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Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

theguardian.com

41–50 of 110 posts

Re: Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

#41

How one can misspell "entertainment" as "culture"? And the answer is clearly yes, the west consumes too much of it. The stress leads to distraction gluttony which leads to detachment from the real life which leads to stress as one can hardly navigate efficiently the social hive when his mental picture of it is taken from movies, shows, social media, etc.

The same thing happened to the word "meme". It went from "unit of mimicry and replication" to "funny image macro on social media".

Words gain new meanings. It doesn’t kill the old meanings. From context people understand which meaning one talks about.

And for those who haven’t heard of the Dawkinsian memes? Well I guess it wasn’t that succesfull of a meme after all.

Re: Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

#42

This reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote - although he was talking about technology, it seems appropriate here also :) “I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting an…

Related to this, I wonder how the average age of HN readership has changed over time. My guess is it has shifted towards an older audience continually since the beginning. To that end what new things are "against the order of things" today.

I am not sure the age has shifted that much with new users, but I do think that the breath of experts has changed. It shifted from technical ICs and startup entrepreneurs to basically anyone interested in new ideas and good discussion.

There are downsides but personally I think it is pretty cool to read the expert opinion of people completely outside my body of knowledge, Farmers, Neurologists, Chemical Engineers, etc.

Re: Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

#43

This reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote - although he was talking about technology, it seems appropriate here also :) “I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting an…

Related to this, I wonder how the average age of HN readership has changed over time. My guess is it has shifted towards an older audience continually since the beginning. To that end what new things are "against the order of things" today.

At 42 I'm still pretty hip to the fun of change.

Re: Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

#44

There's too much of everything. Over the last 20 years everyone rushed to get everything onto the internet, so it's noisy, messy and can be overwhelming if you aren't careful. Personally, I like to subscribe to Netflix for 30 days a year, catch up on stuff, and then cancel my subscription. Same for Amazon Prime, HBO Max and Disney+. I feel lucky that I never got used to Spotify, because it means I save $11/mo that I…

On the news tip. I do wish there was something like ombudsman for news and tracks it over time.

Re: Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

#45

How one can misspell "entertainment" as "culture"? And the answer is clearly yes, the west consumes too much of it. The stress leads to distraction gluttony which leads to detachment from the real life which leads to stress as one can hardly navigate efficiently the social hive when his mental picture of it is taken from movies, shows, social media, etc.

You are probably thinking about "high culture" when you mention "culture". Culture is everything humans do to express themselves, from literature to theatre to entertainment to dancing to philosophy and religion.

Re: Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

#47
post #45

How one can misspell "entertainment" as "culture"? And the answer is clearly yes, the west consumes too much of it. The stress leads to distraction gluttony which leads to detachment from the real life which leads to stress as one can hardly navigate efficiently the social hive when his mental picture of it is taken from movies, shows, social media, etc.

You are probably thinking about "high culture" when you mention "culture". Culture is everything humans do to express themselves, from literature to theatre to entertainment to dancing to philosophy and religion.

The two terms are not interchangeable. Entertainment is included in culture, but the article is about entertainment only but used culture in the title.

Re: Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

#48

This reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote - although he was talking about technology, it seems appropriate here also :) “I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting an…

This does feel like my opinion on NFTs / Cryptocoins.

Re: Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

#49
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assertion that this is a "western" problem is both baseless and bizarre. https://www.statista.com/statistics/454772/number-social-med...

You can dissect the western claim and find problems with it, you always can with any generalization. Or you can find it accurate enough as westerners have the time and money to spend on entertainment compared to the rest of the world. Suggestion for nitpicking: tell me about Japan.

You're gaslighting. A complete falsehood generated by your imagination is not "accurate enough" for any situation, and crying "nitpick" doesn't magically make you correct about anything.

Re: Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

#50
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can one not include entertainment into culture? The word "culture" always had two meanings, a. what people in some collective do and b. "high culture", the stuff that is somehow supposed to reflect on human condition.

Doesn’t “celebrities eating bugs” reflect on the human condition?

I don't think so; there is a light but no mirror.
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