Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'?

Re:Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? by robocat on Friday June 17, 2022 @06:10PM (#31785056)

> should we stop pouring resources into philosophy and arts?

Do we exist just to eat, shit, and breed?

Hopefully our civilisation is concerned with more than just the cold necessities of life: a civilisation that lets us do with our minds what we will. Circuses and Netflix have more meaning than bread: bread is merely a low level dependency in the skill tree.

I think there is a lot of bollox to our liberal humanities: but who am I to judge what others choose to put their minds to? Edit: the small percentage of gold produced is what matters, not the large percentage of load bearing ore. There can be a lot of worthwhile waste.

Disclaimer: I am Engineer, not Word Rotator.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? by corsac on Saturday June 18, 2022 @08:42AM (#31789310)

Thank you for "Word Rotator".

As someone who values the liberal humanities, I wish "support for philosophy and the arts" were implicitly understood as support for leisure time for people in general, rather than funding special arts programming or individual institution-pleasers. If arts and philosophy are not flourishing as they should be, it is not because the Kennedy Center (or whatever) needs any more money, but because people can't afford basic needs like housing without spending all their time working, and so have no time for it.

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Re:Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? by andsoitis on Friday June 17, 2022 @08:58PM (#31786373)

> Do we exist just to eat, shit, and breed?

we exist because we eat, shit, and breed. But that will end too.

We are just an expression of processes in the unfolding universe.

[ Parent | on HN ]