There's a similar problem with newspapers. People read them thinking they will go from being uninformed to informed, instead of simply becoming misinformed.
Most newspapers do not trade in information, but in specific worldview confirmations. A couple examples follow.
What do you think about the general views of economists on school vouchers? The narration wants you to think that economist are, on-net, against vouchers, so they couch it as "only a third agree" But...
It turns out 36% agree, 37% uncertain, and 18% disagree. The honest framing is not at all "only a third agree", its really that *twice as many economists agree with vouchers than disagree, plus a wide amount of uncertainty.*
The NYT mentions only a drop. What really happened? "39% of responding institutions reported a decline in international applications, 35% reported an increase, and 26% reported no change in applicant numbers."
The truth of something like this is that we cannot evaluate if there's any change without knowing what other years were like. Is a 39% drop/35% increase normal variation? A journalist would at a minimum need to compare it to prior years. Alas.
Problem is NYT was advertising company that realized people would also pay to have their own views confirmed. And when opinion columnists occasionally don't do that, lots of people comment that they're going to unsubscribe! Further proving it to them.
In the case of NYT, its stock price since 2016 really hammered it home for them. They navigated a tumultuous business model shift very well, but the content follows.
So the product isn't what's true, its what makes number go up. This is obvious in the dishonest framings given that conform with how they *think* that their audience views the world. And it means reading a paper is not uninformed -> informed, just uninformed -> misinformed
(Reminder that, broadly speaking, if the people with megaphones tell you that people with megaphones are good, and are more important than ever, and intimate that the truth is their domain, consider for a moment that it might not be.)
Just because someone has a megaphone does not mean they are a light-bearer, no matter what motto they put on their masthead. The news used to be very, very different.
there is a great affliction of people not realizing that life has a point, a plot, and they play a part in it. That it is more than endlessly renewing your streaming subscription services and getting better at rock climbing
observationally this is not at all obvious to many people. Even otherwise smart people. Especially a certain kind of smart people whose success in life has come mostly from obeying others. They sideline the parts of their life that are the open ocean, as if someone is supposed...
It's a movie about the forces of evil, boredom, and aimlessness and what they do to an otherwise promising person. It's like a vampire movie without vampires. Also a very tight script, no line of dialogue is wasted.
of what it feels like for a bright person when everyone older than you in your life is checked out, unaware, and kind-of an imbecile, especially wrt the future.
No one actually helps Benjamin. They lob "advice" at him, berate him, seduce him. But they don't think about him.
No one cares that he begins the movie with a deep internal struggle, that he's trying to get away to have his hero's journey in solitude, since he's realized no one is paying attention. But people, belligerently, continue to not pay attention.
yeah after food health shelter family, what is there? I mean beside RESHAPING OF THE WORLD, and ART TO VENERATE THE DIVINE and sure I guess being the HANDMAID OF INVENTION and little other trifles in pursuit of glory and theory and beauty and all that. yeah diminishing returns
guys used to get up in the morning and say to each other Lets build a cathedral so beautiful and so grand that all who come after us will think us Mad
now people talk about "diminishing returns"
I'm not saying these shouldn't be prioritized, I'm saying there is always more worth doing. If you have resources, you should think of how to use them. I think you would have to be afflicted with a terrible kind of malaise to think nothing can be done.
A lot of replies say versions of "you need to be telling not asking" or "you need to disallow video games"
I think both these miss the mark widely. The fundamental issue is that we have created a world for kids that is so circumscribed that they feel they can't do much in it.
One is that children are not allowed to do very many things at all, fewer than ever in some cases.
And the other is a failure of imagination on the parents part, of showing what they *can* do.
There's "doing stuff" like hiking or biking, but there's also fundamentally changing your world, your circumstances, the things around you. These latter things are separate and what parents/school fail at. Kids are basically told "wait" on that until they're in their 20's.
With knitting, Simi picked it up because having 2 babies gives you many small periods of time where you can semi-consciously work (but no more) and knitting fits perfectly into these.
She knits while reading to Lu, in the car, while baby asleep in lap, etc
now hats for the whole family, sweaters and cardigans for both babies, mittens for them too were all made during these periods. It's a great way to make things where before you didn't think you had the time.
It also has the added benefit of habituating the babies philosophically into making things. I want them to see us make things, and to make things themselves, from an early age.
Witnessing this is important especially in an age where "work" is something most people do elsewhere
This is one of the most terminal business behaviors that I've seen in my life, and it happens even in families. Incredibly stifling. I think it may be part of why the fertility rate is so low.