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Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

orwell.ru

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Re: Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

#91

Post by stcredzero »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #86
stcredzero wrote: post #47

Here you have a picture of the world as Wells would like to see it or thinks he would like to see it. It is a world whose keynotes are enlightened hedonism and scientific curiosity. All the evils and miseries we now suffer from have vanished. Ignorance, war, poverty, dirt, disease, frustration, hunger, fear, overwork, superstition all vanished...But is there anyone who actually wants to live in a Wellsian Utopia? On…

Humans can't really tell the difference between real and simulated risk. Online games are incredibly compelling for the people who play them, but they're a lot less risky than taking part in a real war and risking real blood and real body parts. I don't see why we couldn't sublimate games like economics in the same way. The experience of winning would be almost identical, but simulations wouldn't have to be zero sum…

Humans can't really tell the difference between real and simulated risk.

Even so, some of us have our kids play baseball-like games where they're not even allowed to strike out.

Re: Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

#92

Post by otakucode »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #86
stcredzero wrote: post #47

Here you have a picture of the world as Wells would like to see it or thinks he would like to see it. It is a world whose keynotes are enlightened hedonism and scientific curiosity. All the evils and miseries we now suffer from have vanished. Ignorance, war, poverty, dirt, disease, frustration, hunger, fear, overwork, superstition all vanished...But is there anyone who actually wants to live in a Wellsian Utopia? On…

Humans can't really tell the difference between real and simulated risk. Online games are incredibly compelling for the people who play them, but they're a lot less risky than taking part in a real war and risking real blood and real body parts. I don't see why we couldn't sublimate games like economics in the same way. The experience of winning would be almost identical, but simulations wouldn't have to be zero sum…

Err, I think going much further down that line of reasoning, you will discover something unpleasant: The winning, for some, isn't as important as someone else losing.

Re: Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

#93

Post by jvln »

beaner wrote: post #28
saagarjha wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you? Do you have no worries in the world?

Many do not. There is a theory of something called the Power Process, which states that for people to be happy, they need goals which require effort, and need to achieve at least some of those goals. The lack of meaningful goals which require effort in the first world may be responsible for much of the depression, suicide, and other issues that plague us today. I found this Medium post which quotes the relevant parts…

Might be the reason why endurance running is on the rise.

Re: Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

#94

Post by bitwize »

RangerScience wrote: post #83

Perhaps it used to be the case that people had trouble imagining a utopia, but here's two solid utopias (or near enough) I've encountered in fiction: the entirety of Ian M Bank's "Culture"; and the second chapter of Cory Doctorow's "Walkaway". Also, there's the perennial example of Burning Man (and related festivals) - here's an example of people creating happiness that has little to do with the removal of scarcities…

Banks's Culture works in particular because Banks mainly wrote about contact (friendly or otherwise) with non-Culture societies. The general thesis still holds: man is not truly content without conflict and challenge. Hard SF provides a way for utopias to not stagnate and become boring: once humans have secured long life, prosperity, and harmony for themselves, they seek adventure in the big wide universe outside their dominion.

This also applies to conceptions of heaven, the best description of which I found in the movie Defending Your Life, in which the worthy deceased ascend to become "citizens of the universe" and tackle bigger, cosmic challenges with their vastly increased intellect.

Re: Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

#95

Post by e12e »

petermcneeley wrote: post #85
e12e wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, gp seem disconcertingly disconnected from the reality of Yemen, Syria or Palestine - just to mention a few places off the top of my head.

I am disconnected from those realities because for me they are not comparable (to me personally or even in general). The first is scale. WWII scale was massive and considering that WWII was really just WWI-part2 its really just the continuation of the global struggle for power finally ended in ~1991. Second is personal closeness. My relatives participated in WWII. My life is shaped by its outcome. Third is ideologica…

True, we're in a more peaceful, normal place of permanent war in the "frontiers" - but the quote listed thousands - not millions.

I'm not sure I see how the soviet collapse and subsequent change of aggressors back to british/us in Afghanistan signified the end of the continuous confrontation between powers - rather than yet another shift.

I'll not go into what harvest one reaps from planting bombs and troops abroad, but at least in Europe we're hardly unaffected.

And while there was ideological propaganda and real differences then - there's religious fundamelism and fascism to go around still...

I'll definitely grant you that we're in a state of low intensity conflict over remote resources - and outsource much suffering - a state that seems stable for now.

Re: Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

#96

Post by tim333 »

He never really gets to the point in the title about not believing in fun

He says reasonably enough

>...not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another.

But the fact you don't want an aircon paradise doesn't have to mean no to fun. Why not party / go surfing / whatever seems fun?

Re: Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

#97

Post by arethuza »

bitwize wrote: post #94
RangerScience wrote: post #83

Perhaps it used to be the case that people had trouble imagining a utopia, but here's two solid utopias (or near enough) I've encountered in fiction: the entirety of Ian M Bank's "Culture"; and the second chapter of Cory Doctorow's "Walkaway". Also, there's the perennial example of Burning Man (and related festivals) - here's an example of people creating happiness that has little to do with the removal of scarcities…

Banks's Culture works in particular because Banks mainly wrote about contact (friendly or otherwise) with non-Culture societies. The general thesis still holds: man is not truly content without conflict and challenge. Hard SF provides a way for utopias to not stagnate and become boring: once humans have secured long life, prosperity, and harmony for themselves, they seek adventure in the big wide universe outside the…

"The humans of the Culture, having solved all the obvious problems of their shared pasts to be free from hunger, want, disease and the fear of natural disaster and attack, would find it a slightly empty existence only and merely enjoying themselves, and so need the good-works of the Contact section to let them feel vicariously useful."

From A Few Notes on the Culture

Re: Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

#98

Post by e12e »

beat wrote: post #87
ConceptJunkie wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be alien to us, but there are millions of people for which this describes their reality.

But millions less than there were even a few decades ago. The world is making progress toward peace, health, safety, and a decent standard of living at an extraordinary pace right now. This is not to say everything is hunky-dory. But it is to say that this is no longer World War II. edit: Where do you think all the Syrian and Lebanese restaurants in America came from? Refugees from the collapse of the Ottoman empire…

I certainly hope Syria will rise again - but I'd say it's a big difference between being well educated, functioning civil society bombed into the stone age - and being poor.

Norway followed a similar path as Sweden - being quite well on its way even before we stole (negotiated for) most of the oil rights in the north sea.

And like most countries after ww2 - while the devestation was great, the rebuild was rather quick. Once there was peace. And one important part of peace, was liberation and independence.

Re: Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

#99

Post by eseehausen »

otakucode wrote: post #92
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans can't really tell the difference between real and simulated risk. Online games are incredibly compelling for the people who play them, but they're a lot less risky than taking part in a real war and risking real blood and real body parts. I don't see why we couldn't sublimate games like economics in the same way. The experience of winning would be almost identical, but simulations wouldn't have to be zero sum…

Err, I think going much further down that line of reasoning, you will discover something unpleasant: The winning, for some, isn't as important as someone else losing.

Which can still happen in a simulated way that minimizes harm but maximizes perceived harm by the inflictor. The gory death of an opponent in an FPS who respawns without incident elsewhere, for instance.

Re: Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun (1943)

#100

Post by sehugg »

Lest the headline imply otherwise, Orwell was a proponent of democratic socialism: “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”
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