5 ms·

> Most people don't go to the theater (or even stream) to watch "quality," they go for entertainment. A tell-tale sign of a decadent society where people are d

> Most people don't go to the theater (or even stream) to watch "quality," they go for entertainment. A tell-tale sign of a decadent society where people are depressed and unfulfilled, more interested in escape from life than engagement with life because everything they might live for is compromised in the name of profit at the expense of everything else. I don't know what point you think you're making, but it's not helpful and there is nothing about this that anybody should be proud of.

dooraven 3y ago
> A tell-tale sign of a decadent society where people are depressed and unfulfilled, more interested in escape from life than engagement with life because everything they might live for is compromised for profit at the expense of everything else. Not really, where exactly am I going to get dragons in real life?
- OO000oo 3y ago
  How are you contradicting my point? It's historically very abnormal for adults to be so fascinated with dragons and other escapist features. We are living in strange times and it's not coincidence. We have lost capacity for art that engages with sincere human experience, a concerning situation for a society to find itself in. It means we are losing capacity to engage with ourselves; it is no laughing matter.
  - selimthegrim 3y ago
    You’re basically calling them all the adults who read the young adult books
  - Vecr 3y ago
    > It's historically very abnormal for adults to be so fascinated with dragons and other escapist features. For some reason dubious psychologists had a thing for King Arthur stuff for quite a while and I'm not really sure there's any dragons in there, there's weird fisher kings and stuff. I think someone is rich enough and has enough free time (probably over a billion now, but similar people existed in the past in lower numbers), they would find some weird thing to work on or think about.
  - rblatz 3y ago
    Or just maybe I don’t care that people think I’m too old to enjoy the things I like, and don’t force myself to suffer through some art house cringe fest because some guy on the internet thinks it’s a sign of living in a capitalistic hell scape while posting on a site specifically targeting capitalists.
  - blargey 3y ago
    Truly, these are strange times. We need to go back to the times where adults scoffed at the robots of Asimov. I mean the time machines and vampires of Wells and Stoker. I mean the electrically reanimated corpses of Shelley. I mean the ghosts and fairies and witchcraft of Shakespeare. I mean the demigod superheroes of Homer. I mean…
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      Jules Verne's books basically 'young adult' fiction in his day. I think the 19th century nature of his works, which may challenge modern readers, likely obscures this fact from people today. I've been reading some of his books recently and enjoy them, he's a legend for a reason. But once you get accustomed to the style and archaic words, you start to realize the stories and characters are pretty basic. Where he really shines are the creative premises.
    - OO000oo 3y ago
      Narrative works can make use of otherworldly features without being remotely escapist. Shakespeare and mythology are fine examples of this. Science fiction is historically not escapist at all, but that has somewhat changed. These days we have adults everywhere who will openly exclaim their plain adoration of dragons and robots and hobbits devoid of any particular meaning or social value. They just merely love dragons and robots and hobbits. This is escapism and it's historically unprecedented.
      - watwut 3y ago
        Shakespeare was escapist. So was Asimov. So was mythology.
        OO000oo 3y ago
        Not technically wrong, but it is one thing to decorate the complexities and contradictions of the human experience, and quite another to distract from the complexities and contradictions of the human experience. I think we both know which one is happening today.
  - dooraven 3y ago
    is this a bit or have you not read any chinese or indian myths? where do you think the yellow dragon being associated with the chinese emperor comes from? or Indira and the Vitra? what about St George and the Dragon? humans have been obsessed with fantasy for centuries and even more.
    - OO000oo 3y ago
      Mythology and fantasy are drastically different things. Meaning, purpose, context, are very important for understanding art, of course. We live in a time when adults everywhere will openly exclaim their adoration for fantastical nonsense. They will unabashedly assure you that they simply adore dragons and robots and hobbits, devoid of any purposeful meaning or relation to the world we live in. Almost nobody who loves zombie films, for example, has the first clue what zombies meant when first devised.
      - dooraven 3y ago
        > Mythology and fantasy are drastically different things. Meaning, purpose, context, are very important for understanding art, of course. They are literally the same. Fantasy is just modern mythology and most fantasy is rooted in ancient historical tales or historical events. The Kree-Skrull war for example was based on WWII USA vs Japan. Old mythological stories and religions are based on historical events and switched to entertain. It's almost a certainty that Ramanaya never happened but Indian invasions of Sri Lanaka did happen etc. > Almost nobody who loves zombie films, for example, has the first clue what zombies meant when first devised. Ok and who cares? People don't speak ancient Sanskrit or old English either. Are you going to be complaining people who love English don't have the first clue what English looked like when it was invented.
  - watwut 3y ago
    > It's historically very abnormal for adults to be so fascinated with dragons and other escapist features Ever heard of Odyssey and Homer? That is adults being fascinated by escapist features long long time ago. We have records of adults entertainment and adults being fascinated by entertainment from pretty much any historical periods we have records from.
  - danjac 3y ago
    > It's historically very abnormal for adults to be so fascinated with dragons and other escapist features. Literally the oldest surviving epic is Gilgamesh, which features Tiamat, the mother of dragons.
satvikpendem 3y ago
Panem et circenses has been around a long time, it's not a new concept that you're implying. People like entertainment, which is sometimes but not always a proxy for quality. We can deny that at our peril or accept that that's what the majority of people like and cater to them. That's what studios do now, whether we artsy media watchers like it or not.
- sdsd 3y ago
  >Panem et circenses has been around a long time, it's not a new concept that you're implying. He doesn't seem to be implying that this is new. Rather, that this is something that happens to any decadent society society where people are depressed and unfulfilled.
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    Based on this comment it seems they are implying that we are in some new sort of society: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767978 Which I find ridiculous to be honest, every generation laments the downfall of society, it's nothing new at all.
    - OO000oo 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        > It's _historically_ very abnormal for adults to be so fascinated with dragons and other escapist features. We are living in strange times and it's not coincidence. Note the emphasis on "historically." This implies, to those reading, that you assume the current society is "abnormal" and "strange" somehow, to which I replied that it's nothing new. Now you can take that as you wish and maybe you didn't intend that implication and think you are "precisely" saying what you intend, but it's not so precise when multiple people disagree with how you laid out your comment. It would have been more precise if everyone actually understood you, even if they had disagreed.

dooraven 3y ago

> A tell-tale sign of a decadent society where people are depressed and unfulfilled, more interested in escape from life than engagement with life because everything they might live for is compromised for profit at the expense of everything else. Not really, where exactly am I going to get dragons in real life?

OO000oo 3y ago
How are you contradicting my point? It's historically very abnormal for adults to be so fascinated with dragons and other escapist features. We are living in strange times and it's not coincidence. We have lost capacity for art that engages with sincere human experience, a concerning situation for a society to find itself in. It means we are losing capacity to engage with ourselves; it is no laughing matter.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  You’re basically calling them all the adults who read the young adult books
- Vecr 3y ago
  > It's historically very abnormal for adults to be so fascinated with dragons and other escapist features. For some reason dubious psychologists had a thing for King Arthur stuff for quite a while and I'm not really sure there's any dragons in there, there's weird fisher kings and stuff. I think someone is rich enough and has enough free time (probably over a billion now, but similar people existed in the past in lower numbers), they would find some weird thing to work on or think about.
- rblatz 3y ago
  Or just maybe I don’t care that people think I’m too old to enjoy the things I like, and don’t force myself to suffer through some art house cringe fest because some guy on the internet thinks it’s a sign of living in a capitalistic hell scape while posting on a site specifically targeting capitalists.
- blargey 3y ago
  Truly, these are strange times. We need to go back to the times where adults scoffed at the robots of Asimov. I mean the time machines and vampires of Wells and Stoker. I mean the electrically reanimated corpses of Shelley. I mean the ghosts and fairies and witchcraft of Shakespeare. I mean the demigod superheroes of Homer. I mean…
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    Jules Verne's books basically 'young adult' fiction in his day. I think the 19th century nature of his works, which may challenge modern readers, likely obscures this fact from people today. I've been reading some of his books recently and enjoy them, he's a legend for a reason. But once you get accustomed to the style and archaic words, you start to realize the stories and characters are pretty basic. Where he really shines are the creative premises.
  - OO000oo 3y ago
    Narrative works can make use of otherworldly features without being remotely escapist. Shakespeare and mythology are fine examples of this. Science fiction is historically not escapist at all, but that has somewhat changed. These days we have adults everywhere who will openly exclaim their plain adoration of dragons and robots and hobbits devoid of any particular meaning or social value. They just merely love dragons and robots and hobbits. This is escapism and it's historically unprecedented.
    - watwut 3y ago
      Shakespeare was escapist. So was Asimov. So was mythology.
      - OO000oo 3y ago
        Not technically wrong, but it is one thing to decorate the complexities and contradictions of the human experience, and quite another to distract from the complexities and contradictions of the human experience. I think we both know which one is happening today.
- dooraven 3y ago
  is this a bit or have you not read any chinese or indian myths? where do you think the yellow dragon being associated with the chinese emperor comes from? or Indira and the Vitra? what about St George and the Dragon? humans have been obsessed with fantasy for centuries and even more.
  - OO000oo 3y ago
    Mythology and fantasy are drastically different things. Meaning, purpose, context, are very important for understanding art, of course. We live in a time when adults everywhere will openly exclaim their adoration for fantastical nonsense. They will unabashedly assure you that they simply adore dragons and robots and hobbits, devoid of any purposeful meaning or relation to the world we live in. Almost nobody who loves zombie films, for example, has the first clue what zombies meant when first devised.
    - dooraven 3y ago
      > Mythology and fantasy are drastically different things. Meaning, purpose, context, are very important for understanding art, of course. They are literally the same. Fantasy is just modern mythology and most fantasy is rooted in ancient historical tales or historical events. The Kree-Skrull war for example was based on WWII USA vs Japan. Old mythological stories and religions are based on historical events and switched to entertain. It's almost a certainty that Ramanaya never happened but Indian invasions of Sri Lanaka did happen etc. > Almost nobody who loves zombie films, for example, has the first clue what zombies meant when first devised. Ok and who cares? People don't speak ancient Sanskrit or old English either. Are you going to be complaining people who love English don't have the first clue what English looked like when it was invented.
- watwut 3y ago
  > It's historically very abnormal for adults to be so fascinated with dragons and other escapist features Ever heard of Odyssey and Homer? That is adults being fascinated by escapist features long long time ago. We have records of adults entertainment and adults being fascinated by entertainment from pretty much any historical periods we have records from.
- danjac 3y ago
  > It's historically very abnormal for adults to be so fascinated with dragons and other escapist features. Literally the oldest surviving epic is Gilgamesh, which features Tiamat, the mother of dragons.

satvikpendem 3y ago

Panem et circenses has been around a long time, it's not a new concept that you're implying. People like entertainment, which is sometimes but not always a proxy for quality. We can deny that at our peril or accept that that's what the majority of people like and cater to them. That's what studios do now, whether we artsy media watchers like it or not.

sdsd 3y ago
>Panem et circenses has been around a long time, it's not a new concept that you're implying. He doesn't seem to be implying that this is new. Rather, that this is something that happens to any decadent society society where people are depressed and unfulfilled.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Based on this comment it seems they are implying that we are in some new sort of society: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767978 Which I find ridiculous to be honest, every generation laments the downfall of society, it's nothing new at all.
  - OO000oo 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      > It's _historically_ very abnormal for adults to be so fascinated with dragons and other escapist features. We are living in strange times and it's not coincidence. Note the emphasis on "historically." This implies, to those reading, that you assume the current society is "abnormal" and "strange" somehow, to which I replied that it's nothing new. Now you can take that as you wish and maybe you didn't intend that implication and think you are "precisely" saying what you intend, but it's not so precise when multiple people disagree with how you laid out your comment. It would have been more precise if everyone actually understood you, even if they had disagreed.