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Humanity wasted 14,526 years watching Gangnam Style

wastedhumanity.com

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Re: Humanity wasted 14,526 years watching Gangnam Style

#41

Post by npsimons »

kailuowang wrote: post #28
darkchasma wrote: post #18

I hate the arrogance and pretence of this site as a concept. I'm far more productive than pretty much anyone I know, but I also need downtime to recharge.

It's not about productivity. Humanity could spend these 14,526 years listening to J.S. Bach, a genius whose talent found no match in the human history and yet dedicated as much as humanly possible of his life to music.

I love Bach; love, love, love Bach. Both of Gould's recordings of Goldberg variations, plus the Kimiko Ishizaka recording from the Open Goldberg Variations project (early backer).

That said, Gagnam style brought a smile to my face and added a bounce to my step; there's room for many things in culture and not all time is wasted, even "downtime". I'm sure Bach took breaks too.

Re: Humanity wasted 14,526 years watching Gangnam Style

#42

Post by NAFV_P »

buro9 wrote: post #36

Today I went to the loo, it took... say 90 seconds. I'm betting that everyone on Earth went to the loo today, and also averaged 90 seconds. Humanity wasted 19,889 years shitting today. It took only 21 years to build the Taj Mahal in India! What a waste.

I spend longer than 90 seconds to pinch a loaf. I also tend to daydream while I'm perched on the porcelain throne, often about data structures.

While we're on the subject, you might find this article entertaining: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groom_of_the_Stool

Re: Humanity wasted 14,526 years watching Gangnam Style

#43

Post by npsimons »

digitalboss wrote: post #3

From 3/07/12 - Nearly 6 Million Years of World of Warcraft Healthy for Players' Brains By one analyst's calculation, the 11 million or so registered users of the online role-playing fantasy World of Warcraft collectively have spent as much time playing the game since its introduction in 2004 as humanity spent evolving as a species-about 50 billion hours of game time, which adds up to about 5.9 million years. http://k…

Huh. This started ringing some bells, and sure enough, there was a previous HN thread on similar topic:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4624090

TLDR my response: don't be so judgmental.

Re: Humanity wasted 14,526 years watching Gangnam Style

#44

Post by iv_08 »

cliveowen wrote: post #9

I didn't see it! People are also amazed when I tell them I haven't seen Avatar, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I guess I'm just different than most people.

I can relate to you. I stopped watching YouTube years ago and I've never missed it since then.

Re: Humanity wasted 14,526 years watching Gangnam Style

#45

Post by sentenza »

kailuowang wrote: post #28
darkchasma wrote: post #18

I hate the arrogance and pretence of this site as a concept. I'm far more productive than pretty much anyone I know, but I also need downtime to recharge.

It's not about productivity. Humanity could spend these 14,526 years listening to J.S. Bach, a genius whose talent found no match in the human history and yet dedicated as much as humanly possible of his life to music.

And yet I find that his work is not the thing I need most of the time. And even when I want some Bach, I mostly resort to the excellent "jazzy" interpretations of Jaques Loussier[1].

Gangnam Style is brilliant. You can watch it dozens of times, always discovering something new. It also spawned a large number of extremely entertaining spoofs.

It would indeed be a sad world if we had peaked culturally at Bach. Fortunately, we haven't.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x6jzKpqeuw

Re: Humanity wasted 14,526 years watching Gangnam Style

#47

Post by darkchasma »

kailuowang wrote: post #28
darkchasma wrote: post #18

I hate the arrogance and pretence of this site as a concept. I'm far more productive than pretty much anyone I know, but I also need downtime to recharge.

It's not about productivity. Humanity could spend these 14,526 years listening to J.S. Bach, a genius whose talent found no match in the human history and yet dedicated as much as humanly possible of his life to music.

But I don't like Bach. I'm supposed to listen to what you think I should like, because you think Bach is better? Who gets to decide?

The terms arrogance and pretense were used for a reason.

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