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Amusing ourselves to death

onthepathofknowledge.wordpress.com

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Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#51

Post by mxfh »

mietek wrote: post #23

Better quality direct from the comic author: http://web.archive.org/web/20110411085435/http://www.recombi... Removed from his website on request of Neil Postman estate: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/cartoon-blog/amusing-ours...

as with any original content that is older than the average HN user memory threshold, which somewhere between 9 months and 3 years, there is also an old thread for it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=627476 1687 days ago | 17 comment

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1554733 1259 days ago | 81 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4607098 461 days ago | 79 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433283 289 days ago | 17 comments

[EDIT] well, there at least 5 now, including this one.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#52

Post by gutnor »

clienthunter wrote: post #34

I don't think it's off-base to say that this is an attack on the current state of society - the oft-repeated wail that capitalism and the opportunities it has brought (including technology) has made us all a despicable group of hedonistic thrill seekers. This is universally construed as a bad thing. I have problems with this. In order to decide that something is bad, we need to have an idea of what is good. Where doe…

You forget a category of people in the list of what is good. Unless it falls under the "utopia" category, there is the people that wants what mostly what we have today but durably available to a larger portion of the population.

"Brave New World" being a mainstream worry is relatively recent, 20 years ago, it was not. 20 years ago, we thought of our hedonistic society would look like Start Trek. So definitively not despicable. My theory is that it is all those indicators pointing to more misery / less good (depending if you live in the first world or outside) for our children generation is what makes people think we are living in Brave New World. (our children will study more to earn less money, work more, on a earth with less resources, less nature, harsher climate)

Anyway, the defeatist attitude of dismissing people because of their "moral high horse" is tiring too. Especially in the First World where society is definitively not representative of "the essence of humanity" the majority would impose. We enjoy Freedom and Human Rights that are not natural and as everything that has happened since 9/11 has demonstrated, fragile.

We defined freedom roughly by saying you can do whatever as long as it is no depriving others from theirs. That goes against our nature. We should maybe think of limiting pleasure to anything you can have that does not deprive the rest of the world of it.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#53

Post by frou_dh »

Something I found surprisingly infuriating lately is that on the YouTube app for iOS, you can be watching a video full-screen and, before the video is even finished, a thing slides up from the bottom about what it wants you to watch next. Fuck off! I'm still trying to watch the one video I elected to see and it's already trying to herd me down the attention deficit rathole.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#54

Post by hexasquid »

rikkus wrote: post #20

If you like your depressing stories in musical form, try listening to 'Amused to Death' by Roger Waters, inspired by the book. Great album. If you want to amuse yourself while listening, make sure you have your speakers set up so the stereo effect on the barking dog at the start sounds like it's coming from outside. Also make sure your system can cope with the sound of the bomb dropping.

Apparently titled as a reference to the book.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#55

Post by teekert »

Lately I have kept repeating to myself: You can either spend your time consuming or you can spend your time creating.

I have always felt guilty deep inside when watching something and not learning anything from it, I try to find that one thing, that small part of philosophy in a television series and use it as a motivation to watch (like the line: "We are the universe trying to figure itself out" and the stuff about humanity growing up in Babylon 5). But the feeling of uselessness kept creeping up.

Recently I have just told myself flat out: Just make something, I felt increasingly restless while watching TV. And it feels good, I make lego contraptions with my son, I make leds blink with Python on my RPi(s). It feels good. I don't know why but ever since I was I kid I have felt this, very deeply and only in the last year have I actually expressed it in words.

I have read 1984 and Brave new world in the last 3 years and they hit some sensitive spots for, must reads if you ask me.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#56

Post by StavrosK »

I never understood why Brave New World is a dystopia. To me, it always seemed to be saying "yes, everyone's happy all the time, but our current values are marginalized!", which is just the appeal to tradition fallacy.

Can someone please explain to me what's bad about everyone being happy all the time? "They aren't happy in ways that currently make us happy!" isn't a strong argument...

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#57

Post by TDL »

teekert wrote: post #55

Lately I have kept repeating to myself: You can either spend your time consuming or you can spend your time creating. I have always felt guilty deep inside when watching something and not learning anything from it, I try to find that one thing, that small part of philosophy in a television series and use it as a motivation to watch (like the line: "We are the universe trying to figure itself out" and the stuff about…

How are making lego contraptions & leds blink not amusement. Consuming is NOT evil, we consume food & water in order to survive. The mind needs rest just like the body does, there is nothing wrong with sitting back and watching the world (or tv) go by once in a while.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#58

Post by CmonDev »

teekert wrote: post #55

Lately I have kept repeating to myself: You can either spend your time consuming or you can spend your time creating. I have always felt guilty deep inside when watching something and not learning anything from it, I try to find that one thing, that small part of philosophy in a television series and use it as a motivation to watch (like the line: "We are the universe trying to figure itself out" and the stuff about…

"I make lego contraptions with my son, I make leds blink with Python on my RPi(s)." - just a different type of consumption. Unless you are building something conceptually new.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#59

Post by onion2k »

StavrosK wrote: post #56

I never understood why Brave New World is a dystopia. To me, it always seemed to be saying "yes, everyone's happy all the time, but our current values are marginalized!", which is just the appeal to tradition fallacy. Can someone please explain to me what's bad about everyone being happy all the time? "They aren't happy in ways that currently make us happy!" isn't a strong argument...

The people in BNW aren't happy per se. Anyone with a desire to do anything outside of the accepted norm is outcast. They have no freedom. They only really have the illusion of happiness. Whether that's enough is the fundamental question the book asks.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#60

Post by StavrosK »

onion2k wrote: post #59
StavrosK wrote: post #56

I never understood why Brave New World is a dystopia. To me, it always seemed to be saying "yes, everyone's happy all the time, but our current values are marginalized!", which is just the appeal to tradition fallacy. Can someone please explain to me what's bad about everyone being happy all the time? "They aren't happy in ways that currently make us happy!" isn't a strong argument...

The people in BNW aren't happy per se. Anyone with a desire to do anything outside of the accepted norm is outcast. They have no freedom. They only really have the illusion of happiness. Whether that's enough is the fundamental question the book asks.

Hmm, it's been a while and I don't remember that. Who was cast out?
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