I think that it's great that this is on the front page of HN. There are a couple of great things we can learn from classics like this. For example, let's talk about how art can provoke some kind of emotion.
Specifically, Aristotle discusses tragedy and explains why it can be one of the best mediums in art in creating strong emotional connections with the main character. To do this, he says that the main character must be:
- Good: because if a bad thing happens to a bad person, the audience wouldn't care.
- Believable: because it would disrupt one's ability to empathize with the character if they had some unrealistic/rare flaw.
The audience needs to believe that they could have made the same decisions as the character. If you look at most classical Greek tragedies, this is true (given Oedipus's information (or lack thereof), would allow many people to make Oedipus's mistakes). It takes a masterful author to be able to predict and understand people's emotions like this on the scale of an entire audience.
I think making a product requires a similar amount of empathy. You need to ask yourself who your audience is. How many customers really need that feature? What are they primarily using your product for? etc.
Aristotle's Poetics (Greek: Περὶ ποιητικῆς, c. 335 BCE) is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory. In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term which in Greek literally means "making" and in this context includes drama—comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play—as well as lyric poetry, epic poetry, and the dithyramb). He examines its "first principles" and identifies its genres and basic elements. His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, Marvin Carlson explains, "almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions."
The work was lost to the Western world and often misrepresented for a long time. It was available through the Middle Ages and early Renaissance only through a Latin translation of an Arabic version written by Averroes.
Specifically, Aristotle discusses tragedy and explains why it can be one of the best mediums in art in creating strong emotional connections with the main character. To do this, he says that the main character must be:
- Good: because if a bad thing happens to a bad person, the audience wouldn't care.
- Believable: because it would disrupt one's ability to empathize with the character if they had some unrealistic/rare flaw.
The audience needs to believe that they could have made the same decisions as the character. If you look at most classical Greek tragedies, this is true (given Oedipus's information (or lack thereof), would allow many people to make Oedipus's mistakes). It takes a masterful author to be able to predict and understand people's emotions like this on the scale of an entire audience.
I think making a product requires a similar amount of empathy. You need to ask yourself who your audience is. How many customers really need that feature? What are they primarily using your product for? etc.