4 ms·

> I firmly believe that increased technology makes smaller and smaller cogs of us all, making us worse and worse, concentrating real experiences and all that cr

by ef4 11y ago

> I firmly believe that increased technology makes smaller and smaller cogs of us all, making us worse and worse, concentrating real experiences and all that creative stuff onto fewer and fewer people who can actually afford it. This is just demonstrably false, by a whole host of measurable metrics. For example: Average people fly long distances dramatically more today than ever before. (And I'm not talking about just in rich countries -- regional airlines are booming in Africa and Asia too.) It's pretty hard to argue that visiting a faraway place is not a "real experience" that is more accessible than ever. The fraction of children in the world who go to school instead of doing menial labor is the highest in history and continuing to rise. And you can't have any "real experiences" if you're dead, so historically low global child mortality is generating an awful lot more real experiences. > You become ever closer to a mere regurgitator of pre packaged thoughts. It's rather rich to claim the past was better along this dimension, when most of history was dominated by orthodox religions backed by political elites, and only a tiny elite could even read. Unless you think literacy implies more regurgitation, in which case you've watered down the term enough that it loses it opprobrium.

quietplatypus 11y ago
The tourist industry and mentality is precisely what makes travel to another country less of a real experience. That's actually exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about, but that is lost on people like you who base all their thinking on metrics, which are always collected to justify an agenda, and this particular metric is about the global, totalizing economy, which brings me to my second point: More kids are in school? For what? To be a white collar slave? To be a white collar slavemaster (entrepreneur)? Death in menial labor, while undesirable, at least prevents one from fattening the elites' wallets with their brains. Where are the African and Asian artists? Scientists that arent just the tools of whoever is in charge? Philosophers with real, valuable ideas? I'll tell you, theyre the same as the ones in the rest of the world: few and far between, virtually unheard of. Similarly, low child mortality just currently means the commodification of children and childhood. I'd also say literacy could have resulted in more healthy attitudes and less regurgitation of what doesn't work, but few read for the sake of reading, and what they do read is trivial crap designed to keep them down. Your reply is exactly another example of what I'm talking about where all the improvements in technology and education yield only people who think everything is great and there cannot possibly be any systemic problems with the way we live, after all these numbers say everything is fine and if it cannot be quantified or if the numbers arent big enough, it is not worth pursuing or it doesnt exist!
- FreedomToCreate 11y ago
  Man you are a good troll. Cheers to you. I lol'd at the "Death in menial labor, while undesirable, at least prevents one from fattening the elites' wallets with their brains".
- ef4 11y ago
  Thanks for making the utter bankruptcy of Baudrillard's ethics so plain for all to see. Usually it's hiding under much more jargon. > More kids are in school? For what? To be a white collar slave? To be a white collar slavemaster (entrepreneur)? Death in menial labor, while undesirable, at least prevents one from fattening the elites' wallets with their brains. I'm a strong critic of schooling as its typically done, because it is indeed a conformity machine. But here's the thing: it's still better than sending all the kids to a salt mine, because that's a precondition for us to even be having this discussion. The kids who got sent to salt mines don't get to read Baudrillard and comment on HN. > Where are the African and Asian artists? On those continents, respectively. Racist much? > scientists... philosophers... virtually unheard of This has always been the human condition. I guarantee you the fraction of people who appreciated Aristotle during his life was a vanishingly small fraction of the human race. > Similarly, low child mortality just currently means the commodification of children and childhood. This is pretty hilarious, because high-mortality societies are the ones that have large families specifically because children are valued as sources of labor. Some societies didn't even name their infants until they got old enough to be out of the highest morality risk -- they were treated as fungible commodities before then. > I'd also say literacy could have resulted in more healthy attitudes It could have resulted in spontaneous world peace, too. But that kind of navel gazing is not relevant to the question of whether literacy is still better than nothing. It's clearly a precondition if you want those great scientists and philosophers to ever have a shot. > people who think everything is great and there cannot possibly be any systemic problems This is a giant straw man. Please find me a single person who thinks the world has no systemic problems. The presence of problems is a necessary precondition for someone like me to argue that things are getting better. "No problems" implies stasis, not improvement.
  - quietplatypus 11y ago

by ef4 11y ago

quietplatypus 11y ago

The tourist industry and mentality is precisely what makes travel to another country less of a real experience. That's actually exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about, but that is lost on people like you who base all their thinking on metrics, which are always collected to justify an agenda, and this particular metric is about the global, totalizing economy, which brings me to my second point: More kids are in school? For what? To be a white collar slave? To be a white collar slavemaster (entrepreneur)? Death in menial labor, while undesirable, at least prevents one from fattening the elites' wallets with their brains. Where are the African and Asian artists? Scientists that arent just the tools of whoever is in charge? Philosophers with real, valuable ideas? I'll tell you, theyre the same as the ones in the rest of the world: few and far between, virtually unheard of. Similarly, low child mortality just currently means the commodification of children and childhood. I'd also say literacy could have resulted in more healthy attitudes and less regurgitation of what doesn't work, but few read for the sake of reading, and what they do read is trivial crap designed to keep them down. Your reply is exactly another example of what I'm talking about where all the improvements in technology and education yield only people who think everything is great and there cannot possibly be any systemic problems with the way we live, after all these numbers say everything is fine and if it cannot be quantified or if the numbers arent big enough, it is not worth pursuing or it doesnt exist!

FreedomToCreate 11y ago
Man you are a good troll. Cheers to you. I lol'd at the "Death in menial labor, while undesirable, at least prevents one from fattening the elites' wallets with their brains".
ef4 11y ago
Thanks for making the utter bankruptcy of Baudrillard's ethics so plain for all to see. Usually it's hiding under much more jargon. > More kids are in school? For what? To be a white collar slave? To be a white collar slavemaster (entrepreneur)? Death in menial labor, while undesirable, at least prevents one from fattening the elites' wallets with their brains. I'm a strong critic of schooling as its typically done, because it is indeed a conformity machine. But here's the thing: it's still better than sending all the kids to a salt mine, because that's a precondition for us to even be having this discussion. The kids who got sent to salt mines don't get to read Baudrillard and comment on HN. > Where are the African and Asian artists? On those continents, respectively. Racist much? > scientists... philosophers... virtually unheard of This has always been the human condition. I guarantee you the fraction of people who appreciated Aristotle during his life was a vanishingly small fraction of the human race. > Similarly, low child mortality just currently means the commodification of children and childhood. This is pretty hilarious, because high-mortality societies are the ones that have large families specifically because children are valued as sources of labor. Some societies didn't even name their infants until they got old enough to be out of the highest morality risk -- they were treated as fungible commodities before then. > I'd also say literacy could have resulted in more healthy attitudes It could have resulted in spontaneous world peace, too. But that kind of navel gazing is not relevant to the question of whether literacy is still better than nothing. It's clearly a precondition if you want those great scientists and philosophers to ever have a shot. > people who think everything is great and there cannot possibly be any systemic problems This is a giant straw man. Please find me a single person who thinks the world has no systemic problems. The presence of problems is a necessary precondition for someone like me to argue that things are getting better. "No problems" implies stasis, not improvement.
- quietplatypus 11y ago