What people do for fun.. how the hell is it fun?! !

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Yeah, I don't get it either. I can't stand the taste of alchohol, and don't like the bar atmosphere. "Fun? Maybe for you. You can enjoy it if you want, but don't drag me with you, 'cus it ain't no fun for me."

I also am weary because, as someone who's depressed a LOT, I wouldn't want to be the sort of person who buries all their problems in a bottle and winds up a tormented alchoholic. I'd rather bury my problems in a blog, thank ya very much.

"Philosophers, writers, artists, even scientists, not only need encouragement and an audience, they need constant stimulation from other people. It is almost impossible to think without talking. If Defoe had really lived on a desert island, he could not have written Robinson Crusoe, nor would he have wanted to. Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up."

'Conversation with a Pacifist' by George Orwell
http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/pacifist.html

More and further regarding: whatever the true "fun" needs of Asperger's?
'Not Aspie enough!' at: http://www.wrongplanet.net/asperger.htm ... ic&t=14893 and: 'Aspie culture and Aspie candor: Hope or hokum?' at: http://www.wrongplanet.net/asperger.htm ... ic&t=14935

I agree they need contact with other peoples thoughts/ideas, but the internet has made it possible to get them in writing minus the socialization factor. I've done my BEST thinking sitting on the internet researching, hanging around message boards and sucking up other peoples thoughts.

I think that Orwell was, indeed, thinking of socializing, just not among heteronymous Cretins and Philistines on the pub crawl or vapid playas on the disko dance floor. You view of stimulation seems a narrower value proposition than Orwell's or mine.

Imagine having dull and thoughtless company plus a stack of great books. Would that be at all equal or equivalent to a anyone interesting and sensitive to relate to? Not unless that lout actually broke down a read any of it, pondered and related thereto, and thereby grew into a more interesting and perceptive companion.
And likewise, would passing around a stack of questionnaires and processing then, anonymized, through the Delphi Technique into a random access data base, ever yield anything half as rousing as a spirited debate over tea at the Vienna Circle or to riposte bom mots at the Algonquin?

Mote than anything, perhaps it is the mindless passive consumer standardization of fun by the entertainment industry, that has killed the real human interaction, surprise and the stimulation whereof Orwell writes so eloquently, permitting only vapid small talk with manipulative social climbing as the only remaining sense of challenge.

1984 has arrived as a vast theme park, eating the world alive!

this is a very salient point, AaronAgassi, in all posibility perhaps the interaction that orwell writes of no longer exists, or perhaps moreso that it can no longer be distinguished from a simulation of true interaction, perpetuated by the media saturated world we live in.



http://www.wwnorton.com/giddens5/ch/16/

http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/ ... mpany.html

When we speak of true culture rather than bogus recreation and passive consumption, the question is no longer why it, culture rather than any plastic substitute, doesn’t happen, but why even we who wail and gnash our teeth from all the woes of vastly under stimulated boredom are not doing it, again, culture rather than any such unreasonable facsimile.

And that is the question which you all are so ready to self servingly sidestep.

I speak of culture as an aspect of real socializing, vital interpersonal networking, the organization of society as a contact sport with audience participation, spinning ones own vital web of support. And I question, again and again, as to the nature of our difficulties in so crucial a priority and responsibility, even on our own terms.

Again:
'Not Aspie enough!' at: http://www.wrongplanet.net/asperger.htm ... ic&t=14893 and: 'Aspie culture and Aspie candor: Hope or hokum?' at: http://www.wrongplanet.net/asperger.htm ... ic&t=14935

perhaps, as i tried to point out above, the answer lies in the possibility that, in the current milleu, real culture has become, to all intents and purposes, indiscernible from the bogus recreation and passive consumption that you speak of. an unreasonable facsimile of the real, indeed, with no substance beyond the surface, and yet no means by which to penetrate to any deeper level.

the real has been usurped by the simulation. sign no longer signifies reality, but instead signifies another sign, which in turn signifies only another sign, until reality itself is obfuscated in a web of simulacra that at once both obscures and negates any possiblity of that true interaction that you desire.

But culture has always been simulation. And in so far as the vital purpose is only stimulation, that has never been any problem. It is the content and the quality of simulation and stimulation and interaction that is at issue. And if you know what you want and shiit from Shinola, then culture always remains well discernable from industrial strength fake fun. Moreover, responsibility is never ever truly escaped by refuge in the passive voice.

I don't know about you, but I take my fun quite seriously. However, perhaps the question how to have more real big fun simply isn't all that important to anyone else.

i do not quite understand your assertion that culture has always been simulation. perhaps in as much as it represents a code or convention to convey experiences and ideas among a specific group.

but what i am trying to say, is that peoples expectations and experiences of culture, human interaction, fun, life in general, are no longer grounded in actual reality, but instead are mere representations of the idealised models of each presented to us through the media. these idealised models, simulations, are themselves simulations of simulations, and so on, until nothing refers to reality anymore. this, however, has not always been the case.

perhaps this is part of the problem you seem to be encountering.

Simulation most broadly, is the representation of the operation or features of one process or system through the use of another. Story telling is an exercise in plausible plot logic and dance can actually be a way to teach and drill combat moves even to the entirely unsuspecting.

But culture is first and foremost, socially constructed, a contrived way of life. Stimulation is no longer the byproduct of the common natural circumstances to which response has evolved for survival in the first place. Indeed, even quite aside from the new challenges of human society beyond those in the wild, to culture stimulation is the end in and of itself, the vital sustenance of the biological simulation engine that is the mind. And so, indeed, obviously, even tautologically, culture has always been human interactive simulation to optimize stimulation.

And, again, culture is not merely like the weather that simply happens in our environment regardless of our will, but rather, culture is what we do. And so, the question of satisfactory culture is still not why it happens or else does not, but why we do or do not, howsoever satisfactory culture. Fun doesn't happen, you do. Or not. We are all responsible to pursue and enact our needs. Or do you disagree?

i fully agree.

but as i see it, what passes as culture, at least in our media-saturated western societies, no longer really optimises stimulation, but rather could be seen as a stimulation-simulation. in essence, rather than providing stimulation for the individual, it nullifies and negates the true quest for stimulation with its endless onslaught of purile banality and triteness.

it is no longer the construct of individuals functioning within a social network, or a collective construct thereof, hitherto striving for stimulation in the absence of a natural habitat, or indeed increasing the bounty of their collective knowledge and experiences, but a preconceived contrivance, manifested by the omnipresent channels of media, a self-perpetuating, omnipresent beast, manifesting itself through myriad levels of simulation, to the point where the original essence of culture is lost, and becomes effectively irretrievable.

one might consider that subcultural activity, or perhaps grassroots organisational tactics, existing on the fringes of the accepted cultural norms, and at times transgressing said norms, would be the best means of fostering stimulation, but even such antinomian behaviours eventually fall pray to assimilation by the dominant and sterilising forces of mass culture. the empire of the spectacular, perhaps.

so the question becomes, as i see it, how do we short-circuit, or bypass, the negative effects of the trappings of modern human civilisation on the quest for stimulation?

or have i misunderstood you entirely?

Yes, exactly.

(Again, indeed, as desperately pursued by yours truly, in the topics:
'Not Aspie enough!' at: http://www.wrongplanet.net/asperger.htm ... ic&t=14893 and: 'Aspie culture and Aspie candor: Hope or hokum?' at: http://www.wrongplanet.net/asperger.htm ... ic&t=14935 )

Except that I am no Ludite. Technology and pop culture are by no means my villains, but, just as with Orwell, being cool, exhaustion and the quest for oblivion, anti-intellectualism meaning the compliant embrace by others of typically repressive socialization against independent thought and genuine emotion, just for the comfort of spiteful dullards.

Indeed, again, not IT no longer, but WE no longer. The snare is first and foremost in despair and the increasing abrogation of responsibility.

agreed, i do not suggest that technology is a villain per se, moreso that it has undoubted villainous potential in the grasp of that entity that would seek to perpetuate our predicament.

so, have you a strategy by which to reverse this mire of cultural stagnation forthwith? or is it your intention in initiating the debate to attempt to excogitate, by means of discussion or otherwise, an ad hoc tactic to this end?

Both, actually. And in so far as the former, I refer you again to my other topics and the line of reasoning and strategy that I struggle to pursue here on this forum.

sometimes (tonight actually) i go to bars & drink water.

If anyone askes what im drinking, i tell them; water.

Hey, big spender!