this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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politics

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[–] TokenBoomer 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Well, let me give an example. When I'm driving, I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I'm listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it's plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it's at a level of superficiality that's beyond belief.

In part, this reaction may be due to my own areas of interest, but I think it's quite accurate, basically. And I think that this concentration on such topics as sports makes a certain degree of sense. The way the system is set up, there is virtually nothing people can do anyway, without a degree of organization that's far beyond anything that exists now, to influence the real world. They might as well live in a fantasy world, and that's in fact what they do. I'm sure they are using their common sense and intellectual skills, but in an area which has no meaning and probably thrives because it has no meaning, as a displacement from the serious problems which one cannot influence and affect because the power happens to lie elsewhere. source

[–] CharlesDarwin 2 points 2 days ago

I so very much remember him making these comments. People so very much emotionally invested in something that literally has ZERO impact on their lives, but deeply ignorant of so many things that do...

I remember even as a kid being puzzled by supposed adults spending most of their time and nearly all their mental effort on game(s). Game(s) they themselves don't play. Or at least not anymore. It's watching OTHER people play games and having this emotional rollercoaster over it....I know many adult (males) that feel compelled to know about football, at least, just for work and getting ahead in the corporate world. Also baffling.

I think I've seen Chomsky say this on video/audio, as well.