The Locus of Entertainment
blog.nateliason.com
blog.nateliason.com
The greater the gap between the levels of stimuli, the greater the addiction to the art or medium or movement that channels those supernormal stimuli. What does the medium have that we lack?
Mostly it aggregates and condenses other people and what they create. They become mediated by a technological channel that we purchase and subscribe to in order to access the feed.
One problem with that arc, for me, is that we humans will never escape the real world. We have to come back to it to cook, clean, sleep, bathe. And with the increasing intensity of mediated stimuli, I suspect many people get worse at normal.
That is, they/we are no longer properly incented to construct themselves and meaningful relations to people and objects in the slow-moving unmediated analog world. I don't have a fix for that. I just note it with regret.
It's like having to go to a well to get water vs tap water : it's a reliable and easy way to get infinite source of (passive) entertainment, but not only.
But the excesses you mention are pathological : most people don't have trouble allocating enough time to the "physical world".
And to counterbalance this negative view : a "higher" form of stimuli also allows higher possibilities. Like cave painting and face to face communication offer inferior possibilities than more modern vectors.
I'm probably old-fashioned (age 55), but I think there's value in children experiencing adult conversations, assuming those conversations are respectful. I also consider dinner time, with a few exceptions, to be a ritual. A time where we enjoy the shared present moment, share the events of our day, reflections upon the same, and what we're looking forward to (or not) tomorrow.
This doesn't come easy, even to me, who loves all the technology and can easily get sucked into TikTok, Reddit, HN, et al for longer than I care to admit. It takes effort.
We've been in the "golden age" of prestige TV for years now, right? So people end up following serialized storylines, binging from time to time. Even 9-12 episodes a season piles up. People are (were) following shows like Game of Thrones with casts of dozens of characters. The MCU is just this massive twine ball of franchises and storylines. Multiverses and crossovers are en vogue.
On top of that, you have the stories and characters on social media. Someone might be on Facebook seeing what their grandkids are up to. Others are on TikTok hearting their choice content creators, curating the algorithm for more like them. Following their favorite streamers on YouTube, or Twitch. Even text-based media on Twitter is an endless source of in-jokes from in-groups, memes, different codes of conduct, different ways to get dunked upon.
You can choose to avoid all that, right? But you still engage upon it somehow. You lurk on HN for long enough, you see familiar accounts, with the high karmas and early creation dates. Long thoughtful comments and high community clout. You've entered into another social network without expecting to, another cast of characters, another stage full of drama and conflict.
It's all very removed from the real world- and yet, another thought from the pandemic quarantine- is that not what we're doing so? We work so we can play. We play so we can experience emotions safely, at a distant, from the real physical dangers of the world. Every form of art is a simulation. So then we don't have to bleed on a battlefield, get bitten by a lion, grind away in real toil. So, what-?
I guess we should be looking for existence beyond entertainment, whether it's an active or a passive form of amusing ourselves. The past couple of years have been a unique time that's stripped out so much of the outside world and its complications, and allowed for longer stints of entertainment. Optimized for it, you could said.
I think the author forgets that these days, sex can be had without much risk for pregnancy, and, at least for the civilized parts of the world, even pregnancy does not need to lead to a child being born..
Another thing entirely, is that the creation of a human life should be a very deliberate decision, not a side-effect of any activity done for other reasons (such as sex for the sole purpose of pleasure). And if the reason for underpopulation is because fewer unwanted children are born, then good on us, go underpopulation!
As for the rest of the article, I think it does a great job highlighting the difference between passive and active entertainment.. I've often wondered about why some people chose passive entertainment like TV, when there's obviously better alternatives like games where you actually interact and play part of the story. But having become a parent, and experienced a large reduction in the available time and energy, I can see how I also have to kind of push myself a little bit to start a game, whereas watching another video on the intertubes or just streaming something on netflix requires a lower amount of activation-energy.
If you've ever tried a caloric deficit you know something within does not like it and will complain constantly so long as it's happening.
The brain must actively supress this which is tyring.
If anything the brain is not lazy, it just tries to be efficient. Oh, and the heart is all the opposite. it won't ever give up until it really biophysicall cannot go on.
Porn exists but sex is better. Twitter exists but drinks with friends are better. Screenworld tend to be junk food for the mind, and it can’t beat a home-cooked meal. It’s just easier, not better.
I still believe that a computer is a bicycle of the mind. Mine identifies plants and birdsong on my forest walks. It feeds my curiosity by answering question after question. It lets me write and sketch, and gives me resources to get better at it.
In the hands of a child, a computer is an incredible tool, so long as it serves the right ends.
Of course most things are done because they procure some type of pleasure/enjoyment. That doesn't mean that everything is entertainment...