81–90 of 349 posts
We were in an age of reading? I gave up about 10 years ago on people as readers. I have recommended so many books and articles to software people over the years and it's honestly depressing how many people have told me they don't like to read. Like...you're a programmer? And you don't like to read? I assumed that people who enjoy software would be into intellectual stimulation but I've learned that this is wrong. Mor…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> who has the time and the energy to read a long novel today? > Anyone who has the time and energy to spend on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, or for that matter, anyone who has the time and energy to spend watching TV. Most of those are passive entertainments, suitable for people who've been drained of the energy to do anything else.
I read while lying on the couch, my head resting on a pillow. Is that not passive enough?
I could watch TV passively (I don't watch TV, but I could). However if you switched my TV for one that received only Spanish - I have enough Spanish that I could understand, but it wouldn't be passive for me, it would be hard work to understand.
It's been my impression that classic literature is going the same way as painting and other forms of high art. It was certainly a great display of human intellectual prowess and artistic capacity in bygone times when the world moved at a much slower pace, but who has the time and the energy to read a long novel today? Even cinema is dying and nobody seems to care that much.
> Even cinema is dying and nobody seems to care that much. Cinema is dying from mostly self-inflicted wounds though. They keep making movies (or re-making movies ) with bad writing, bad stories, and unrealistic character development arcs that not many people want to watch. Good movies have been rewarded in theatres. Top Gun: Maverick, Obsession, Project Hail Mary, etc. all had great box office sales when other movies…
It's been my impression that classic literature is going the same way as painting and other forms of high art. It was certainly a great display of human intellectual prowess and artistic capacity in bygone times when the world moved at a much slower pace, but who has the time and the energy to read a long novel today? Even cinema is dying and nobody seems to care that much.
Cinema is dying? Hollywood is on track to have its best year since 2019. Where do people come up with this stuff?
Apparently the peak year for Hollywood was 2002, with $9.2b domestic box office (16.1b inflation adjusted).
We were in an age of reading? I gave up about 10 years ago on people as readers. I have recommended so many books and articles to software people over the years and it's honestly depressing how many people have told me they don't like to read. Like...you're a programmer? And you don't like to read? I assumed that people who enjoy software would be into intellectual stimulation but I've learned that this is wrong. Mor…
Can you recommend me a book to read?
Jerry ”I read,” Elaine “Books, Jerry. Books.”
I was somewhat surprised to find out that illiteracy does not mean that someone needs to be a total (or near) analphabet - but rather that it is a broad and wide spectrum. I always imagined that “teenagers can’t read” meant that they couldn’t read at all, but then I never met such a person. Reading is definitely a skill that needs to be learned and maintained. Going from reading a couple of hundred words, to even a l…
Indeed, and this is the source of the discrepancy in the reddit-style gotcha that gets repeated about Americans being illiterate. It's not that they can't read, it's that illiteracy (as measured by whichever agency in the US does the measuring) means something more than just "can't read at all."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> who has the time and the energy to read a long novel today? > Anyone who has the time and energy to spend on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, or for that matter, anyone who has the time and energy to spend watching TV. Most of those are passive entertainments, suitable for people who've been drained of the energy to do anything else.
I read while lying on the couch, my head resting on a pillow. Is that not passive enough?
Obviously I meant mentally passive, not physically passive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> bygone times when the world moved at a much slower pace, but who has the time and the energy to read a long novel today? Capitalism is "fixing the glitch" of workers having space energy. I hope soon we'll achieve the ideal bimodal distribution of labor: work intensified to the point where workers that have the energy for nothing but work, and the impoverished totally unemployed that we can just corral and forget ab…
How does this viewpoint account for the times when "capitalism" was, by all objective measures, worse for laborers? I.E. the early industrialization period when laborers worked 14-16 hour days alongside children in factories and mines, risking life and limb?
We were in an age of reading? I gave up about 10 years ago on people as readers. I have recommended so many books and articles to software people over the years and it's honestly depressing how many people have told me they don't like to read. Like...you're a programmer? And you don't like to read? I assumed that people who enjoy software would be into intellectual stimulation but I've learned that this is wrong. Mor…
Programming probably is more intellectually stimulating than reading fiction novels.
Novels are fiction by the way.