Another one of those threads that causes intense navel-gazing, shame, and mounting disgust in my gut for myself as I realize that everyone around me is working hard to better themselves while I just binge-watch movies.... and then my eyes glaze over as I mollify myself with the movies until I forget that this thread exists.
Life is short, enjoy your time watching movies.
I have wasted a lot of time being busy (reading non-fiction, TED talks etc) that did not translate into any noticeable self improvement or progress in my life. I have feeling a lot of people makes that mistake too.
>did not translate into any noticeable self improvement
I've thought about this topic often, and I bounce around on where I stand on it (unsure if I'm just being pedantic or something).
I'm currently of the mind that infotainment like (early) ted talks, a large subset of conference talks, and all "Smarter Every Day"-like Youtube channels are overall no better than general trash entertainment. With general entertainment, you know what it is and self-limit, whereas the former present themselves as a valuable use of your time, and often make you _feel_ like your doing something "good" (I'm learning!), but the actual take away is often at best a factiod that you still couldn't even talk about in any depth.
That's all well, but let's don't forget the opportunity cost.
One can enjoy anything, e.g. food, but then they get to 300 lbs and they look back, and say wtf did I let this happen?
So enjoyment alone is not a safe criterion...
>I have wasted a lot of time being busy (reading non-fiction, TED talks etc) that did not translate into any noticeable self improvement or progress in my life. I have feeling a lot of people makes that mistake too.
That's a valid point though. There's even a name for it "productivity porn".
I'm being that pedantic guy now, but I think you misunderstand opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of eating food wouldn't be the negative consequences of eating food. Rather, it would be the negative consequences of not doing something else that you would have done if you hadn't been eating the food.
The easiest example is that the opportunity cost of going to university is 4 years of steady income. But students believe its worth it because the future income they'd receive instead is hopefully more than worth the opportunity cost.
>I'm being that pedantic guy now, but I think you misunderstand opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of eating food wouldn't be the negative consequences of eating food. Rather, it would be the negative consequences of not doing something else that you would have done if you hadn't been eating the food.
Thanks, I know what opportunity cost is, I just digressed when I gave the example into a "too much of a good thing" case instead of "what else you could be doing in that time" case.
> Life is short, enjoy your time watching movies. I have wasted a lot of time being busy (reading non-fiction, TED talks etc) that did not translate into any noticeable self improvement or progress in my life. I have feeling a lot of people makes that mistake too.
I'm not sure that I agree that it is a 'mistake' to read non-fiction even if it doesn't explicitly translate into self-improvement or progress. If you enjoy reading non-fiction, then why can't it be an end in itself just like watching movies can be? (I don't like TED talks, so I won't comment on those, but I would make the same argument if you do.)
I find I enjoy watching documentaries and reading technical/history/biography books often more than fiction. Because fiction is, ultimately, fake and manipulative.
I'm reading your comment as implying that fiction is more manipulative than nonfiction? If that's true, I'd be curious to hear more about your reasons for that. Don't mean that in a challenging way, this is just a topic I've been thinking about.
The problem I have with biographies and documentaries is that they overlay order and narrative on this 'messy and unpredictable' reality. If anything, that's more manipulative than a good novel that is rooted in deep research/domain knowledge and that doesn't claim to be 'objective'.
Historical accounts are always biased, usually according to the political correctness of the time they were written. For example, the Founding Fathers went from hero to goat to hero to goat and are now morphing back to heroic status with the play "Hamilton".
Civil War heroes are goats today, even having their memorials removed.
Edison has gone from hero to goat. He'll be a hero again in a few decades.
It's the job of a professional historian to try and discern the truth from all this. But whatever truth there is in fiction is impossible to determine if you know nothing about history.
Of course they are. The challenging part is reading different accounts of the same events, and attempting to discern the truth. For example, was Edison a good guy or a bad guy? Did he invent the lightbulb or steal it? And if you find something interesting, you can dig into it and find out more. Not so with a novel.
Fictional universes evolve into 'canon', where certain explanations are correct and others are dismissed. Star Trek, Star Wars, etc., famously have 'canon'. People get wrapped around the axle arguing canon. This is ridiculous, as it's all made up nonsense.
Good point on reading multiple viewpoints. As for fiction, there are a few writers who say true and interesting things about the world but they don't write Star Wars novels. I'd say "Disgrace" by Coetzee and "Demons" by Dostoevsky are examples.
You do realize 'fiction' is more than just Dan Brown and Star Trek, right? Some of the best novels I've read are basically historical/biographical accounts that just don't pretend they're anything but one person's biased take on things.
Instead of reading historical/biographical fiction, why not read the real thing? For example, read "Stuka Pilot" by Rudel. It's an account of fighting in WW2 that would be dismissed as ridiculous if it was a Hollywood movie, but it is all real and documented.
Another is "Reach for the Sky" by Bader. Chuck Yeager's biography is also a treat.
Then watch that absurd "Flyboys" Hollywood fiction. What a piece of trash in comparison.
- something really funny ( new different angle or more complex. I actually find lots of old/pref liked comedians no longer funny)
- something which is between easy and hard. A lot of stuff becomes easier and easier after a while.
I've always just read this as people on Hacker News feel more compelled than I do to be productive all the time. I have a corporate gig, and need to be my most productive self during work hours (he said, while commenting on HN during work hours), so I'm not as hard on myself outside of work. Maybe if I had a different mentality I could create the next Facebook or Uber or who knows what, but honestly I'm pretty happy as is. Don't have shame, friend. You are who you are. Better yourself by being a well rounded, nice person, not by spending all your free time reading books or watching TED talks.
A bit cynical, but my guess is the vast majority of people forcing themselves to consume productive media are not retaining anything and just don't want to feel like they're wasting time.
And as the sibling comment said, nothing wrong with a good movie. Enjoy your life.
I've been getting better, though, and I don't mean getting better by reading more technical literature, listening to more podcasts, and doing more programming in my free time.
Instead I mean accepting the fact that I simply don't enjoy those things and the way forward is to let go of the shame I feel for not liking them. There are plenty of things I do want to do in my free time, and I'm going to do those things. Every once in a while that thing is reading something technical or writing a program. In fact, I find that I enjoy those things more often when I'm not trying to force myself to do them.
I used to have quite a large stack of technical books I bought and then never read. Now the local Goodwill has them. Hopefully the next owner is someone who actually enjoys them.
Good movies are nothing to be ashamed of. While you may not be learning new facts about science and tech, you're interacting with different emotional models and stories depicting human interactions. Awhile ago I saw research confirming the link between watching a lot of movies and increase in emotional intellect (same people, over time), but I can't google it up now.
Watching videos can only help you develop a superficial understanding, anyway. A superficial understanding is a good place to start, but videos have usually been a form of procrastination for me, even when the content's been ostensibly serious.
