My Beautiful Bubble: The Song

From the AI-assisted mind of Nathan Young

Today, I offer two totally unrelated guest posts: one by me, the other for me.

1. My first guest post on the Cato blog is up. Highlight:

   The epiphany that convinced me to write Build, Baby, Build: Instead of trying to argue people out of their aesthetic pessimism, I should use the graphic novel format to fight aesthetics with aesthetics — to show readers the beautiful unseen world that government forbids.

2. My friend Nathan Young used AI to write an original song based on my essays, “My Beautiful Bubble” and “Make Your Own Bubble in 10 Easy Steps.” What follows is a guest post from Nathan explaining his process.

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I made a song about Bryan Caplan's concept of a "Beautiful Bubble".

https://suno.com/song/5f6d4d5d-6b5d-4b71-af7b-2cc197989172

Here are the lyrics:

[Verse 1]

Amicably divorce

From society

Don't fight these people

Let it go

Stop paying attention

To what frustrates you

Especially if you can't change it

The news is nothing but woe

[Verse 2]

Compare your life

To the poorest people

Compared to someone in Haiti

Your life is good

Take time to do the things you like

With the people you love

You always could

[Chorus]

Escape the noise

Let it fade away

It's gonna be okay (It's gonna be okay)

Just escape the noise

Let it fade away

Life is better this way (Life is better this way)

Here are the steps I used:

• His article Make Your Own Bubble In 10 Easy Steps is a clear articulation of the thing I wanted to write about.

• I copied the article into Claude and asked it to write a summary of the article (GPT3/4 probably also works). I made changes, cutting points I thought were less important.

• I asked Claude to make a song using this summary. This might seem lazy (it is) but it's great to get so quickly to the fun part.

• I went to Suno and use the Custom mode where you can add lyrics. I've also messed around with Udio (both are small AI startups). It's hard to say which is better. 

• I initially messed around with "groovy future bass", but I'd recommend using the "random style" several times. I generated several songs for each style.

• As I listened, I changed things about the lyrics that frustrated me.

• A rumba seemed to match this song and Bryan's vibe well. Something about the joy and cheekiness of it.

• I generated about 10 with small changes and took the one I liked best.

• I've listened to it lots and it feels like it would be surprisingly good as a study aid/way to focus on concepts.

• Escape the noise! Find your beautiful bubble.

If people want to find more of my writing, it's here: 

Yours,

Nathan Young