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Comment by hospitalJail | Hacker News Reader

Btw Plato disagrees and I'm with him. (But I am aware of the argument that fiction can intrigue)

Fiction sets unreasonable expectations. Why not use history? The bad guys sometimes win, but at least people learn something closer to reality.

How much time was wasted learning about symbolism? How much time did we waste learning how to be entertained?

Today I do none of this. Non-fiction is far more interesting than someone making stuff up. I'd much rather have good reading and writing skills than the ability to decode entertainment as an adult.

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Fiction gives us things to shoot for, and a way to envision tomorrow. Think about all the things that science fiction envisioned that became reality. Would we have strived for those goals without it? It can also help us understand each other on a level that describing real events can't. Good fiction is art. We need art, and we should be able to be able to interact with it on a sophisticated level. I'm surprised if you honestly find all fiction uninteresting.

History, and I say this with a degree in the subject, does not do the same thing. History too is important, but it is not art, it's a social science. It's a complex field, assuming you mean the study of history and not just telling stories from the past, which half of the time is basically fiction. History is a way for us to understand our past and past and contemporary modes of thought, but it does not fulfill the same role as fiction.

> Fiction sets unreasonable expectations. Why not use history? The bad guys sometimes win, but at least people learn something closer to reality.

Fiction does not require bad guys to loose. That is just contemporary American cultural expectation to make them always win.

>How much time was wasted learning about symbolism?

If you want to communicate with people, symbolism matters. It is part of the communication, just like analogies or figures of speach.

Perhaps you should consider the emotional aspects of fiction. There’s more to life than facts.

Life doesn't care how you feel. Life only deals in what you do.

Life doesn't care how I feel, but _I_ do; and I want to live life in a way that makes me (and the people I care about) feel good. Empathy, imagination, and innovation are important for that - and fiction helps feed those.

Empathy and imagination can be found in plenty of non-fiction.

I enjoy reading fiction, mostly for escapism although the good ones also enrich me, but there is plenty of non-fiction that can feed those qualities. Non-fiction that focuses on the psychology, motives and feelings of people, and focuses on special, different , or creative individuals, might dk just that.

The autobiography "Lab Girl" comes to mind.

Fair point well made!

Sure, you do. Most folks care about how they feel. Life doesn't. It won't. It can't.

You accidentally only read the first ~1/5 of the comment.

The first 1/5th was the only relevant portion to my comment so that's all I replied to. I only stated that life doesn't care. I never said anything about non-fiction, fiction, and/or empathy.

I've been noticing this kind of sentiment online a lot. Seems like a recipe for an accomplished, unhappy life. Ambition, this time for "doing", whatever that means, without considering your and other's happiness.

How does this sound appealing?

Seems like you're misunderstanding what is being said. Life doesn't care if you have ambition or have a large family and everyone is happy. It doesn't care if you're apathetic and unhappy. It doesn't care if you have cancer or if you were cheated on. It does not care. It cannot care. Life is not sapient nor sentient. It merely is.

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