A spectator society

[asakiyume]

A friend and I were talking asynchronously the other day**, and she put forward this interesting idea:

A thought: we've become a spectator society, where people often watch sports or plays rather than participating themselves. Are we also becoming a society where many people watch social relationships (on TV, the internet, etc.) rather than participating?

What do people think? More than an agree or disagree, what questions does the question raise for you, or what roads does it take your thoughts down?

For me, it got me thinking about the difference between something being effortful and something being miserable. Building something strong takes effort, and effort, by definition, involves work, which isn't always fun. But that's by no means the same as misery. You can rightly want to avoid misery, but I think you're likely to be disappointed in life if you try to avoid effort. ---But that's just one tangent. What does the question raise for you?

**"talking asynchronously" is my new way of saying "exchanging letters."

Comments

[asakiyume]

And I think everyone would be so much more happy if they realized they can just up and do stuff. But that manifest truth is concealed. .... It's one thing that makes me sad about Joann Fabrics going out of business. Not a lot of people sew, and Joann Fabrics was a chain, etc. etc., but when fabric and thread, needles, scissors, patterns aren't available to people, they don't know that actually, you can make a garment for yourself! .... which doesn't mean you have to suddenly stop buying clothes, of course not! But you actually have the power, if you have the supplies.

... My former tutee from El Salvador talked about that with building a house. How people just ... built houses. See, and that's something that's inconceivable to me: oh no--you need an architect and people who understand about, like, pouring foundations and electrical wiring and piping and all that. And yeah, even in El Salvador you have to learn to do those things, but a person can learn!

And now there'll be people thinking they can't write a thing, that they need to let chatGPT write it...

[minoanmiss]

I SO hear you. (Also Joann Fabrics got eatenby professional business eaters, I forget the term. It was doing fine before it got eaten by corportate predators, which just makes this all worse.)

[asakiyume]

Private equity. The vultures of the business world. (If vultures killed things that were still alive)

[minoanmiss]

Private equity, that's it. Vultures don't deserve such calumny.