Doing things merely to stimulate pleasurable brain chemistry is fine unless all you do is play games or watch formulaic media that have no lasting effect or achievement.
Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)
21–30 of 352 posts
Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)
#22Thinly veiled 'I despise stupid people', this one.
They'd be boozing (more than they already are) if there wasn't such variety of cheap and available entertainment, the author doesn't seem to realize?
It's not what stupid people do in their free time - it's what capable and smart people value and pursue that makes all the difference.
Nietzsche laid this out quite beautifully in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Huxley and Orwell are kindergarten philosophy by comparison.
Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)
#23Original comic source: https://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ours... (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20100111052839/http://www.recomb...)
HN discussion from 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1554733
Wikipedia entry for the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)
#24Hey guys, what if good things were actually bad? Wow!! Instead of enjoying ourselves we should instead spend eight hours a day intently studying woodworking & tax policy. The fact that people enjoy talking to each other and looking at cat pictures on social media proves that people will accept fascism and that Western liberal democracy is fated for impotence.
There is a middle ground between woodworking and TikTok, no? People enjoyed talking to each other and had fun before we had technology.
It’s easy to see social media as harmless, and maybe it is, but it also has the potential to act as a powerful tool for serving propaganda and brainwashing.
I’m not suggesting an actual conspiracy theory here but it’s concerning that a few huge companies have the power to broadcast (and control) the flow of information to a majority of population, who will consume that information by and large without suspicion.
If for some reason Facebook or TikTok really wanted to meaningfully shift public opinion, they probably could, and in any direction they might choose.
Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)
#25The book's title is a nod to the Roger Waters album/song that deals with the same theme.
I think it’s the other way around — the book is from ~ 1985 while the Roger Waters albums is ~ 1992.
Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)
#26Think more about Attention. Not about Information. Information is exploding and global available Attention doesn't grow. People who pay attention to one thing, can't use the same time to pay attention to something else. So govts and corps fight over this common pool of Attention using the Media (TV/Movies/Radio/Social/News/Sports/Gaming etc etc), just like they fought over land and oil and other natural resources. Me…
Attention is all you need?
Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)
#27The book's title is a nod to the Roger Waters album/song that deals with the same theme.
The book predates the song and album by about 7 years, so the album name references the book. Postman even mentioned the fact in his 1995 book "The end of education"
Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)
#28Brave New World and 1984 are books to avoid every extreme on politics, either left or right (put every Monopoly neocon fanboy, racist non-civic nationalist or burocratic socialist in there).
1984 looked scary, but BNW was hopeless. It exerced a much better control. The world of 1984 collapsed down itself.
Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)
#29A person running for president of this country comes from show business and there are venture capitalists like Mark Andreeson who seriously talk about him as somebody who knows policy all because they can get a seat at the table.
Congrats. You brainwashed yourself into believing only certain class of people can run the country. Founding fathers would be proud.
Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)
#30Think more about Attention. Not about Information. Information is exploding and global available Attention doesn't grow. People who pay attention to one thing, can't use the same time to pay attention to something else. So govts and corps fight over this common pool of Attention using the Media (TV/Movies/Radio/Social/News/Sports/Gaming etc etc), just like they fought over land and oil and other natural resources. Me…
> as long as Global Human Attention isn't given purpose
We tried out the grand visions to improve the human condition with one great push in the 20th century- didn’t work out so well