a serious query

It worsens too gradually to get noticed as worsening, though everyone says it. What exactly did you mean by hypermediated and hypersexualized? Some issues of what I think you mean haven't gotten any worse at all, just more public.

Where is this hypersexualised environment then? Is there a bus?

But I would recommend that you visit http://www.commonground.org.uk, and apply its principles to your own life, wherever you are. In time, you will feel much better about yourself and the world. Who knows, it might even work on Tim Hopkins :).

However a fair simulcra of happiness can be reached via alcohol and the company of unlikeminded people. A pub crawl is recomended.

But then again, who wants to be happy? Some might even say that the state of happiness is genuinely evolutionarily counter-productive, and Survival of the Fittest programs humans for unhappiness, no matter what the environment.

Think about it- happy people tend to sit around under trees all day, banging on about their particular brand of enlightenment. Unhappy people tend to try and fill their heads up with lots of promiscuous sex- thus propegating their depressive gene pool- and then they start wars, which stimulates the economy, and start tinkering around with technology, and make inventions which are supposed to make their lives easier but only make them unhappier, and then turn to god and invent religions (more wars, more economy) or else create works of art, and write novels and symphonies and paint pictures about their unhappiness... and before you know it, you've got an entire civilisation based on the inherant UNHAPPINESS of the human condition. While the Happy Human is still sitting under his tree in India blethering on about enlightenment and being nice to other humans.

So. Maybe I'm a cynic, but that's my take on why humans are so unhappy, despite all the advances of science. It's not that science and progress and art makes us unhappy, but that being unhappy CREATES art and science and progress.

Masonic Boom, you aren't much closer to me. I object strongly to your portrayal of "happiness" in George Harrison terms ...

I notice that you have written this:

"There's a place for an *inclusive* sense of community of people with a common interest working practically at a local level."

This is an exact description of the Common Ground (especially Confluence) ethos and ideology. It defines their values better than I ever could in one sentence.

Cheers Tim!

We don't joke about Jeremy Bentham round where I work. His head keeps getting stolen by Kings College students as a jape. If I even mentioned doing anything with JB's corpse, I would probably lose my job.

I picked Kant because of his amusing name (especially if your tutor was German) and his first name which reminds of a very amusing porn film.

Ignore the signs, nothing gets worse, we just fail to adapt to it. I was always told that sex/drugs/rock'n'roll(the attitude) were all 'bad' things, that I should stay away from, (my father also told me that anything before Led Zep 4 was bad). This attitude seems to have extended from my childhood into the society I'm part of, it's just a fear of the unknown. I don't believe the future is a wasteland, a void. It may well be according to values we hold now, but I look forward to it's challenges. Chaos, the unknown, offers as many possibilities as it does conclusions, just depends how you take it, 'taste' if you like. Mind you, don't expect a serious answer, to a serious query. But practically, if you can't detach yourself from the world, (I can't, I love data too much), release the aformentioned endorphines, and dance to music that says glib things like -

"Keep it simple, can't you see, only love can set us free"

But it's not easy.

Angels take themselves lightly, and that's why they have wings.

So the ideal place for this would be a hut or something in Siberia. This will also cure your urge for sexuality probably.:)

I think Leonard Cohen did something similar recently. He was in a Zen monastery for about five years where he cooked for the chief monk. He came back to civilisation recently. Started smoking again so that his voice went down another octave. Maybe he sings something about this on his new record.

Love, Jeff

yes. its worsening.

WHAT HAPPENED

Human can adapt to their enviroment awfully well. Especially when it's hypersexualised.

-- Phil Paterson, Tuesday, November 28, 2000 8:00 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Link

holy shit

pato: the OG mong

not gonna lie i think about this question once a week, in increasingly serious fashion

hi everybody

Hi there!

And you were all too correct with the premise of the question.

MAURA JOHNSTON, FUTURIST

yah this was a "topic" over a drink last night. it moved on to a conversation about all the teenagers and early-20s we knew and how cool and awesome and well-adjusted they seemed to be.

amazing how this question is twelve years old! i thought it had to be current...i wonder if they were saying the same thing in 1924, 1969, 1984, etc

twas ever thus amirite

i love leggings

such a thin amount of mediation, such a profound degree of hypersexualization

IIRC some of the ancient Roman writers were already complaining about this (Juvenal, maybe? - Overmediation, don't know about that, though. Did he write about Nuntius Vulpes?)

(ok ok, I'm sorry - that's my attempt at a Latin translation for "Fox News")

we missed the 15 year anniversary of this thread

but seriously, how

i mean, if i knew i'd tell you

cant believe i missed the 20th anniversary of this thread

anyway:

https://local.theonion.com/something-about-the-way-society-was-exposed-as-complete-1846251067

Too right.

i really like that blog post but it doesnt make much sense for where it was published

Wow, Maura really called this one