The Web Is Making People Stupid, TWIMPS And Getting TWIMPSER Options Rating

[Jon Awbrey]

It's all a plot by Alien Wiki-Φungi …

Or maybe Ripofflichens …

Or Groople …

Some truly evil force like that …

The fact that Sarah Palin gets any press at all is proof that the condition is terminal …

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Somey, what makes you so certain that 1984 was not a "how-to"? There were some that thought Brave New World was "a warning, not a how-to," but from what we know about Huxley's personal views, that is clearly not the case.

[Rhindle]

Somey, what makes you so certain that 1984 was not a "how-to"? There were some that thought Brave New World was "a warning, not a how-to," but from what we know about Huxley's personal views, that is clearly not the case.

Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death stated that he believed the world was more like Brave New World rather than 1984 in that we are oppressed more by pleasure than pain. In other words, if we are all kept entertained, we won't care what the big bad governments are doing.

[Jon Awbrey]

Somey, what makes you so certain that 1984 was not a "how-to"? There were some that thought Brave New World was "a warning, not a how-to", but from what we know about Huxley's personal views, that is clearly not the case.

Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death stated that he believed the world was more like Brave New World rather than 1984 in that we are oppressed more by pleasure than pain. In other words, if we are all kept entertained, we won't care what the big bad governments are doing.

Oddly enough, this brings us back to a point that I've been trying make about the economic and psychosocial dynamics that are common to all forms of addictive behavior, including conspicuous consumption and dissipative entertainment. What keeps coming back to mind here are the penetrating insights of Max Weber and William S. Burroughs.

Under conditions of health, pleasure drives are always self-terminating — this makes them intermittent and periodic in nature — you reach a state of satisfaction and then you are done with that drive for a while.

Continuous drivenness is a morbid condition. It occurs in situations where the superficial seeking of goods or pleasure disguises an effort to avoid a deeper-lying anxiety or pain, one for which the displacement activity is no balm, and thus appears infinite and unquenchable.

Jon Awbrey

[RMHED]

Oddly enough, this brings us back to a point that I've been trying make about the economic and psychosocial dynamics that are common to all forms of addictive behavior, including conspicuous consumption and dissipative entertainment. What keeps coming back to mind here are the penetrating insights of Max Weber and William S. Burroughs.

Under conditions of health, pleasure drives are always self-terminating — this makes them intermittent and periodic in nature — you reach a state of satisfaction and then you are done with that drive for a while.

Continuous drivenness is a morbid condition. It occurs in situations where the superficial seeking of goods or pleasure disguises an effort to avoid a deeper-lying anxiety or pain, one for which the displacement activity is no balm, and thus appears infinite and unquenchable.

Jon Awbrey

And the cure is?

[Jon Awbrey]

Oddly enough, this brings us back to a point that I've been trying make about the economic and psychosocial dynamics that are common to all forms of addictive behavior, including conspicuous consumption and dissipative entertainment. What keeps coming back to mind here are the penetrating insights of Max Weber and William S. Burroughs.

Under conditions of health, pleasure drives are always self-terminating — this makes them intermittent and periodic in nature — you reach a state of satisfaction and then you are done with that drive for a while.

Continuous drivenness is a morbid condition. It occurs in situations where the superficial seeking of goods or pleasure disguises an effort to avoid a deeper-lying anxiety or pain, one for which the displacement activity is no balm, and thus appears infinite and unquenchable.

Jon Awbrey

And the cure is?

There's a bit of ambiguity in the phrase "to avoid a deeper-lying anxiety or pain". It's partly an effort to relieve the condition itself and partly an effort to avoid awareness of its cause. Those two efforts are at cross-purposes, since the condition continues until the true cause is addressed. The person who drinks beyond the point of genuine enjoyment — to the point of unconsciousness and painful consequence — is doing that to blot out some painful issue the he or she is refusing to face in the light of consciousness.

Jon Awbrey

[Jon Awbrey]

Reprising these comments for the sake of another discussion elsewhere —

Oddly enough, this brings us back to a point that I've been trying make about the economic and psychosocial dynamics that are common to all forms of addictive behavior, including conspicuous consumption and dissipative entertainment. What keeps coming back to mind here are the penetrating insights of Max Weber and William S. Burroughs.

Under conditions of health, pleasure drives are always self-terminating — this makes them intermittent and periodic in nature — you reach a state of satisfaction and then you are done with that drive for a while.

Continuous drivenness is a morbid condition. It occurs in situations where the superficial seeking of goods or pleasure disguises an effort to avoid a deeper-lying anxiety or pain, one for which the displacement activity is no balm, and thus appears infinite and unquenchable.

Jon Awbrey

And the cure is?

There's a bit of ambiguity in the phrase "to avoid a deeper-lying anxiety or pain". It's partly an effort to relieve the condition itself and partly an effort to avoid awareness of its cause. Those two efforts are at cross-purposes, since the condition continues until the true cause is addressed. The person who drinks beyond the point of genuine enjoyment — to the point of unconsciousness and painful consequence — is doing that to blot out some painful issue the he or she is refusing to face in the light of consciousness.

Jon Awbrey