Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
Too lazy to think?
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
Sr. Martins
Posts: 3079
Joined: Apr. 4 2011
|
 Too lazy to think?
|
|
|
This might come out as a rant but Iam interested on knowing what's your view on the following subject..
Lately I've been noticing almost everywhere that people regard something as being "true or false / useful vs not useful" by the apparent background of who's saying it.
Take youtube for instance, there are many videos where even famous people are clearly talking about what they don't know or doing plain marketing for the brands they represent.. more often than not, there comes an enlightened soul who tries to inform people on the subject but people react like:
"You're not Steve Vai so you don't know"
"Show us your videos smartass"
....well, you know the kind of responses (I don't comment on youtube videos but some comments are worth a read).
How come that we got into the age of information and people are getting an even lazier brain? All they want is somekind of role model to tell them what to think (or buy) and act like total dummies everytime that someone says "hey, here's some facts...now think for yourself what's best for you".
Iam seeing this mentality coming out to "the real world", people just want something that looks like it has credit, even if there's no substance behind what is being said.
The thought process is somewhere in the "What is the best food? McDonalds sells a lot and has restaurants everywhere... that has to be the best food in the world!".
I thought the days of people being fooled by commercials where an actor says "Iam a doctor and this is good for you" were reaching the end but it looks like the new trend is "Iam too lazy to look up information or to think for myself, can't even evaluate the arguments at the table and give appropriate (fundamented) answers to people or to myself.. so Iam happy with whatever nonsense that is thrown at me and I'll gladly recommend it to other people who, like me, are lazy in the head".
Have you noticed this? How do you deal with it? If it's someone close to you, do you give up reasoning or do you try to "lecture" them on how appearences/interests/marketing/industries are confusing their good judgement?
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 15 2015 15:25:09
 |
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: Too lazy to think? (in reply to Sr. Martins)
|
|
|
quote:
The thought process is somewhere in the "What is the best food? McDonalds sells a lot and has restaurants everywhere... that has to be the best food in the world!".
With all due respect, I do not consider this a major problem. Yes, there are no doubt people who view a faux doctor advising them to take this or that anti-acid, or a Hollywood grade B actor advising them to buy this or that bauble, and go out and buy them. But that has been around since the dawn of television.
You stated at the beginning that, "This may come out as a rant." Whether or not it is a rant I leave to others to decide. Nevertheless, I do think it is a bit overwrought. For instance, I have never heard anyone, even those who buy the occasional McDonald's Big Mac, suggest that McDonald's "has to be the best food in the world!"
Pick up your guitar and play a nice Solea', and I'm sure that the world will seem a better place.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 15 2015 15:40:16
|
|
Sr. Martins
Posts: 3079
Joined: Apr. 4 2011
|
|
RE: Too lazy to think? (in reply to BarkellWH)
|
|
|
I didn't mean that someone said that about a Big Mac, it was just to serve as an example for the thought process.
Pretty sure that there will always be people like that.. the thing is that I enjoy helping people when it's about something I know. I never told anyone "here, this is how this is...it's a rule", I just show them a way, give some food for thought and hopefully they will find what works best for them.
Today I've gone through that "feeling" that Iam describing... I was helping someone on a subject, just giving some pointers for the guy to know where to begin... he proposes me a "challenge", which consisted on me doing almost a video lesson tailored for him in order to prove my credits. The stupid thing is that my credits on the subject could be easily found but, most of all, the credits don't mean a thing when you have a brain to make something out of the information you're provided with!
It's like you asking "how do I build a major chord?" and a trumpetist comes along and shows you how it works and you answer "sorry, I haven't seen a video of you playing guitar".
I think this is dumb but hey, maybe Iam taking a wrong look at things.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 15 2015 16:00:25
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: Too lazy to think? (in reply to Sr. Martins)
|
|
|
quote:
The problem is exactly the ones who don't question anything and take, for instance, MTV as their bible and cultural role model.
I know where you're coming from on this, Rui. Your quote cited above regarding MTV and Lenador's take on those who consider Kanye West worthy of worship point out the complete shallowness and lack of ability of a large group to discriminate between the meaningful and the superficial. Nevertheless, although the "idols" may have changed over the years, I think a large group that worships the superficial in society (be it music or anything else) has always existed. It's just more instantaneously apparent now because of the dreaded "social media." (That's why I mentioned in an earlier thread that I refuse to open a Face Book account, a twitter account, or carry a mobile phone around with me.)
When someone begins to natter on about MTV or Kanye West, or any of the other shallow programs and performers of today, I usually stop them cold by asking, "Who is Kanye West?" Of course, at the age of 71 I can get away with that. As a younger person, if you were to do that, your interlocutor probably would look at you incredulously, but it might have the same effect. Any way you can politely dismiss the conversation as unworthy of your time is a net gain for you.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 16 2015 13:56:36
|
|
Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
|
|
RE: Too lazy to think? (in reply to Sr. Martins)
|
|
|
I believe that at some level we all operate on unexamined principles. Otherwise we would be mentally paralyzed.
For example, I have a good friend who is an elementary school teacher. She said she prefers students in the fourth or fifth year of school, because it is frustrating (to her) to deal with first year students who don't understand that 1+1=2. "Why don't they just figure it out?" she exclaimed.
An effort was made to train me as a mathematician. I pointed out that at some stage of human cultural development, numbers were invented. They didn't always just exist. The Greeks, geniuses though they were, didn't consider the square root of two or pi to be numbers, because they couldn't be expressed as the quotient of two integers. Later mathematicians treated them and many other irrationals as numbers in full standing.
Kronecker notoriously said, "The integers are the work of God, all the rest are due to mankind." Dedekind, the first to publish an axiom set for the real numbers (including the irrationals like the square root of two) in 1871, replied, "Kronecker would say that. Before he was a mathematician he was a banker."
My friend, a very intelligent woman, strenuously resisted the idea that someone, or some succession of people invented the integers. I pointed out the repeated discovery of cultures whose repertoire of numbers was limited to something like "one, two, three, many." Their cultures had not yet invented the full (infinite) set of integers.
After several minutes of discussion my friend calmed down a bit and began to listen to what I had to say. She remains an interesting friend because she is willing to examine her previously unexamined principles, and to engage mine. She sets me straight fairly often.
It is seldom very interesting to talk very long to someone who not only will not examine their previously unexamined assumptions, but is totally unaware that such a thing could be done.
Kanye West? I recollect President Obama criticizing him a while back. Mentioning Obama in Texas will often provoke a lengthy recitation of vehemently held unexamined beliefs, rendering it impossible to discuss his successes and failures.
RNJ
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 16 2015 15:26:18
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: Too lazy to think? (in reply to Sr. Martins)
|
|
|
quote:
Getting Kanye West and MTV into the subject was more of a way to get everyone on the same page regarding thought process (or lack of it). The real dilema here is how to deal with people who have that chip implemented into their brain. (Iam talking about people that you care for at least a bit)
Rui, there are (and always have been, in my experience) a large cohort who are either unable or unwilling to think independently (a prerequisite for examining previously unexamined principles and assumptions). They are quite happy to run with the herd, whether it be taste (or lack thereof) in music and art, buying a laxative, or subscribing to the latest pseudo-science. When you detect that your interlocutor is seized by the "herd mentality," you needn't remain passive or exhaust yourself trying to explain. There is no reason to pursue the conversation further. You may wish to excuse yourself, practice deception by going to the rest room, and when you emerge find another seat at the bar. In other words, you don't have to deal with them.
Richard, As I recall, although Obama may have criticized Kanye West, when he was campaigning in 2008, he made a big show of calling Jay-Z his idol. Not much better, in my opinion. Whatever his Presidential successes and failures may be (and that always makes for an interesting discussion), I have yet to be convinced that he has examined what may be his unexamined notions of aesthetics in music.
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 16 2015 16:59:19
|
|
Sr. Martins
Posts: 3079
Joined: Apr. 4 2011
|
|
RE: Too lazy to think? (in reply to BarkellWH)
|
|
|
quote:
Richard, As I recall, although Obama may have criticized Kanye West, when he was campaigning in 2008, he made a big show of calling Jay-Z his idol. Not much better, in my opinion. Whatever his Presidential successes and failures may be (and that always makes for an interesting discussion), I have yet to be convinced that he has examined what may be his unexamined notions of aesthetics in music.
Politicians have a tendency to mention what they think will make them look cool, even if it totally backfires... they'll only know it after the fact. There's a portuguese politician who was once asked if he enjoyed Chopin, he answered somthing like "Yes, I love Chopin! Those violins are beautiful." 
Regarding the original question, I understand what you mean but wouldn't you think that being passive about it is the same as saying "I don't care, let the future generations deal with it"? If you think of humanity as a human body for instance, wouldn't it be like saying "I've got an infection on my feet but since it's just a little itch and nobody sees it, I don't care."
...eventually you'll be an amputee. In my point of view, one can make consciously "bad" decisions if they don't affect anyone else but.. isn't being "a passive enabler" a way of rapidly growing that fungus all over the body?
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 16 2015 17:19:14
|
|
Dudnote
Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 13 2007
|
|
RE: Too lazy to think? (in reply to Sr. Martins)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Sr. Martins
"what's the next number?" given that your symbols are "zero, B, car, orange" for example. Good fun 
B - as in 2 B or not to be
car - has 4 wheels
he 8 the orange
16 = the 4th power of 2
yes good fun. I like very mutch the style Bill used when he wrote about the "unexamined principals" and agree with much of what he wrote, but I disagree (hypocritically, because I also walk away) with Bill that you don't have to address them. Ultimately we do because we all live in the same world and these people have the same rights to vote as you or I, and worse than that, disillusioned lost youth pose a threat to all of us because if someone tells them to commit acts of violence they will. This lies at the very heart of the debate in France today, what is feared in France is a culture of dogma and believing without question what you are told because that is the end of intellectual freedom. The big question is how to do that? It seems confrontation is unavoidable because unshackelling the intellence of a body of people amounts to a loss of power to those that control those people.
Where you write "fungus" I'd have writen "cancer", yes completely agree, doing nothing seems intolerable, but what strategy to take?
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 16 2015 17:40:52
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: Too lazy to think? (in reply to Dudnote)
|
|
|
Perhaps we should draw back a bit from discussing the specific atrocity perpetrated by ignorant, imprisoned minds against Charlie Hebdo in Paris. It rubs all of us who value open minds and freedom of expression raw. Nevertheless, Simon requested we not dig into the subject, given the current atmosphere and threats in Europe and elsewhere. He's right. This probably is not the forum to have that specific discussion.
Nevertheless, on the general topic that Rui brought up in this thread, I would suggest that we have to be very careful not to assume that because an interlocutor disagrees with us it means he is "too lazy to think," or that he hasn't considered all alternative opinions before coming to his conclusion.
Clearly, there are those who reach conclusions on the basis of ignorance, with minds imprisoned by ideology, faith, or plain old narrow-mindedness. And some because they really are too lazy to think. Those who reject the overwhelming evidence for evolution and natural selection and assert that the Earth is 6,000 years old come readily to mind. Those who reject various genres of art and music without ever having experienced them are another example.
But it also is entirely possible that our interlocutor who disagrees with us has looked at all the evidence and simply reached a different conclusion. In politics and international relations, for example, there are "wing nuts" on both the left and the right who are driven, not by evidence and history, but by ideology. On the other hand, there are liberals and conservatives who know their history, have reviewed the evidence under consideration, and legitimately disagree on causes and prescriptions for the way forward. Theirs is a legitimate disagreement based on different interpretations of the same evidence.
The same could be said of disagreements over art, music, the level of government taxation and how the resulting revenue should be spent, and a host of other issues. The point is, one should not automatically assume that just because someone else holds a different opinion, he has not thought the issue through and is too lazy to think. I have found that often that is the case, but just as often someone's disagreement with me demonstrates a thoughtful, considered alternative to my own opinion and understanding of the issue under discussion.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 17 2015 11:24:05
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.125 secs.
|
Printable Version
