On slagging off other writers' books

Well, actually I thought there was an interesting point made here. From the perspective of information theory, if you’re in a space where most things aren’t good, then saying they’re not good conveys very little information, and therefore is arguably not very valuable. In such a space, it is much more valuable to mention the good. Of course the argument can be made vice versa if the space contains most things that are good, but sadly that wouldn’t apply to the space of literature.
That said, if there is a significant cost to encountering something bad, then knowing that is useful, even if the information conveyed is small. Although I suppose you could assume that if you haven’t heard anything good, then that must mean it is bad…

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