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I don’t get why escaping reality is bad. Is theatre bad? Books? Movies? Providing a good escape from reality can lower people’s demands of reality, which can l

I don’t get why escaping reality is bad. Is theatre bad? Books? Movies? Providing a good escape from reality can lower people’s demands of reality, which can lead to a more sustainable future. If people can eat beans but be tricked into thinking they’re eating steak it can improve health and lower emissions, for example.

Barrin92 5y ago
Trying to trick people into desired behaviour through escapism rather than creating a shared culture of stewardship, responsibility and self-control is exactly what a dystopian nightmare looks like. I think you should look at the roots of theatre. The principal function of theatre wasn't escapism but Catharsis, the cleansing of one's emotional state to be able to re-engage with the world and to renew and restore oneself. Good fiction engages a person with the world and prepares them to improve their society and culture. It doesn't produce a bunch of obese Wall-E people who live on canned beans binging Netflix all day.
- taurusnoises 5y ago
  Such great points. The tech of today is constantly attempting to rerout user back into itself. In a way this is unprecedented. A product that necessitates your constant use. Books don't necessitate re-reads, neither does a flip phone. But, the tech of today is all about consolidating your experience.
- goatlover 5y ago
  And books, tv, gaming, rock and roll? These complaints don’t seem all that new. People do like escaping. I certainly don’t want to spend all my time socializing, and when I do, I prefer part of it to be digital.
fullshark 5y ago
Well recreational drug abuse is bad, and video game addiction is bad, and ignoring your problems forever is bad. Ultimately it's a matter of degree and costs associated with the escape. I would never make a blanket statement like VR or the metaverse is bad (especially cause it doesn't seem to exist in a fully realized form yet) but the vision doesn't particularly inspire me, and Hanke is trying to appeal to that POV by mentioning dystopian scifi representations of it, where it represented an escape from a disturbing reality.
wyager 5y ago
I don’t know about “bad”, but any fictional or surrogate reality certainly seems to me like a vice. Whether or not it’s bad depends on if you abuse it too much.
- XorNot 5y ago
  I don't know why you're arguing reality is so great though. Other then us needing to exist in it, there's nothing here to recommend it. Hence caves and then houses.
strken 5y ago
I'm starting to think my relationship with books might have been unhealthy in some of the same ways as video games. Theatre and movies might be similar for others. Less "escaping reality" and more "passive consumption at the cost of active creation".
- Nevermark 5y ago
  Books feed you minimum data ... a string of characters ... completely devoid of any of the senses that you actually imagine you are experiencing: an active colorful audible 3D world. Your own brain does almost all the work of manufacturing the reality, the author only provides the barest of guides. And your mind also adds layers of meaning onto whatever meaning the author makes explicit. So I would say the act of reading a book is far from a passive or trivial activity. In fact, I am hard pressed to imagine another activity so dependent on our own brain's ability for continuous creative production. D&D, scientific research, etc. all happen at a much slower pace.
  - strken 5y ago
    I think the slower pace indicates more effort and greater levels of integration of different concepts. The kind of creativity involved in reading is like paint-by-numbers, while writing is like actual painting. It takes much more than an order of magnitude more time to write fiction than to read it for me, because it's so much less structured.
    - Nevermark 5y ago
      I agree with that. Creative production and problem solving, accompanied by a strong internal standards pushing us further for higher quality or impact than we achieved before, is the pinnacle. But reading is far more active form of receiving, than other forms of learning or entertainment.

Barrin92 5y ago

Trying to trick people into desired behaviour through escapism rather than creating a shared culture of stewardship, responsibility and self-control is exactly what a dystopian nightmare looks like. I think you should look at the roots of theatre. The principal function of theatre wasn't escapism but Catharsis, the cleansing of one's emotional state to be able to re-engage with the world and to renew and restore oneself. Good fiction engages a person with the world and prepares them to improve their society and culture. It doesn't produce a bunch of obese Wall-E people who live on canned beans binging Netflix all day.

taurusnoises 5y ago
Such great points. The tech of today is constantly attempting to rerout user back into itself. In a way this is unprecedented. A product that necessitates your constant use. Books don't necessitate re-reads, neither does a flip phone. But, the tech of today is all about consolidating your experience.
goatlover 5y ago
And books, tv, gaming, rock and roll? These complaints don’t seem all that new. People do like escaping. I certainly don’t want to spend all my time socializing, and when I do, I prefer part of it to be digital.

fullshark 5y ago

Well recreational drug abuse is bad, and video game addiction is bad, and ignoring your problems forever is bad. Ultimately it's a matter of degree and costs associated with the escape. I would never make a blanket statement like VR or the metaverse is bad (especially cause it doesn't seem to exist in a fully realized form yet) but the vision doesn't particularly inspire me, and Hanke is trying to appeal to that POV by mentioning dystopian scifi representations of it, where it represented an escape from a disturbing reality.

wyager 5y ago

I don’t know about “bad”, but any fictional or surrogate reality certainly seems to me like a vice. Whether or not it’s bad depends on if you abuse it too much.

XorNot 5y ago
I don't know why you're arguing reality is so great though. Other then us needing to exist in it, there's nothing here to recommend it. Hence caves and then houses.

strken 5y ago

I'm starting to think my relationship with books might have been unhealthy in some of the same ways as video games. Theatre and movies might be similar for others. Less "escaping reality" and more "passive consumption at the cost of active creation".

Nevermark 5y ago
Books feed you minimum data ... a string of characters ... completely devoid of any of the senses that you actually imagine you are experiencing: an active colorful audible 3D world. Your own brain does almost all the work of manufacturing the reality, the author only provides the barest of guides. And your mind also adds layers of meaning onto whatever meaning the author makes explicit. So I would say the act of reading a book is far from a passive or trivial activity. In fact, I am hard pressed to imagine another activity so dependent on our own brain's ability for continuous creative production. D&D, scientific research, etc. all happen at a much slower pace.
- strken 5y ago
  I think the slower pace indicates more effort and greater levels of integration of different concepts. The kind of creativity involved in reading is like paint-by-numbers, while writing is like actual painting. It takes much more than an order of magnitude more time to write fiction than to read it for me, because it's so much less structured.
  - Nevermark 5y ago
    I agree with that. Creative production and problem solving, accompanied by a strong internal standards pushing us further for higher quality or impact than we achieved before, is the pinnacle. But reading is far more active form of receiving, than other forms of learning or entertainment.