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Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

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Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

#131

Post by jll29 »

mediumsmart wrote: post #54
dave333 wrote: post #21

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.

whats wrong with headshots on the PC while doomscrolling on the phone in the age of monsters and idiots ?

If you, like me, would have had to watch people play Candy Crush on the Tube [= the London subway] on the way to work every morning for seven years, you would not ask.

I felt terribly sorry for that loss of GDP and decline in mean global IQ.

Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

#132

Post by jll29 »

keybored wrote: post #95

The article just lifts the content from the book and doesn’t add anything original. Great. We’ve heard.

I would say 1984 is rather more subtle than portrayed here.

For instance, the masses are kept at bay by scaring them with perpetual wars on the one hand and by keeping them distracted with machine-generation filthy "literature" (we only reached the level of technical sophistication to do that courtesy GPT/Llama last year). That part is more similar to what the post portrays as the "Huxley" view, perhaps.

The appendix of 1984 ("Newspeak") is a masterpiece on its own, redefining English words like "freedom" so that they can only mean "free from lice", with the notion of freedom forgotten.

Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

#133

Post by apwell23 »

CalRobert wrote: post #121
chongli wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're enriching their bank accounts just as they're impoverishing their spirits. On their deathbeds, no one ever says "gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office." The same could be said for any other wealth-motivated exercise. If I have learned one thing in life it is this: money is, at best, a necessary evil. A means to an end. Pursuing it as an end in itself is an indication that we have strayed from the path…

Sure, but they’re also outbidding me for a house.

Are you trying to get in a "good school district" ? Is that really that strongly correlated to kids outcome in life .

kids grow up and fight for a house in good school district :).

I feel like having kids is root of all evil. Ppl justify all sorts of things (like wars and bidding for houses) and say that they are doing those things for sake of their kids.

Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

#134

Post by 10u152 »

apwell23 wrote: post #133
CalRobert wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but they’re also outbidding me for a house.

Are you trying to get in a "good school district" ? Is that really that strongly correlated to kids outcome in life . kids grow up and fight for a house in good school district :). I feel like having kids is root of all evil. Ppl justify all sorts of things (like wars and bidding for houses) and say that they are doing those things for sake of their kids.

>…having kids is the root of all evil.

Quite a take there. Kids are also the source of all joy and happiness, depending on how you look at it.

Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

#135

Post by apwell23 »

10u152 wrote: post #134
apwell23 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to get in a "good school district" ? Is that really that strongly correlated to kids outcome in life . kids grow up and fight for a house in good school district :). I feel like having kids is root of all evil. Ppl justify all sorts of things (like wars and bidding for houses) and say that they are doing those things for sake of their kids.

>…having kids is the root of all evil. Quite a take there. Kids are also the source of all joy and happiness, depending on how you look at it.

Yea I agree. I have kids too :)

But they are also the source of global warming, wars. On a personal level they a source of anxiety, continuous striving, jealousy and fear.

Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

#136

Post by onion2k »

hshshshsvsv wrote: post #118
onion2k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair to say the "why not inject yourself with bleach!" people shouldn't be running the show while there's a class of people who do what people tell them without questioning whether it's a good idea. People in power have a responsibility not to suggest things that would kill people. That isn't a high bar.

This assumes people are stupid and have no intelligence of their own and needs to be told what they should be doing.

Not quite. It assumes that some people don't verify what they're told, and so follow what people in authority tell them. That means people in authority have a responsibility not to abuse their authority.

If everyone was rational and didn't do what they were told, choosing to verify everything and only follow what was appropriate, then the entire marketing, ad, government, legal, prison, etc industries would all collapse because they wouldn't be necessary any more. It's fairly obvious that there are people who follow dangerous, stupid advice.

Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

#137

Post by ossobuco »

apwell23 wrote: post #133
CalRobert wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but they’re also outbidding me for a house.

Are you trying to get in a "good school district" ? Is that really that strongly correlated to kids outcome in life . kids grow up and fight for a house in good school district :). I feel like having kids is root of all evil. Ppl justify all sorts of things (like wars and bidding for houses) and say that they are doing those things for sake of their kids.

[flagged]

Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

#138

Post by onion2k »

chongli wrote: post #58
onion2k wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But no one wins as long as Global Human Attention isn't given purpose. The problem is that "people working in Attention Capture fields" are the exact people who are winning, at least by the most common scoring mechanism of 'wealth'.

They're enriching their bank accounts just as they're impoverishing their spirits. On their deathbeds, no one ever says "gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office." The same could be said for any other wealth-motivated exercise. If I have learned one thing in life it is this: money is, at best, a necessary evil. A means to an end. Pursuing it as an end in itself is an indication that we have strayed from the path…

On their deathbeds, no one ever says "gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office."

I bet a lot of people have died regretting they didn't earn more.

Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

#139

Post by apwell23 »

ossobuco wrote: post #137
apwell23 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to get in a "good school district" ? Is that really that strongly correlated to kids outcome in life . kids grow up and fight for a house in good school district :). I feel like having kids is root of all evil. Ppl justify all sorts of things (like wars and bidding for houses) and say that they are doing those things for sake of their kids.

[flagged]

yes exactly!

Re: Amusing Ourselves to Death (2009)

#140

Post by hshshshsvsv »

onion2k wrote: post #136
hshshshsvsv wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes people are stupid and have no intelligence of their own and needs to be told what they should be doing.

Not quite. It assumes that some people don't verify what they're told, and so follow what people in authority tell them. That means people in authority have a responsibility not to abuse their authority. If everyone was rational and didn't do what they were told, choosing to verify everything and only follow what was appropriate, then the entire marketing, ad, government, legal, prison, etc industries would all colla…

Okay. That's fair.
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