najirama

#1 - You're treating the quoted text as (I quote) "a quote". It's not. It's a small piece of a much larger whole.

Hmm - last I checked, a small piece of a larger whole IS a quote. Webster's definitively settles this in my favor.

#2 - No - there is no subjectivity involved in the claim that his lyrics are 'juvenile' and 'simple' especially when the man himself has said so on several occasions, both in verse and out. (See the song: Moment Of Clarity) If the artist himself says he 'dumb downed' his lyrics, I think its purely factual to then say his lyrics are 'simple'.

#3 - Pardon me, you don't know a damned thing about me or how I grew up. So no, your assumption is not fair. I've seen the gutter in my life. I've lived in places that I gather you are only familiar with through Jay-z songs. So forgive me if I take a particular offense to this comment.

Situational empathy? Are you kidding me? I suspect this kind of careless, 'there are are few better options' mentality stems from a brutal ignorance of what inner-city life is really like. So let me just help you out by saying there are thousands of kids from these terrible situations, (many of whom I work with weekly), who do not deal drugs, who stay in school, who pursue scholarship, who do not idolize Jay-z and his calling cards, thug-culture, gun violence, promiscuity, drugs, and death. Unfortunately for all of us, these kids are in the vast minority.

#1 - You contradict yourself implicitly with this defense. If a quote needs more context to have impact, then it is a shitty quote, which is what the OP said plainly.

#2 - 'Juvenille' and 'simple' are synonymous in this context. Period. Jay-z lyrics are more often then not, ridiculously vapid of substance or depth. Musical kool-aid.

#3 - Jay-z is a man who made his money ruining the lives of thousands by selling drugs, and millions more by being a horrific influence. He is a man who has admittedly attempted murder on more than one occasion. He is a man who has used and debased women proudly. He is a man of many transgressions. And I could look past all of them if he did not glorify them so.

Yet he does - so shamelessly in fact that its revolting to witness. His wealth and the adoration of the mindless sheep who buy his "music" are the justification he uses to continue to do so.

He says he'll always rap about variations on the same themes: drug hustling, business boasts, luxury hopscotching from Gucci to Louis Vuitton to the new Dior suit he says is a perfect fit.

I'm sorry his money and "accomplishments" and his poor excuse for music do not make this a praiseworthy man.

Thanks for sharing.

Are you suggesting that the wealth and GDP of a continent are positively correlated with its area? How bizarre...

I guess somebody forgot to tell Antarctica.

...and honestly - I feel the guy.

We humans have a tendency towards the shameless worship of heroes. We seem to need to create legends and demigods and to praise and glorify acts that upon careful examination are little more than the progeny of good fortune and timing. Providence itself isn't worthy of our praise nor our consideration - which makes the ascension of men of 'lesser stuff' a bitter pill to swallow for those few 'in-the-know'.

I think back to first grade, and recall how desperately I wanted to be a scientist/composer/hero/great man/demigod. I had no idea what these things were really, but in my mind, they were the people who knew; and what they didn't know they sought. They were the gatekeepers, arbiters, discoverers, and composers of knowledge, truth, and frankly most of what mattered. A few years later, when asked who/what I wanted to be when I grew up, beyond my father I could think only of Newton, Einstein, Maxwell, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, et al...

My, how quickly things change. The pursuit of knowledge and beauty for its own sake is an ideal which has perhaps never existed, or existed in so few men as to have practically never done so. But we're waaay past that. A man not too long ago solved Fermat's Last, how many know his name without Wikipedia? What impresses us now? What is deemed worthy of our 'shameless worship"?A man not too long ago solved Poincare's; beyond the story about his rejecting a million dollars, who gave a shit?

No one. We save our shits for the pirates of Silicon Valley these days.

That, if I am ever blessed with a son or daughter, and they are one day asked in their youth who or what they want to become when they grow up, and in turn respond with Gates, Jobs, Zuckerburg, et al, we have all failed. And I, them.

It was my rudimentary understanding that Lamarckian inheritance had been debunked; how else then could such precise knowledge of a cockroach's neurological functions have been passed on to the subsequent generation from the primary generation whence such a technique was first employed?

But you provoke interesting questions; Is it possible to mitigate or eliminate tribalism on any level, anywhere in the world? And if so, can software be integral to the process, or in any way accelerate it?

My reading of history tells me that favorable outcomes are possible in regards to both questions, however the form of such software is at the moment beyond my conception.

Regarding #3 :

This is an excellent but intractable idea. The sheer number of languages in that region is too staggering to capture even a majority percentage in such a manner; and it would be of little use to any but the academics in linguistics or cultural anthropology.

Better would be a tool that completely encapsulates the vocabulary and grammar of the main languages in that region, so that they may be learned online. There are no sufficient tools that do so at present, either online or in bookstores - and the children of the diaspora, and their children and so forth, could/would make great use of such a thing.

Sir, with all due respect, kindly speak for yourself.

I find your post offensive to good sense, pragmatism, and sensibility.

If, and when a person chooses to share their lives with the entire world, they must then also live we the consequences of that sharing, good or bad.

Patio11 has done exactly this - he has quite literally given a piece of himself to the world and for that he has both been praised and psychoanalyzed. He is by all accounts an adult, and I am sure he is aware of the nature of this beast.

I enjoyed lionhearted's analysis, if only as an intellectual exercise. Is that not why this damn site exists? For the stimulation of intellectual curiosity? If this kind of post is not acceptable here, then by all reasonable measures 95% off all front page articles ever, do/did not belong here.

Where is this melodramatic over-reaction when the myriad of critical PG, Zuckerburg, Gates, Jobs, Hansen, Arrington, and Calcanis posts hit the front page? Why haven't the writers of those blog post been similarly singled out? Your needless "defense" of patio11 is more an affront to him then the post of which you disagree! If you're going to engage in high-school melodrama, at least be consistent about its application.

"Let's keep HN sacred."

HN isn't sacred for goodness-sakes. It is a place for intellectual discussion; the subject of which can be anything or anyone. Remove the 'sanctimonious' from your thinking - please.