161–170 of 352 posts
A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages…chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements … they require out-door exercises–not this sort of mental gladiatorship. A game of chess does not add a single new fa…
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Given the current pro-war propaganda all over the place combined with the creeping cost of living, I think Nineteen Eighty-Four is becoming more prescient than Brave New World.
People make too much of what Orwell supposedly feared may happen some day. He was writing about stuff the Soviet and British governments were doing in his time, and in particular, imagined what Soviet rule over Britain may look like. Assigning this philosophy to him and criticizing him for it seems unfair.
A couple of years ago i was working for a design studio which produced an image movie for a big cooperation which somehow painted an utopian future for their upcoming product ideas. In that movie there was a woman reading in "Brave new World".[EDITED] It was clear none of the people involved read the book. My remarks were swept aside by claiming hardly anyone has read the book anyway... headlessness might be a real i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I swear I am going to, on my deathbed, say "gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office," just to stop this quote going around. In the last five years I've had a few conversations about regret with elderly relatives who have now passed away. None of them regretted going to work. My grandparents met at work. One regretted that she'd been a draftswoman rather than an engineer, but that's almost the exact opposite. I…
> I don't understand why people think doing good work that inspires pride and then getting paid for it is going to be some kind of horrible deathbed regret. Because there is nothing in the definition you give that remotely looks like the median job. Societies are not structured to maximize the number of jobs that fits this definition. If social structure happens to fit your Ikigai, congratulation you won the cosmic l…
My experience has been that older people often have a different outlook on life than what people my age, including me, would predict. Part of that is experience, part is coming from a different time where the baseline for quality of life was lower, and I suspect part of it is rose-tinted glasses.
Most of us will read this and continue living our life exactly the same way as before …wake up
>If you're reading this, you've been in a coma for almost 20 years because of a car accident. We're trying a new technique. We don't know where this message will end up in your dream, but we hope we're getting through. Please wake up.
The sad thing is that none of it is very amusing. Current events twitter is more aggravating than amusing. We're aggravating ourselves to death.
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My take is that X/Twitter is mostly sharing fake rage bait, to emotionally manipulate people into supporting various hate based political movements.
Independent bookstores have been consistently growing since 2009: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/programs/growthpol...
The book industry is expanding with particularly strong growth in e-books and audiobooks: https://worldmetrics.org/book-industry-statistics/
Educational attainment is generally increasing as time goes on in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...
Voter turnout has increased over time in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
If anything I think that the general population is becoming more aware and educated.
A more diversified leisure industry with more options than the days of having three channels on television is not the same as drowning in amusement, or the average person spending more time on amusement than on “serious” and “thoughtful” activities. Instead, it means that the individual has more options for forms of amusement they enjoy.