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Here’s how I imagine it. You’re in the Louvre, you’re in front of the Mona Lisa. It’s an amazing painting and it’s right there. And the person next to you is p
by prepend 3y ago
Here’s how I imagine it.
You’re in the Louvre, you’re in front of the Mona Lisa. It’s an amazing painting and it’s right there. And the person next to you is playing their gameboy.
It’s not about shaming them. It’s feeling regret that they are wasting this opportunity and missing something amazing.
Or I’m at breakfast with the most beautiful woman in the world and instead I don’t know she’s there and scroll through hacker news. I wouldn’t expect a person next to me to shame me for it, but I would expect them to recognize me wasting this opportunity.
In my examples, there could be many reasons why people would miss the beautiful thing for the banal. But in photos like this, there are 1000s missing the actual experience to record something vastly inferior than the experience.
I don’t think it’s shame. I think it’s empathetic regret and an urge to avoid doing this. I think it’s a bad thing for me to do. I want to do it less.
- corobo 3y agoI think what you're calling empathetic regret is in the dictionary under the word jealousy or maybe envy
- nonrandomstring 3y agoAlmost the total opposite of "jealousy", but nonetheless an unpleasant emotion more like "pity". Pity is sometimes described as an "ugly" emotion. It presumes you're in a better position to judge someone else. Getting over pity is a big life step of getting over yourself. Grace and compersion rush into the space left behind. Alexander the Great (probably a super genius) said he admired Diogenes, and that if he wasn't himself - so in touch with his own ambition - he'd like to be Diogenes, a man so in touch with his ecstatic humility. Anyway with respect to technological enslavement, I think it goes deeper than "pity". I once saw a small child running around with a tablet photographing everything and (probably copying a parent) saying "I have to capture moments". That sent a fucking deep chill down my spine.
- prepend 3y agoWhy would I be jealous of someone missing an experience to do less good thing?
- surgical_fire 3y ago> You’re in the Louvre, you’re in front of the Mona Lisa. It’s an amazing painting and it’s right there. And the person next to you is playing their gameboy. What are they playing? If it was "Link's Awakening" or "Gargoyle's Quest", I would understand. Those are works of art.