So many conversations about taste right now. Last year, I began hosting a long online salon series titled "Taste In the Time of AI" on Interintellect.

We covered painting, music, film, literature, as well as the "social graces" - how to move in society with taste. I learned a lot from these conversations and the preparatory research I poured into them.

All these years I have been running a salon platform and being its editor in chief of course give me additional perspective: seeing simultaneously the value of timeless, emotionally and intellectually resonating artistic truths, and the importance of judging together and discussing the novelties of the moment.

From our Interintellect conversations about taste, here are my takeaways:

- It is integral to people's sense of self and autonomy to feel they have a good and individual taste. This need outweighs our fear of being dismissed or ridiculed by others. Similarly to intelligence, first comes the inner need of knowing we have it and are improving it in an ongoing way as a sense of inner stability and worth, and only then any social worry.

- Taste is something one can and must refine. In some mysterious way, it works very similarly to musical aptitude. Sure, a very low % of people are musically hopeless, while a few are born with perfect pitch, but most people are in the middle and their outcome will depend on education, gradual progress, and practice.

- Almost nobody has a good taste in everything! That is why sometimes the great art critic shows up in sloppy clothes, or the famous filmmaker listens to bad music. Not to mention the bad table manners of many artistically talented people! While we do want some taste in everything, there is a high ROI to finding out what your strengths are, and becoming even better in those select areas.

- Humans are very mimetic and participatory -- self-improvement, self-understanding, and having a voice are crucial to our feeling like full human beings. And so in almost every case, when somebody develops a taste in an artistic or creative area, they will also try to create themselves. Increasing good taste has an unexpected benefit of creating more artists! Everybody wins.

- Just as Enlightenment philosophers understood, taste does seem to have a strong moral component. Not wanting to act "in bad taste" saves many people from acting dishonorably toward others even when no one's watching. Meanness, cheating, unreliable behavior feels tacky, makes us less proud of ourselves. And so cultivating a good taste for life is a way of building an actual good life -- and good people. It means better choices.

The Ancient Greeks would argue that we do need to see sin and horror in art and thus purify ourselves, and that is true -- it just adds another moral dimension. Human mimesis means not just learning from each other but also learning from each other's mistakes and suffering. Using one's good taste to encounter the bad side of life in a safe way is one more step toward a virtuous life.

- In a beautiful way, taste is an engine of curiosity. It makes you deliciously restless: taste is a certainty that there is more of what is good, and that it is worth seeking out! A catalyst for building cognitive autonomy in the long run, a never-lazy mind. And what else could a happy person ask for?

It is to my continuing pleasure to see how -- on Interintellect and elsewhere -- people still come together in friendship and conversation to reflect on the great questions of life. Technology now ensures taste remains at the top of the list of topics. Let's make more of what is good taste!