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In 1985, Neil Postman observed an America imprisoned by its own need for amusement. He was, it turns out, extremely prescient.
[...] Many Americans get their news filtered through late-night comedy and their outrages filtered through Saturday Night Live. They—we—turn to memes to express both indignation and joy.
[...] Postman today is best remembered as a critic of television: That's the medium he directly blamed, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, for what he termed Americans' "vast descent into triviality," and the technology he saw as both the cause and the outcome of a culture that privileged entertainment above all else. But Postman was a critic of more than TV alone. He mistrusted entertainment, not as a situation but as a political tool; he worried that Americans' great capacity for distraction had compromised their ability to think, and to want, for themselves. He resented the tyranny of the lol. His great observation, and his great warning, was a newly relevant kind of bummer: There are dangers that can come with having too much fun.
In 1984, Americans took a look around at the world they had created for themselves and breathed a collective sigh of relief. The year George Orwell had appointed as the locus of his dark and only lightly fictionalized predictions—war, governmental manipulation, surveillance not just of actions, but of thoughts themselves—had brought with it, in reality, only the gentlest of dystopias. Sure, there was corporatism. Sure, there was communism. And yet, for most of the Americans living through that heady decade, 1984 had not, for all practical purposes, become Nineteen Eighty-Four. They surveyed themselves, and they congratulated themselves: They had escaped.
Or perhaps they hadn't. Postman opened Amusing Ourselves to Death with a nod to the year that had preceded it. He talked about the freedoms enjoyed by the Americans of 1984—cultural, commercial, political. And then he broke the bad news: They'd been measuring themselves according to the wrong dystopia. It wasn't Nineteen Eighty-Four that had the most to say about the America of the 1980s, but rather Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. "In Huxley's vision," Postman noted, "no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history." Instead: "People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think."
The vehicle of their oppression, in this case? Yep, the television. Which had, Postman argued, thoroughly insinuated itself on all elements of American life—and not just in the boob-tubed, couch-potatoed, the-average-American-watches-five-hours-of-television-a-day kind of way that is so familiar in anti-TV invectives, but in a way that was decidedly more intimate.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/04/are-we-having-too-much-fun/523143/
Are we having tooooo much fun ?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @08:37PM
The late night shows (some of them, some of the time) provide satire that points out hypocrisy much better than the MSM which seems more inclined to report "balanced" news without a bigger context. Everything is he said, she said.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 30 2017, @08:38PM (26 children)
Otherwise this becomes another rant that the world isn't perfect. I think we all have that already figured out.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Sunday April 30 2017, @08:43PM (15 children)
In response to your question: doing something to bring this world one little step closer to perfection?
(I don't know, like taking out a piece of EPA... or putting it back, or whatever. Endless fun, I tell yea)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by aristarchus on Sunday April 30 2017, @08:57PM (11 children)
Sometimes, we should really listen to Aristotle, The Philosopher.
Pleasant amusements also are thought to be of this nature; we choose
them not for the sake of other things; for we are injured rather than
benefited by them, since we are led to neglect our bodies and our
property. But most of the people who are deemed happy take refuge
in such pastimes, which is the reason why those who are ready-witted
at them are highly esteemed at the courts of tyrants; they make themselves
pleasant companions in the tyrants' favourite pursuits, and that is
the sort of man they want. Now these things are thought to be of the
nature of happiness because people in despotic positions spend their
leisure in them, but perhaps such people prove nothing; for virtue
and reason, from which good activities flow, do not depend on despotic
position; nor, if these people, who have never tasted pure and generous
pleasure, take refuge in the bodily pleasures, should these for that
reason be thought more desirable; for boys, too, think the things
that are valued among themselves are the best. It is to be expected,
then, that, as different things seem valuable to boys and to men,
so they should to bad men and to good. Now, as we have often maintained,
those things are both valuable and pleasant which are such to the
good man; and to each man the activity in accordance with his own
disposition is most desirable, and, therefore, to the good man that
which is in accordance with virtue. Happiness, therefore, does not
lie in amusement; it would, indeed, be strange if the end were amusement,
and one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in
order to amuse oneself. For, in a word, everything that we choose
we choose for the sake of something else-except happiness, which is
an end. Now to exert oneself and work for the sake of amusement seems
silly and utterly childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one
may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement
is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot
work continuously. Relaxation, then, is not an end; for it is taken
for the sake of activity.
[emphasis added.]
Now GET back to Work!!!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 30 2017, @09:26PM
I will, magister, I will... only it will happen next Saturday.
Right now, I'm about to leave for office... to amuse myself (a well deserved relaxation after the past intense working weekend) and earn some money in the process; all of this without making myself better for 5 days.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @10:03PM (4 children)
We don't have to choose between amusement as a goal or work as a goal. We can have both. It's called a balanced life.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday April 30 2017, @10:20PM (3 children)
No, it is not a balance, Aristotle says we amuse ourselves in order to relax, so that we might to great and virtuous things. All play and no work makes Jack a boy. Did you even read the text?
παίζειν δ᾽ ὅπως σπουδάζῃ, κατ᾽ Ἀνάχαρσιν, ὀρθῶς ἔχειν δοκεῖ: ἀναπαύσει γὰρ ἔοικεν ἡ παιδιά, ἀδυνατοῦντες δὲ συνεχῶς πονεῖν ἀναπαύσεως δέονται. οὐ δὴ τέλος ἡ ἀνάπαυσις:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @10:44PM (2 children)
so that we might [aspire] to great and virtuous things. All play and no work makes Jack a [dull] boy
Slow down, you old fart.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Sunday April 30 2017, @11:36PM (1 child)
Thanks for the edits, gweg. But the second one is not correct. "All play and no work makes Jack a boy" is an intentional reversal of "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Aristotle's point is that having entertainment as a goal is childish. And I love how the strikeout tag doesn't work in the comment title, but does show up in the title in the message!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @12:39AM
Well, I for one am all for titles etc. to be interpreted in as <pre>-wrapped, '&', '<' etc. thereby getting passed as typed. It's convenient. And as a site luser, I don't really want html being injected into article titles kthx?
(Score: 3, Informative) by anubi on Monday May 01 2017, @08:23AM (4 children)
I love Aristotle's take on it.
I find myself happiest when I am working... but on MY stuff.
I can get interested in someone else's stuff, but they usually douse my enthusiasm quite quickly using proven managerial methods of micromanaging me.
Probably the most effective means of turning the joy of work into misery is having to be subordinate to someone I have no respect for.
Then the whole workplace experience degrades to yet another cappuchin monkey, cucumber, and grape demonstration.
You an engineer? You create content. Will you work for $25/hour? Oh him? Lawyer. He protects the content. $600/hour! Oh, me? Manager. I find guys who will produce content for $25/hour. I get paid $200K/yr salary for my leadership and people handling skill. You mad, bro?
I'd rather be working on my designs than damn near anything else, until I either get too hungry, too sleepy, or have to go take a crap.
But that corporate cappuchin monkey thing has me so frustrated that I don't even try anymore to appease that type. Just a bunch of tie-guys trying to pass off least-effort attempts to investment groups.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 01 2017, @08:57AM (3 children)
Of course that is the point. For most wage-slaves, a job is only a way to pay for amusement. It makes not sense otherwise. But this is the point. A real job is something you do because it is worth doing, of itself, not a means to make money so you can afford a Blizzard Account. (Oh, too close?). So there is a difference between a job as a means, and a job as an end-in-itself, and I hope everyone will be able to find their calling, that job they want to do, not one they have to do, so they can find happiness in the end. Nothing is so pathetic as working very hard so you can stop working (retire), and then just wait to die. What a meaningless existence. Kind of like being a Real Estate Developer in New York, and at the end realizing you were just charging people more than you should because you could. And then running for President on a whim!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Monday May 01 2017, @10:00AM (2 children)
I guess I was one who got out of having to play the part of a monkey for an organ-grinder. I hated dressing up in suit and tie, and having to watch what I told the customers.
That is, if the customers ever saw me.
Yes, I would like to leave something of me behind. Hopefully, if its good enough, it will grow.
One thing I can say is that the stuff I have been economically forced to make wasn't all that good. Cheapened to the point that I certainly would not buy it. Anyone seeing something made in the last 20 years or so know exactly what I mean. There is some good stuff out there, but most big businesses want to get the new,shiny out there even if its buggy as hell.
I just want to do it right. Even if it does take longer. I want to do it the way I would build it if I were making it to last forever.
I had a PC made that way. It worked perfectly from the day it was made to the day I finally let it go from sheer obsolescence. Same with my old Western Electric 500 series telephone. Made to last.
No, I never owned a gaming system. Some of my friends had them. I would watch them play it for hours on end... but, like watching sports on television, I simply found no enjoyment in it. I have a whole mess of games that came with the PC I am typing this on. Never have played a one of 'em. I was much more interested in LTSpice and Eagle.
I will readily admit I probably spend way too much time on these computer forums. I am here, was at The Oil Drum, and recently joined a couple of diesel truck forums.
But mainly to have access to other people like me. I find their stories and posts far more interesting than that endless stream of drivel coming from most sources - including those venues which use sound tracks to cue me into what I am supposed to laugh at, even though I found nothing amusing in it. I hardly find tolerating a bunch of smoking drunks at a nightclub my cup of tea. Nor the affection of the attendant whores there. That's not something I would want to bring home and wake up to tomorrow.
I am probably autistic. Asperger. Have not been tested, but even if some doctor identifies me as such, its not gonna change what I like to do.
Eventually, if things work out for me, I want to go to the middle of nowhere in some remote area and build a small city with some people like myself, make, and sell these things, as well as custom designs built around them. I mean somewhere where I can go enjoy nature for a while when I need to think about things... and have that same lifestyle for those I work with. New Mexico, Arizona, Maybe Texas, Arkansas, Rockies or Smokies. Somewhere out of this damned pressure cooker pot of regulation, traffic, and extreme real estate pricing. If I am flustered and wanna go fish - so be it. And I want the same for anyone working with me on this. I do not need to be number one. I just want to enjoy what life is left in me with friends who enjoy the same kind of thing. And get away from those who make life miserable.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @03:22PM (1 child)
Have you visited Arcosanti? https://arcosanti.org/ [arcosanti.org]
I've been there twice, in the early 80s and around 2000. The growth in 15+ years was well thought out. By now they might be open to adding in some new business activities in addition to casting bells, and visitors that pay to stay there for a period. Too much sun and too hot for my taste (I'm redheaded, sunburn in minutes), but an interesting intentional community that has survived.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:57AM
That is an interesting link. Thanks!
They noted no air conditioning. That is probably one of the first things I would want to work on. If I can get some solar panels, some compressors, propane, and heat exchangers, I'd have an ice-bank running. That looks like a really hot area. Hope they have access to water.
I wonder why they are going conventional above ground housing? For something experimental like this... I am wondering subterranean.
They are now on my "visit list" when I get my van all updated and ready for road trip.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:15PM (2 children)
In response to your question: doing something to bring this world one little step closer to perfection?
Why assume that would happen or that entertainment doesn't help?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04 2017, @12:33PM (1 child)
Read this [soylentnews.org] (I hate to be redundundandant - grin)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 04 2017, @03:45PM
For example, there is a huge amount of game playing among animal species. I believe this actually has evolutionary advantage since it allows animals, including us, a chance to simulate various sorts of activities when we're not in life-threatening danger. This manifests in such serious human activities as drills, where important activities are attempted under safe, controlled situations, but intended to simulate closely an activity under considerable danger.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 30 2017, @09:57PM (8 children)
Easy answer. Get bored, crack a book. For chronic boredom, get a job. If the job itself contributes to boredom, start another career. If you're half as smart as you think you are, and you can't cure your boredom, work on your education. In short, do something useful. Take up a hobby, like gardening, or animal breeding. Or auto repair, or remodeling. Or, maybe even do some charitable work.
I wonder how many of us here spend hours each week in front of a screen. And, how many hours. Presuming that most of us here have IQ's over 100, do you never get the feeling that you've totally wasted those hours, laughing at inane bullshit? Comedies that are so flat, that the producer has to supply canned laughter to cue the audience that it's time to laugh? And movies that are so absurd that we have coined the phrase "suspended disbelief". I recall a scene with Rambo walking along firing everything and everyone up with TWO freaking machine guns. FFS, you won't find very many people capable of holding a machine gun and firing it, let alone two. Ask our Mighty Buzzard - I understand that he was required to tote a machine gun around while in service.
Television rots your mind, and Neil Postman understood that. Today's internet is probably just as bad for most people. Windows 10 helps to demonstrate that.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @11:54PM (5 children)
For chronic boredom, get a job.
Boomer asshole detected. No, motherfucker, you get a fucking job, you smug piece of shit. Times have changed since you were young and stupid, you old moron. You can't just "get" a job anymore. The way the job market works today, you don't get the job unless you already have the job. That's right, the exact job you applied for, you need to be doing it already, at the exact same place you applied. This is what stupid fuckers like you fail to understand is called a Catch-22 situation. Human resources departments everywhere know very well the fact that eludes your stupid asshole brain, which is that jobs don't need people anymore. Now, you, die as soon as possible, senile old coot. Fuck you to hell.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @01:17AM (3 children)
Boomer asshole detected. No, motherfucker, you get a fucking job, you smug piece of shit. Times have changed since you were young and stupid, you old moron. You can't just "get" a job anymore. The way the job market works today, you don't get the job unless you already have the job. That's right, the exact job you applied for, you need to be doing it already, at the exact same place you applied. This is what stupid fuckers like you fail to understand is called a Catch-22 situation. Human resources departments everywhere know very well the fact that eludes your stupid asshole brain, which is that jobs don't need people anymore. Now, you, die as soon as possible, senile old coot. Fuck you to hell.
Don't hold back. Tell us how you *really* feel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @05:02AM (1 child)
U+1F3BB
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @08:32AM
That's one way to spell "fuck you, got mine!"
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday May 01 2017, @10:35AM
I think he just did.
Ok, given I am now well into retirement age, I look back and see how fortunate I was to be able to have a decent paying job ( i.e. businesses wanted my expertise enough to pay me pretty well for working for them ) compared to what I see today, with way too many STEM graduates vying for a small fraction of the jobs which were available when I was coming through.
I think the guy's spot-on with his frustration with finding a job. I tried too, with all the experience I had when I was laid off from aerospace. His story is the same as mine. We simply don't do that ( in my case, electronic design ) in USA anymore. Even my trade mags have ceased to exist.
I am of the strong impression that if I am ever to work again in the thing I love to do, I will have to create my own job.
The only old farts anyone wants are the old farts who know someone else who has the power to spend yet someone else's money... i.e. knows a Congressman.
Who gives a damn about control system theory? Just buy a smart controller and be done with it - just press the "autoset" button. You spend all this money getting educated on the "modern" languages, and they are out of date by the time you have completed all the requirements for a degree. I may know how to design nearly any interface imaginable, but you can also find those interfaces somewhere on the internet, so why hire me to build one?
I've come far short of regaining meaningful employment since layoff.
I can only imagine the problems younger people having far less experience than I are having.
Their prime strength is they are likely more enthusiastic ( well, I was before I experienced the ignominy of being micromanaged ), and are more likely to accept a job for peanuts.
Their prime weakness is their inexperience will lead them to repeat the same things I found out when I spent way too much time pursuing "gusts of wind".
I believe a lot of us here know that years of experience have a tendency to form pretty well-tuned bullshit detectors.
While modern business methods seem to have gravitated more toward salesmanship ( artful lying to investors ) rather than production of robust product.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 01 2017, @04:29AM
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Monday May 01 2017, @01:20AM (1 child)
Next poll question then?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 01 2017, @04:56AM
Sure - go with it. I suppose that honesty requires me to admit that I sit in front of a "screen" for several hours per week. But, my screens are interactive. So, we'll need a couple choices for computers - one for entertainment, another for "other".
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday April 30 2017, @10:39PM
not just assert that current entertainment doesn't seem very productive and think that is a problem somehow.
I'm not sure that's what TFA is saying at all. It's actually pretty unclear what the overall point of the article is, other than a meditation on Neil Postman's book from the 1980s and how it was "prescient" in various ways. The author of TFA seems to go back and forth between agreeing the Postman's critique of American culture, claiming that he "over-romanticized" historical aspects of the pre-television era, and just making random connections with things that have happened since the 1980s. I don't sense an overall argument that entertainment is bad (though Postman certainly thought so). The only general argument seemingly made here is that the particular brand of media and entertainment is "distinctly American" in some ways. The conclusion to the article is just bizarre, drawing on Brian Williams calling images of missiles "beautiful pictures," though people have found "beauty" in much more horrible things for generations.
And frankly, the closer I read TFA, the more oversimplifying I see. There's this extended section (based on Postman) about how the telegraph changed American life. But most of the nefarious things it supposedly brought existed before -- "yellow journalism" wasn't an invention of the telegraph, and newspapers had already been creating "entertaining" news for centuries by that point.
The author's historical claims are no better:
Still, Postman understood what might come, because he understood what had been. He saw the systems of things. In one way he couldn’t have imagined the world of 2017, one in which television, still, defines so much of American life.
Really? He had already lived though a few decades of television and saw it only expand its power.
He couldn’t have anticipated Samantha Bee or John Oliver or Seth Meyers or Stephen Colbert—he couldn’t have known how comedians would come to double, in a culture saturated with information, as journalists.
Many comedians had been political in the past, though they didn't tend to have talk shows. Editorial cartoons had been around for centuries. Talk-show monologues often gave pointed political commentary. SNL's "Weekend Update" had already been around for a decade before Postman's book. Heck, the 1980s was a golden age for Doonesbury. Was this "journalism" or merely satire? I don't know, but comedians and satirists had been giving novel spins on current events for centuries, some doing more "research" than others.
He couldn’t have known that celebrities would be regularly asked to weigh in on the political conversations of the day
Now I know something's off here. Does the author not remember McCarthyism and how Hollywood actors were frequently attacked because of their open political beliefs? Celebrities have been involved in politics ever since there were modern "celebrities." Heck, P.T. Barnum was elected to the Connecticut legislature in the 1800s. Beyond speaking out directly, celebrities used their art forms: Who can forget Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator? And by 1985 and Postman's book, you had prominent celebrities even joining the ranks of politics -- George Murphy as U.S. senator, Shirley Temple as an ambassador, and obviously Reagan was president. Celebrities as a group are probably more politically outspoken than in the past, but this was hardly novel in 1985.
Many of these trends have shifted or grew in unpredictable ways, but humans have sought entertainment ever since there were humans. Informed political satire is at least as old as ancient Greece and Rome. "Bread and circuses" have kept the populace entertained for millennia. Obviously the forms of entertainment have changed, and today many people have more "free time" to consume entertainment than in the past, but I don't think the overall roles of entertainment are as novel as TFA claims.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 30 2017, @08:39PM (2 children)
Speaking for myself, definitely yes!
I do it by not watching TV and getting my news and all range of political commentaries (from trollish through funny to insightful) from SN.
On the detriment of time much better used actually doing something, but hey... it's way toooo much fun.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @05:54AM (1 child)
getting my news and all range of political commentaries (from trollish through funny to insightful) from SN.
I hope that is a joke.
The balance of perspectives here are ridiculously insular.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 01 2017, @12:08PM
My point exactly.
I mean... where's the fun in balance?
Contrast with the fun in ridiculous.
(grin - do I make fun of SN or of your position?)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @08:55PM (6 children)
It often struck me that Dilbert was counter-productive. That by providing a release for the frustrations of corporate life it deflated people's motivation to improve the situation. All those dilberts tacked up on cubical walls were not small actions of rebellion, they were doses of soma that built up a tolerance in people to dehumanization.
The one day I saw that my current corporate employer was using Dilbert-branded human resources training materials and all my suspicions were confirmed.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 30 2017, @09:27PM (1 child)
In the real matrix humans don't provide the electric power because other means are more efficient. Instead humans are trained to fill cubicles in large warehouses, in which the capabilities that artificial intelligence or processing can't yet accomplish efficiently powers the data management of the ruling entities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @11:58PM
Mechanical turk. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),- on Monday May 01 2017, @01:13AM (3 children)
You assume/imply that there is something that could be done to improve the situation. Pray tell, what might that be?
Perhaps Dilbert et al are gestures of amused resignation in a hopeless situation.
https://newrepublic.com/article/114112/anonymouth-linguistic-tool-might-have-helped-jk-rowling
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @05:57AM (2 children)
Pray tell, what might that be?
Entreprenuership.
The rates of which have consistently declined [washingtonpost.com] coincident with the popularization of Dilbert.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday May 01 2017, @08:44AM (1 child)
Thanks for the link. I, too, want to open my own business, but am perplexed by the myriad legal environment of not stepping on someone else's toes.
I can barely afford to do the research to design my product line. Hiring someone is simply out of reach, as not only do I have another wage to pay, I also have to hire someone else to pave the way with the tax and worker-rights people to make it all legal.
Once I get going, now I run the risk of a "submarine patent" surfacing, or someone else bigger just wants to pick a legal fight I simply can't afford.
Our Congress has passed all sorts of law for the big guys so they don't have to compete with smaller guys. Patents, Copyrights, and quite broad interpretations thereof.
But the big guys are also international. They can readily relocate their business base to whatever nation grants them the most favorable tax treatment. Yet they expect the United States Military be called in to protect their claims if it comes to that, even if they relocate so as to evade United States Tax.
If I were Trump, I would tell all these businesses threatening to leave the United States.... "Fine - do what you want - but don't expect US to protect your patents and copyright if you defect - that is now the responsibility of those you pay your tax to - leave and you and your belongings are no longer under United States Law backed by the United States Military."
I am quite fed up with all this law that lets us see someone else do something and make a buck, while telling us we can't go and do likewise to make ourselves a buck.
Stuff like who can have rounded corners on a phone.... sheesh... this kinda crap has gone way too far. Why get into building stuff if there is so much more money to be made in litigation and banking?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @12:25PM
In Australia, any income you derive from hobbies is not taxable [business.gov.au].
Artists, creative and makers may be eligible to run their activity as a hobby [business.gov.au]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Lester on Sunday April 30 2017, @09:21PM (4 children)
The two most famous dystopias of XX century are "1984" by George Orwell and "Brave new world" by Aldous Huxley. 1984 is society controlled by repression and massive surveillance. On the other hand, Brave new world is a society that is controlled by entertainment, education, drugs, even genetic manipulation, any way to make people feel happy so they don't complain, in fact, the title of the book Spanish is "A happy world".
Much have been written about which of these dystopias we are heading to. That is an error, both are posible simultaneously and that is where we are going to.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 30 2017, @09:36PM
Anyone that isn't happy with the crap get a 1984 dose..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @02:18PM
So you've got all your dystopia bets covered and can claim victory no matter the outcome, and I'm sure in time to come you'll point out to everyone how prescient you are! There is, however, a "none of the above" option that breathless naysayers seem to ignore for millennia. For every generation, the current times are always the worst of times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @05:57PM (1 child)
Is "Brave New World" a dystopia? Almost everybody is happy, nobody goes hungry, war is eliminated, unexpected deaths are minimal and are combated by society, etc...
The society clearly has flaws, but I'd be hard-pressed to call it a broken society, let alone a dystopia.
(Score: 2) by Lester on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:07PM
I don't know who said: "Freedom doesn't make human being happy, it just make them human being"
In that Brave New World they have removed most of freedom of will. Delta individuals are little more than ants or bees, they are happy as long as they have their drug. Alpha individuals are freer and when they have any frustration, a dose of drug, and everything is all right again. They die as any other, but they die young (they don't get old) and hidden places, nobody cares, so there is no mourning.
You are right, they are happy. But if that is your idea of happiness, you can get it nowadays. Smoke a lot hashish and everything will be all right, and it isn't (you can't keep a job, etc) smoke a little more, and you won't mind, everything will be all right again. In fact, you can be even happier with an overdose of heroin.
That is an old philosophical discussion. What is better, free of will or happiness? Maybe that's false dilemma, maybe it isn't (ignorance is bliss). So let write it in other way If you had to, would you sacrifice freedom for happiness?. or even better, are we really free? or it is just a false perception and everything is written.
If you ask me, Brave new world is a dystopia. I don't like to think that I can be reduced to happy idiot slave.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @09:42PM
We're spending most of our time sleeping, according to the current poll, "How many hours' sleep do you average every 24 hours?" [soylentnews.org]
Of course "10 or more hours" is winning only because I'm having too much fun stuffing the poll.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @10:39PM (8 children)
news filtered through late-night comedy and [...] Saturday Night Live
At least those places actually cover the stories.
USA's corporate Lamestream Media won't ever criticize a megacorporation; the "news" outlet's parent company might lose that entity's ad revenue.
If they criticize the regime, they might^W will lose access; Trump has already pulled news agencies' White House credentials.
...and add to list of useful sources e.g. Jimmy Dore on Pacifica Radio. also webcast [google.com]
The fault here isn't the consumers.
It's the crappy offerings of a system whose primary interest is profit, not truth or information.
Lamestream Media became infotainment in the Reagan years.
we--turn to memes
Though the word used to describe that is new-ish, the concept is as old as human interaction.
Apparently, this "journalist" was having trouble making her quota of submitted words this week and had to pad her infotainment thing with nonsense.
...and how much interstitial crap can The Atlantic put between the article's title and the first paragraph of the content?
Sure, there was communism.
Nope. That has never existed on this planet.
If it had, national borders would have dissolved.
There would be a wordwide brotherhood of workers.
National governments do their utmost to thwart that stuff.
(See the Loyalty Day Celebrations Begin in U.S. journal entry by butthurt.)
Just like some hardware projects and some publishing projects and some biology projects call themselves "Open Source" (while offering no source code), some Totalitarian regimes have called themselves "Communist".
It's a complete aberration.
television
I turned it off for good in June 2009.
I was no longer interested enough in what was being offered to spend any money on new (ATSC) equipment.
With the Writers Guild set to go on strike, I'm even less enthusiastic about hearing what new "reality" schlock Hollyweird will be producing for the 2017-2018 season.
thoroughly insinuated itself on all elements of American life
With the internet, I have access to a billion "channels".
I can consume (and interact) on my own schedule.
I can block the ads.
TeeVee is obsolete.
In particular, megacorporations that try to convince me that I smell funny and need their new whiz-bang product to correct that are obsolete.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @11:10PM (1 child)
But, dude - you really do smell funny. There's a reason no female has ever been seen walking through your door. If you didn't keep her chained in the basement, there wouldn't be any women in your life at all.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @11:39PM
Plain old soap and water takes care of that.
...and people were making their own soap from fireplace ashes and fat going back many centuries.
It doesn't require the intercession of a megacorporation and its whiz-bang product.
...and where I buy soap, I can get 3 no-name bars for the same price as the megacorporation's 2-bar or 1-bar offerings.
I largely stopped paying attention to brand names (and ads) as soon as I left my parent's home.
Paying attention to Madison Avenue's efforts to convince you that commodity items are somehow notably different from each other is for suckers.
...and did you know that the first products that got advertising campaigns were cigarettes?
Again: suckers.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 30 2017, @11:31PM
On internet instead of being force fed whatever some produced deemed good for you. It's possible to seek out what one actually want.
Link.. Loyalty Day Celebrations Begin in U.S. [soylentnews.org] by butthurt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @12:02AM (2 children)
USA's corporate Lamestream Media won't ever criticize a megacorporation; the "news" outlet's parent company might lose that entity's ad revenue.
You are delusional.
Did you not see the wall-to-wall coverage of every air mistreated airline passenger over the least month?
Or the wall-to-wall coverage of Pepsi's epic fuck-up trying to co-opt BLM protestors to sell soda?
Every day there is criticism of megacorps on the news. Maybe its simplistic and too often its just low-hanging fruit. But nonetheless it happens all the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @01:15AM
He probably missed it because he turned it off.
Our media is controlled. Not by any central authority. But by a need to make money and fit a world view. Both of those alone are enough to bend our media into total junk.
There are some epic fuckups our corps do that never see the light of day. Because the CEO can call his buddy from school and have the story spiked before it even sees the light of day.
The media has an interesting problem now though. The 'people' have some control now. An epic fuckup like united went viral. Suddenly it was no back page story. It was front and center. To ignore it would be to make them look more fake than they already are.
The media has been twisting things for so long they no longer know how to be balanced. I will show you how they do it with a simple story. A dog bites someone.
v1 Man leaves untrained dog to viciously attacks young boy.
v2 Teenager antagonizes elderly mans dog, dog lashes out.
Both are the same story but leave out details for you to make up things and sway you to a POV. Once you see the spots where things are missing or inflammatory you can not turn it off. You even may think 'my news does not do this'. I 100% guarantee it does. You may even think 'I can spot that sort of thing and filter it out'. No you cant. It is designed to manipulate you. _gewgs way is the right way. Turn that shit off. They offer nothing other than outrage custom designed to make you addicted to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @03:55AM
Well, I'm not currently under the care of a mental health professional, so I don't know for sure that I'm not.
I wasn't, however, so much thinking of the stuff that Lamestream Media -will- cover as much as the stuff that they won't touch.
As the AC who replied first notes, I'd have to actually consume their junk to rate them these days.
On occasion, while I'm listening to my Smooth Jazz station, I"m doing something that prevents me from changing the station|switching off the radio when their (mostly-Rightist) Associated Press feed comes on.
Often, I already know what has happened over the last 24 hours and I am thoroughly unimpressed with AP's coverage.
Several times a week, I grab a webcast of something that includes The Thom Hartmann Program.
He's a Democrat and he really stays on top of what Lamestream Media is doing.
When they make glaring errors, he mentions that on his show.
After The March for Science on Saturday, he noted that the next day commercial TeeVee completely ignored it.
What we called Counter-Culture back in the 1960s (protests/marches/be-ins) almost always gets ignored by Lamestream Media--unless they want to twist it to try to somehow make it look ridiculous.
I also run into stuff by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR.org) who is constantly having to point out omissions, errors, and outright distortions in Lamestream Media stories.
They even have a half-hour radio show each week called Counterspin full of reports on the junk.
This is the kind of stuff that had me tune out modern commercial media.
After I realized that they're missing half of the stories (and getting the other half wrong) it's just not worth my attention.
Unless a news outlet that I trust vets their stuff and links to them, I typically won't bother with LSM.
I used to read sci.electronics.design regularly.
Every now and then, John Larkin would mention Howard Johnson's book about digital design and note that half of it was OK and half was bullshit; if you know which is which, you don't need the book.
That's how I feel about Lamestream Media.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @02:01AM (1 child)
Nope. That has never existed on this planet.
If it had, national borders would have dissolved.
There would be a wordwide brotherhood of workers.
National governments do their utmost to thwart that stuff.
It can not exist just because you say so. But it has been tried many times. From Nazisim (you know the socialist party) and Communism (you know the big red party) to Venezuela for a current example. Communism fails because of the same reason a dorm room with 10 people in it and no one will do the fucking dishes. People are inherently lazy and distrustful. Only a few exceptional ones will get off their ass and do something for the sake of doing it. Most people just want to sit on ass and do nothing. Think of all the jobs you ever had. Can you 100% say 'yep I did all of those because I liked them'. Oh you may have liked them at first but you no longer do them? Why? Because something better came along you upgraded to more money or happiness not because of some ideal you were doing better for those around you. In communism that does not exist for long. Eventually someone has to scrape the clogged fat toilet paper shitball out of a sewer. No one will do that because they want to. They will do it because they are ordered to by the central authority. You assume everyone is inherently nice and altruistic. I know many who will never fit that mold. They are total douchbags and will never change unless someone held a gun to their head and told them to change. Even then they would not change.
Pure capitalism also will fail but i can leave that as an exercise to the reader. It fails for similar reasons (if you want a hint).
You can pretend that communism has never been tried. It has been tried hundreds of times. It fails for the same reasons every time. Lack of resources and lack of people who are altruistic. Eventually you run out of resources and people willing to get more of them and do it for free.
I know you want it to be true but it is not. I know I do. But it is a big fat lie. Look no further than the way people and yourself act. You can see why it fails. Not for a lack of trying. But for the same reasons every single time. But you do not have to take my word for it to see the horror communism inflicts upon every country it visits. Make no mistake communism is the end game of socialism. Which is just a different way to achieve the same goal.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/37bffg/in_1989_wanting_to_see_how_the_americans_lived/ [reddit.com]
https://penetrate.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-randalls-grocery-store-ended-cold.html [blogspot.com]
BTW you can sign in you know, and I know you can do better :) Even your act of not signing in would not be allowed. As it would be seen as subversive to the culture.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @03:08AM
You're an idiot who's swallowed a whole bunch of Cold War bullshit.
I'll bet you believe the Australian Reactionaries who call themselves The Liberal Party magically become Liberal because they call themselves that.
The whole point of my paragraph was that any entity can call itself by whatever name it wants to.
That -name- doesn't mean anything.
Actions speak louder than words.
...and words have definitions.
For instance, "Communism" is a state of affairs that follows widespread Socialism (Democracy in the Workplace).
Without the 1st step, you can't have the follow-on condition.
As an example of calling things by an inappropriate name, you could call yourself well-informed.
Clearly, however, that isn't so.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 30 2017, @10:55PM (5 children)
I listen to music [theonion.com].
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @12:32AM (3 children)
Area man thinks the sound of his own voice is the sweetest music.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 01 2017, @08:49AM (2 children)
I'm going with MDC on this one. I don't even own a TV. I seem to have a monitor that serves Netflix and YouTube and Buggerall. But I just listen to music. Lately, the final symphonies of Mozart. The guy was a genious! And MDC is more often right than wrong, especially when it comes to the not listening to the voice that is your own self, or, more likely, the NSA, sending signals through your fillings in your teeth, telling you that Joannie does love Chachi, even though the Trump-supporting son-of-a-bitch, who we now know has a "micro-penis", disrespects his co-star in a way that not even Republican Hollywooders could allow.. . . I don't own a TV. I do not know who in the Hell Scott Baio is, nor do I care. And I also do not know who the Star of Celebrity Apprentice was. Amateurs.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday May 01 2017, @03:33PM (1 child)
I have a TV. I watch the news and The Big Bang Theory on it, as well as ocasionally plugging it in to the network and watching ulu and Netflix (for which I think my daughter, who entered her passwords into my TV the last time she visited).
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @05:10PM
Next time she visits could you get your daughter to install a spell checker for you? Thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:17AM
MDC I hear what you're implying: that one can enrich oneself through entertainment, which is not all vapid. One could say the same for reading books or playing sport.
The quandry is as deep as one wishes to take it. There can be no prove-able worthwhile goal in life. The best we have are subjective assessments, for which we might have conflicting support and conclusions.
This echoes a recent conversation here on soylent about zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:04AM
If everyone was busy watching TV or playing video games there would be a lot fewer people killing each other in real life.
Then again maybe real life is a game, we just don't know it yet, or something has malfunctioned so we don't know (I remember a Twilight Zone story along those lines).