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Argh, what a crap. It totally ignores that we have constructive limits, i.e. we seem designed to live parts of the day on auto mode (which here equals to waste

Argh, what a crap. It totally ignores that we have constructive limits, i.e. we seem designed to live parts of the day on auto mode (which here equals to waste, but who knows, we don't control the background, and stuff happens even when sleeping). Its why some people try to optimize economy of daily constructive decisions by removing what seems to waste it (like choosing what to wear or not playing games). This is way way more prominent today than 2k years ago since in single day you are exposed to more information then for entire life back then. Lets get serious: Seneca, Buddha, Jesus, whoever, are irrelevant. Context changed dramatically.

blugio 6y ago
Not sure why you think this is a new problem. If you read more of Seneca, Buddhism, or Jesus' thought, you'll see this is part of the reason they talk about awareness, giving up your possessions, not running around doing useless tasks. They had a lot more insight into human nature than you appear to realize.
- majkinetor 6y ago
  Yeah, in human nature existing in the world 2k years ago. OK, take Hyperion book for example, do you think Seneca would be meaningful with all sort of 'technological distortions' existing in such world ?
  - coldtea 6y ago
    Even more so.
gmassman 6y ago
Are humans really designed to live life in auto-mode, of is that a byproduct of living in a modern society? Philosophers of the past may not have been exposed to the same amounts of information we take for granted daily, but biologically there's very little difference between them and us. I can identify with the Seneca quote, mainly for it's perspective that time is a resource to be spent, and potentially invested. Seems truer today than ever.
- majkinetor 6y ago
  What do you mean 'biologically'? Genome? Epigenome? Wings? I bet some of those differ a lot (hint: not wings:) We don't exist in vacuum: humans live among and with and as hosts for other creatures, and there is also environment that literally plays most important role. > I can identify with the Seneca quote, mainly for it's perspective that time is a resource to be spent, and potentially invested. Yeah, everything can be awesome in theory with little word or number massage. In real life, its usually not.
nothal 6y ago
Living life on auto pilot for certain points and moments actually is not the default way of existence, it's just the one many of us are most used to. I would highly recommend considering some mindfulness exercises or meditation. You'll begin to appreciate how much of the day you can live fully and attentively.
- majkinetor 6y ago
  I highly disagree. Living life on auto pilot seem to be default. Its all over our biology on every level because 'mindfulness' takes a lot of scarce energy.
  - swagasaurus-rex 6y ago
    Yet people run marathons, body build, invest themselves into work using an unbelievable amount of scarce energy. Minimizing energy expenditure is called laziness for a reason. You will learn the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret, as I've heard it said.
    - majkinetor 6y ago
      Minimizing energy expenditure is called efficiency.
talentedcoin 6y ago
LOL ok. Let’s get serious: more people still follow Buddha or Jesus today than follow Paul Graham or Steve Jobs ...
- amelius 6y ago
  At least they're not following Zuckerberg ...
- majkinetor 6y ago
  Most people will always follow, its also deep inside our programming.
  - talentedcoin 6y ago
    I was replying to the part of your comment where you claimed that these things were “not relevant”. How can they be not relevant if they still affect people existing in the world we see today?
    - majkinetor 6y ago
      Relevant as in for the current topic. Not relevant as in influence. Bugs influence me too, but its not relevant most of the time.
      - talentedcoin 6y ago
        “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls” — 1 Peter 1:24 “Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream; Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream. So is all conditioned existence to be seen.” —Diamond Sutra
    - paulryanrogers 6y ago
      Because some memes become entrenched? Even when they're hopelessly outdated and require lots of filtering or creative interpretation.
romanoderoma 6y ago
Do you really think that we have accomplished more as a society and technologically or are exposed to more everyday than the Romans 2 thousands years ago? Living the way we live is a modern invention, it has no more than 150 years, and it's already collapsing Meanwhile Romans built a city where a million and a half people lived and acqueducts to bring running clean water to all of them They built roads to go to every part of the empire and bring back to Rome thousands of tons of construction materials, mainly marble That they than used to build giant buildings that only many centuries later have been copied successfully They built ships to go to Africa and bring back to Rome elephants, tigers, lions, giraffes, rhinoceros, ippos and many other wild animals, alive! Imagine going in the streets of a modern city and meet an elephant, an animal that nowadays people rarely see in real life and think again about experiencing more than people in the past They did it for 450 years and did it so well that there are no elephants or lions in northern Africa anymore They were probably the best engineers and sokdiers in history, the Colosseum was built in mere 8 years But Their way of life was "otium et negotium" even if you don't know what they mean, neg-otium is clearly the negation of the world otium They were the foundation of Romans success, they worked half a day (negotium) and spent the rest of the day in idleness (otium) It was obviously different from today idea of "doing nothing at all" it meant more something like if you are free from the obligations of life, you can engage in intellectual activities They spent a lot of time not doing any kind of work or duty related stuff and yet achieved so much Only many centuries later the work became something organized that must be carried on during certain hours (shifts) in certain places for a certain amount of money So basically in ancient history most of the times people never really worked continuosly on the same thing and valued a lot their free time as a way to improve themselves, if their condition allowed it We must be very careful when we think that we have more time or have seen more things or are more advanced than ancient civilization Seneca was very modern, he discovered something universal about human struggle between certainty of death and the mundane uneventful life that most of us live and that's why his ideas survived He certainly wasn't stupid and certainly the average human of today is not more intelligent than Seneca just because they read more news on social networks... Auto pilot is not really what I would describe life in ancient times That's a modern idea probably best depicted by Fritz Lang's Metropolis, that was in fact shot in 1925 when the effects of the mass industrialization were becoming clear Trivia: the tower of Babel in metropolis is modelled around this painting by Pieter Bruegel https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_(Vienna)_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited.jpg https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Bruegel_the... where the tower of Babel is painted as recursive Colosseums, one inside the other, to express the idea that the Romans tried to reach god and were punished for their hubris (there is more to that, the Colosseum was also a place that symbolised persecution for Christians)
stoxastic 6y ago
I don't get how what you are saying is related with either Seneca or what PG wrote. Do you believe that we don't have much time (because we cannot do otherwise)?
coldtea 6y ago
>This is way way more prominent today than 2k years ago since in single day you are exposed to more information then for entire life back then. Most of that information is irrelevant to your everyday life, and so the net actionable average is about the same as then. >Lets get serious: Seneca, Buddha, Jesus, whoever, are irrelevant. Context changed dramatically. LOL, not even close.

blugio 6y ago

Not sure why you think this is a new problem. If you read more of Seneca, Buddhism, or Jesus' thought, you'll see this is part of the reason they talk about awareness, giving up your possessions, not running around doing useless tasks. They had a lot more insight into human nature than you appear to realize.

majkinetor 6y ago
Yeah, in human nature existing in the world 2k years ago. OK, take Hyperion book for example, do you think Seneca would be meaningful with all sort of 'technological distortions' existing in such world ?
- coldtea 6y ago
  Even more so.

gmassman 6y ago

Are humans really designed to live life in auto-mode, of is that a byproduct of living in a modern society? Philosophers of the past may not have been exposed to the same amounts of information we take for granted daily, but biologically there's very little difference between them and us. I can identify with the Seneca quote, mainly for it's perspective that time is a resource to be spent, and potentially invested. Seems truer today than ever.

majkinetor 6y ago
What do you mean 'biologically'? Genome? Epigenome? Wings? I bet some of those differ a lot (hint: not wings:) We don't exist in vacuum: humans live among and with and as hosts for other creatures, and there is also environment that literally plays most important role. > I can identify with the Seneca quote, mainly for it's perspective that time is a resource to be spent, and potentially invested. Yeah, everything can be awesome in theory with little word or number massage. In real life, its usually not.

nothal 6y ago

Living life on auto pilot for certain points and moments actually is not the default way of existence, it's just the one many of us are most used to. I would highly recommend considering some mindfulness exercises or meditation. You'll begin to appreciate how much of the day you can live fully and attentively.

majkinetor 6y ago
I highly disagree. Living life on auto pilot seem to be default. Its all over our biology on every level because 'mindfulness' takes a lot of scarce energy.
- swagasaurus-rex 6y ago
  Yet people run marathons, body build, invest themselves into work using an unbelievable amount of scarce energy. Minimizing energy expenditure is called laziness for a reason. You will learn the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret, as I've heard it said.
  - majkinetor 6y ago
    Minimizing energy expenditure is called efficiency.

talentedcoin 6y ago

LOL ok. Let’s get serious: more people still follow Buddha or Jesus today than follow Paul Graham or Steve Jobs ...

amelius 6y ago
At least they're not following Zuckerberg ...
majkinetor 6y ago
Most people will always follow, its also deep inside our programming.
- talentedcoin 6y ago
  I was replying to the part of your comment where you claimed that these things were “not relevant”. How can they be not relevant if they still affect people existing in the world we see today?
  - majkinetor 6y ago
    Relevant as in for the current topic. Not relevant as in influence. Bugs influence me too, but its not relevant most of the time.
    - talentedcoin 6y ago
      “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls” — 1 Peter 1:24 “Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream; Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream. So is all conditioned existence to be seen.” —Diamond Sutra
  - paulryanrogers 6y ago
    Because some memes become entrenched? Even when they're hopelessly outdated and require lots of filtering or creative interpretation.

romanoderoma 6y ago

Do you really think that we have accomplished more as a society and technologically or are exposed to more everyday than the Romans 2 thousands years ago? Living the way we live is a modern invention, it has no more than 150 years, and it's already collapsing Meanwhile Romans built a city where a million and a half people lived and acqueducts to bring running clean water to all of them They built roads to go to every part of the empire and bring back to Rome thousands of tons of construction materials, mainly marble That they than used to build giant buildings that only many centuries later have been copied successfully They built ships to go to Africa and bring back to Rome elephants, tigers, lions, giraffes, rhinoceros, ippos and many other wild animals, alive! Imagine going in the streets of a modern city and meet an elephant, an animal that nowadays people rarely see in real life and think again about experiencing more than people in the past They did it for 450 years and did it so well that there are no elephants or lions in northern Africa anymore They were probably the best engineers and sokdiers in history, the Colosseum was built in mere 8 years But Their way of life was "otium et negotium" even if you don't know what they mean, neg-otium is clearly the negation of the world otium They were the foundation of Romans success, they worked half a day (negotium) and spent the rest of the day in idleness (otium) It was obviously different from today idea of "doing nothing at all" it meant more something like if you are free from the obligations of life, you can engage in intellectual activities They spent a lot of time not doing any kind of work or duty related stuff and yet achieved so much Only many centuries later the work became something organized that must be carried on during certain hours (shifts) in certain places for a certain amount of money So basically in ancient history most of the times people never really worked continuosly on the same thing and valued a lot their free time as a way to improve themselves, if their condition allowed it We must be very careful when we think that we have more time or have seen more things or are more advanced than ancient civilization Seneca was very modern, he discovered something universal about human struggle between certainty of death and the mundane uneventful life that most of us live and that's why his ideas survived He certainly wasn't stupid and certainly the average human of today is not more intelligent than Seneca just because they read more news on social networks... Auto pilot is not really what I would describe life in ancient times That's a modern idea probably best depicted by Fritz Lang's Metropolis, that was in fact shot in 1925 when the effects of the mass industrialization were becoming clear Trivia: the tower of Babel in metropolis is modelled around this painting by Pieter Bruegel https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_(Vienna)_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited.jpg https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Bruegel_the... where the tower of Babel is painted as recursive Colosseums, one inside the other, to express the idea that the Romans tried to reach god and were punished for their hubris (there is more to that, the Colosseum was also a place that symbolised persecution for Christians)

stoxastic 6y ago

I don't get how what you are saying is related with either Seneca or what PG wrote. Do you believe that we don't have much time (because we cannot do otherwise)?

coldtea 6y ago

>This is way way more prominent today than 2k years ago since in single day you are exposed to more information then for entire life back then. Most of that information is irrelevant to your everyday life, and so the net actionable average is about the same as then. >Lets get serious: Seneca, Buddha, Jesus, whoever, are irrelevant. Context changed dramatically. LOL, not even close.