Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amusing ourselves to death

onthepathofknowledge.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 126 posts

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#111

Post by bigdubs »

lotsofcows wrote: post #42

Why is that whenever I read something like, "Most of us will read this and continue living our life exactly the same way as before …wake up", my immediate response is, "Fuck off, you patronising wanker"? I think it's probably the author's assumption that they're on to something new - a thought that doesn't recur over and over again: http://www.tor.com/images/stories/blogs/13_10/BadForYou-tech...

James May, of all people, has repeatedly held the position that things are getting better and not worse.

I generally agree with this. It's important to be vigilant but a little optimism goes a long way as well.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#113

Post by angersock »

Waaaay back in highschool I read both 1984 and Brave New World (same weekend, even...come Monday I was extremely depressed), and came to a similar conclusion--because really, who wants to fight love?

Given the modern drive for micro-optimizing every bit of one's life (looking at you, /4 Hour.*/) there is a much better dystopic story out there by Harlan Ellison:

http://compositionawebb.pbworks.com/f/%5C%27Repent,+Harlequi...

And perhaps even more appropriately, given the themes of impersonally evil bureaucracy and supposed terrorism, the movie Brazil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_%281985_film%29

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#114

Post by pjc50 »

Chestofdraw wrote: post #83
pjc50 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell's book was entirely about state power; it was a parody of Stalinism. He was in the awkward position of being a socialist who'd been shot at by hardline communists during the Spanish civil war, and wanted to warn the left that Stalinism was really dangerous and should not be associated with.

Orwell was fighting for the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification) not against them, this faction had the support of Stalin. He was shot by members of Francos army, they were a Fascist / Nationalist party that had the support of the NAZIs and Fascist Italy.

I'd conflated two events; you're correct that Orwell was shot by an Fascist sniper, but there were also Stalinist purges going on against POUM ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia ) as it was a non-Stalinist Marxist faction.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#116

Post by cma »

Chestofdraw wrote: post #83
pjc50 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell's book was entirely about state power; it was a parody of Stalinism. He was in the awkward position of being a socialist who'd been shot at by hardline communists during the Spanish civil war, and wanted to warn the left that Stalinism was really dangerous and should not be associated with.

Orwell was fighting for the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification) not against them, this faction had the support of Stalin. He was shot by members of Francos army, they were a Fascist / Nationalist party that had the support of the NAZIs and Fascist Italy.

One correction: POUM was anti-Stalinist. By the end of Homage to Catalonia, Orwell describes how POUM was driven underground by pro-Stalinist parties PSUC and PCE (I think these were the two).

POUM was definitely left-anarchist/communist though.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#117

Post by FollowSteph3 »

trendoid wrote: post #82
FollowSteph3 wrote: post #50

I find that every generation thinks this of the next. For example here's what the early 1800's thought of students using paper: http://i.imgur.com/Od2BB51.jpg These kinds of declaration have been going on for centuries. There will always be some people who waste their time and others that produce. You can't produce, even low brow media, without some active members of the population who have to first create it ;)

Its not just about creating, its also what these people are creating and whats the incentive to create? Do these creators ever think about the repercussions of their creations on the society? If your creation is not motivating people to create themselves or even making them learn something interesting, I am not sure if its the ideal creation.

It's a catch-22. You can't have content without creators, and if the content gets so bad that no one creates anymore, then you have no new content, which means you get more creators. It's an oscillation.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#118

Post by kristofferR »

normloman wrote: post #86
kristofferR wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's the problem with it? I surely think a lot of popular culture is stupid/a waste of time, but as long as I (and others) have the freedom to freely chose more "fruitful" things to do with our time - then what's the big deal?

You have less freedom than you think. Timesinks are addictive. We've all clicked on a link-bait headline, even though we knew it would waste our time, because the text was so enticing. And most can remember playing a boring video game longer than they wanted because they were distracted by some manipulative aspect of the game (need another level / badge / chicken on my farm). It's gotten so bad, people regularly refe…

Sure, but what's the alternative?

Should the government ban stupid stuff in order to force people into "more satisfying pleasures" though a "moral ecology" that discourages addictive/pointless things?

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#119

Post by trendoid »

FollowSteph3 wrote: post #117
trendoid wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not just about creating, its also what these people are creating and whats the incentive to create? Do these creators ever think about the repercussions of their creations on the society? If your creation is not motivating people to create themselves or even making them learn something interesting, I am not sure if its the ideal creation.

It's a catch-22. You can't have content without creators, and if the content gets so bad that no one creates anymore, then you have no new content, which means you get more creators. It's an oscillation.

I was actually addressing this line of yours :

>There will always be some people who waste their time and others that produce.

The people who are producing are creating content which encourages people to waste time. Producers will say 'we are just making what people want' but the problem is that most people don't know what they want. Its not like they watch 5-6 hours of TV and go to sleep feeling good about themselves. Producers will keep creating that since it equals shit loads of money but concomitantly it also ends up making majority of population less creative, less informed and more distracted.

Re: Amusing ourselves to death

#120

Post by crazygringo »

Doesn't practically every high schooler (in the U.S. at least) read both books, be assigned an essay to ask which one has happened, and then come to the conclusion that we're far more like Brave New World? As a foreword to a book, this isn't exactly original stuff.

But there's also a counterpoint, which is that all the distraction, or the pleasure, or gossip, or whatever it is -- that's the stuff that it means to be human. We don't just mindlessly watch TV -- we talk about it with friends, joke about it, have fun with it. When a man comes home after a hard day of work, and wants to unwind by watching Celebrity Apprentice with his wife, I think sometimes people are a little to quick to judge. Everybody needs their 'guilty pleasures'. That doesn't mean that's all we are.

Post reply on HN