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Researchers in Germany are giving out scholarships in “idleness”
- this_user 6y ago"Researchers" is perhaps saying a bit much. It is an art school that is doing this, so it probably counts more as an art project.
- sitkack 6y agoI am willing to spend in a cabin overlooking a lake, perhaps more of a pond.
- zwieback 6y agoTo get the scholarship the applicant has to explain what they will stop doing and how it might improve their life or the environment around them. So it's not really money for nothing...
- itronitron 6y agoSounds like work.
- droopyEyelids 6y agounless you've thought about all the eternalized effects of your job.
- everdumb 6y agoWe really are evolving into an Eloi Morlock society. It's amazing that a bunch of presumably smart and well educated people with access to resources would be incentivized to conclude this is the best way to spend their marginal dollars in the world that currently exists.
- Bootwizard 6y agoUsername checks out
- itronitron 6y agoA couple thousand for some data collection. How much money gets spent every minute by companies to collect data they will never use?
- luckylion 6y agoI guess that's a good argument for corruption at any scale: there are always bigger cases of wasted money somewhere.
- everdumb 6y agoYes but that's my point. So many facets of society just have this rotting sword of Damocles hanging over them. Academia, the private sector - at this point is there any real difference?
- tengbretson 6y agoReally putting the "scholar" in scholarship I see.
- 082349872349872 6y ago"The institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture..." According to Veblen, “saying, ‘I have time to dream … meet friends, put up my feet – I have time to do nothing?’” has been and is the way to gain social prestige. > "But the whole of the life of the gentleman of leisure is not spent before the eyes of the spectators who are to be impressed with that spectacle of honorific leisure which in the ideal scheme makes up his life. For some part of the time his life is perforce withdrawn from the public eye, and of this portion which is spent in private the gentleman of leisure should, for the sake of his good name, be able to give a convincing account. He should find some means of putting in evidence the leisure that is not spent in the sight of the spectators." is no longer a problem in the age of the cell phone.
- dfxm12 6y agoSometimes the only winning move is not to play. The headline does make a joke of it, but consider the mission: “If we want to live in a society that consumes less energy, wastes fewer resources, [the constant success spiral] is not the right system of values,” Professor von Borries told Germany’s Deutsche Welle broadcaster. Some successes certainly are worth wasting resources on, and I'm sure no oncologists will get approved for this scholarship. There is a great deal of busy and redundant work out there though. No one should be stuck doing that...
- aj7 6y agoAs it is, Germany’s permissive culture can turn a bachelor’s degree into a five-year fully paid for party.
- dgellow 6y agoWhat do you mean? You're not paid as a student, you still have to get some income from somewhere.
- thelastinuit 6y agoHuh, if i take that scholarship, i will end up dead by the end of the week. Suicide.
- Stevvo 6y agoIs anyone intentionally idle? People that are considered idle have as many hopes, dreams and desires as the most productive. Things get in the way like procrastination, depression, malaise etc.