promptly forgot about the whole thing.
seems to me the issue is 'Get slightly better informed, idiot!' in the preamble.
not everyone enjoys being called an idiot by someone who fancies themselves clever.
otherwise enjoyed the text.
Nah man, that was an awesome piece. I honestly prefer longer content where you can explore deeper and hash things out further. I can't say why a few people left, but I dig your work and I'm sticking around.
My vote was "didn't even notice it" but my caveat there is that my inbox is currently a complete gong show because life is extra hectic at the moment.
I read it after this post notified me of it. I never got an email notification the matrix post was published.
was an interesting evaluation. I rarely dig into plot for movies, so I hadn't noticed much about the 2nd matrix movie onwards other than that they felt flatter than the first one.
It wasn't bad but I'd agree that it would've benefitted with a thorough proof-reading to trim some of the fat, or refine it while keeping a sense of brevity in mind. It has some good points and food for thought so I wouldn't write the whole thing off as an L, just something which has quite a lot going on for a single article.
The Matrix serves as your vehicle to explore the concepts of Agency and Gnostic ideas but I think they'd be better served in a separate piece that refers back to this one where appropriate, while expanding on them as the very interesting standalone concepts that they are.
tl;dr - Trim some of the fat, refine elements into a separate article, don't beat yourself up about it. People cancelling because they disliked a long form article juggling The Matrix and fairly dense philosophical concepts are probably better off exercising their pursuit of agency elsewhere, meanwhile it presents to you as something to potentially reflect upon or dismiss. You've opted for the former which is what any good writer ought to do. Keep on keeping on, I enjoy your work. (This wasn't very tldr of me- ironic eh?)