art is a waste of time; reducing suffering is all that matters

eating oatmeal day after day is a kind of suffering and also art!

Haha that is very true!

& it probably goes without saying, but if any of these people choose reproduction over adoption, they should be burned alive, wellbeing of their children be damned

eating oatmeal is art

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/08/16/Ronnie-Barker-460x276.jpg

the work of oatmeal in the age of mechanical reproduction

There should be some special award for outstanding achievements in the field of oatmeal-eating (which is incidentally waaaay more cost-effective than the stereotypical all-ramen diet, + your heart will thank you)

Can we add awards for outstanding achievements in adding wheat germ and milk to oatmeal?

I think those fall within the purview of the "Inn-oat-vations" category

I got a big bag of hempseed on clearance earlier this year; that made oatmeal pretty fun for a few weeks

Now if we could just figure out a way to combine oatmeal with canned tuna...

Baked oatmeal loaf, maybe?

Or little cookies. Shoplift a jar of capers for extra flavor!!

ewwwwwwwwww

Sorry, inventing gross foods has become a bit of a hobby for me ever since I took a job stocking groceries :/

I assume that 'effective altruists' also extend this principle to other areas of human activity: friends, relationships, children, etc. Having and raising a child in the First World is surely a far greater drain on time and resources than writing music or dancing.

in my experience this is true

e.g. their rescue animals are 'their children', it's morally wrong for too many reasons to have human babies

or they spend a good chunk of their leisure time watching documentaries about problems to solve, where you and i would be watching scandal

of course their friends are all altruists so they really cash in there morally

"We had a new, fresh opportunity to begin again, a fresh opportunity to explore the music separate from the market place being able to control the definitions of the music and for me that is part of the importance of the 6th restructural cycle musics. That it was an opportunity to clean the mirror, which is the expression in America, to start anew and to create music that would 1. unify the composite spectrum of the creative trans-African musics, 2. that would unify the American musics, 3. that would unify a service of platform to solidify a world culture, and 4. that would be a part of a composite movement for world change and re-evaluation that would encompass the changes brought about in the modern era from nuclear physics, from Einstein, changes that would incorporate mythology, composite mythology changes, that would take into account the new technologies..."

sorry, that's an excerpt from an interview with musician Anthony Braxton

lol the perfect counterargument from the world of artists

http://ddpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Braxton_Work_Full.jpg

it's not much of an argument. I don't know what he's talking about. Apart from just separating market forces from the arts

square utilitarians incapable of computing utility of visionary braxtonian change movements, utile calcutrons fizzle, say 88888888 on lcd readouts

whether or not you're the philosophio-religio-pessimist, i think this whole project is misguided because of how little we know about what creates well-being, however you define it. empirical data is basically non-existent for this in every part of the world except the oecd, which has seen a slight decrease in self-reported happiness (and a more significant rise in depression, anxiety, and suicide) over the last 50 years. physical health is the supposed no-brainer, but the data for it is counter-intuitive: health is inversely correlated reported experiences of happiness. i for one would rather die younger if it means i'd be happier. so at this point i'm definitely going with "suffering is inevitable." if i were a committed effective altruist i would probably become a neuroscientist to try to figure out how to lobotomize people to make them the happiest they can be, or an engineer to automate the industrial processes that our lobotomized citizens will be too stupid to operate.

in my experience this is true

Ha, I was working on the assumption that none of us actually knew people who subscribe to this movement.

know

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Finally we will know!

This poll is really tough on ILX user "art"

We come to understand the multifarious dimensions of human experience on any array of topics through every form of art. Art that survives the generations is open to experience by people who aren't even alive yet. If we are to understand ourselves we must allow for the creation of art.

If I couldn't make art I would suffer more than I already do.

This premise is faulty, ergo stupid, ergo quit trying to make artists feel worse than they do for doing the irrational and personal. It's bad enough when ill meaning people belittle the creation of art, for well meaning people to do it too is just cruel.

surfing is all that matters

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/why-do-we-like-having-sex-with-artists.html

So this pervasive “muse complex” isn’t the only reason why artists are attractive to us. Last winter, Bret Easton Ellis had Kanye West as a guest on his podcast, and part of their conversation centered around the reality of being someone who creates things. Kanye mentioned that he felt particularly self-aware of the artist’s tendency to oscillate between periods of inflated ego and periods of self-loathing. It’s an intense life — there’s the pain of creation, padded by periods of downtime where one feels compelled to escape reality. And stereotypically, sex and drugs have been sedatives for that intensity. But that oscillation can make for a charged romantic relationship. One minute the artist appears so amazing and confident that you can't help but open your legs, and the next minute they suddenly plummet and become vulnerable and insecure, and need you to open your arms to comfort them. In my experience, despite the fact that artists think they want to be with someone smart and critical, who challenges them — deep down most really just want to be babied. And this is why the artist is appealing not only to those seduced by rebellion and celebrity. It’s also attractive to the nurturing type. Some people love a fixer-upper.

Art, at its best, aims to be a transcendent experience. As does sex. And maybe this is naive to say, given that art is now largely a business, but I’ve always found it attractive to think that artists might be more in touch with generating transcendence than the average person, and therefore must be better in bed. (I might have to sleep with more artists in order to prove that theory.) There’s just something sexy and fascinating about someone whose daily routine deals with the sublime, and who aims to create something out of this world. It’s like wanting to fuck God, kinda. Also, objectively, artists are good with their hands, so ...

Now explain why we don't like having sex with effective altruists.

Jesus, I don't find those people attractive at all.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/still-poetry-will-rise/507266/

everything's coming up poetry!!!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/magazine/a-time-for-refusal.html?smid=tw-share

teju cole

Evil settles into everyday life when people are unable or unwilling to recognize it. It makes its home among us when we are keen to minimize it or describe it as something else. This is not a process that began a week or month or year ago. It did not begin with drone assassinations, or with the war on Iraq. Evil has always been here. But now it has taken on a totalitarian tone.

At the end of “Rhinoceros,” Daisy finds the call of the herd irresistible. Her skin goes green, she develops a horn, she’s gone. Berenger, imperfect, all alone, is racked by doubts. He is determined to keep his humanity, but looking in the mirror, he suddenly finds himself quite strange. He feels like a monster for being so out of step with the consensus. He is afraid of what this independence will cost him. But he keeps his resolve, and refuses to accept the horrible new normalcy. He’ll put up a fight, he says. “I’m not capitulating!”

this is true

oppression has given birth to the best art

and people are forced out of the mainstream

they cope by creating art bigger than herself and her country

it's like on one hand you've got all these regrettable deportations, ostracizing of muslims, normalizing of hatred, rollback of the last chance we had to avoid the climate change tipping point, the theft of the supreme court

but on the other there's probably going to be some really FIERCE punk rock, so basically it's a tossup

i don't think of it that way at all

recent history has not shown the arts to be highly able to mobilize in that regard anyway

but i have been thinking a lot this week about art's capacity for negativity, for being a source of a sense of possibility that lets people set themselves against the world as it is or orient themselves within it without losing themselves

you're not gonna break through to mouth-breathing trumplets who are suddenly emboldened to act out their pathetic revenge fantasies, not with a profound portrait of differences and common humanity or whatever

they have no imaginations, their inner horizons are as constrained as their outer ones

and no one would think that art substitutes or compensates for necessary concrete political action and moral confrontation

but art nurtures our imaginations and we need our imaginations to survive

all of that supremely otm

oh j, i didn't mean to come off like that, sorry. i was just making a smartass comment in opposition to something totally different, spoken by people who have never heard of ILX. "but art nurtures our imaginations and we need our imaginations to survive" is completely otm.

well i wouldn't have held it against you if you did, i think it is a valid perception that has to be recognized, that art dwindles in the face of those things. people who value art as a source of possibility know this, though.

'art is a useless generosity. but let us not be too horrified by this.'

- sartre

"Great art comes from generosity," Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard said last year, recalling the genesis of Temple of the Dog. Gossard and Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament, who played in Mother Love Bone, were devastated by Wood's death. Cornell wrote the songs for Temple of the Dog "from as pure a place as you can find," Gossard continued. "And then he reached out, letting us in."

https://thepointmag.com/2017/politics/aggressive-humanism-center-for-political-beauty

The most compelling political performance artists in Germany do not like to be called “artists.” Nor do they prefer the label of “activists”—a term they reserve for gradualists, clicktivists, and the letter-writers of Amnesty International. Founded in 2009 by the philosopher Philipp Ruch, the Center for Political Beauty makes its base of “operations” (Aktionen in German) in Berlin, with changing groups of volunteers and partners throughout Europe. Its members, who wear suits and charcoal war paint, are organized into “assault teams” aiming to establish “moral beauty, political poetry and human greatness [Großgesinntheit].” They call themselves “aggressive humanists.”

I make paintings to be able to think in a way I can't in any other form. In my way I feel like I am contributing to the continuum of painting and the extension of the painting language. Whether or not those things are valuable against the struggle to abate suffering, I can only say that painting in specific moves me in a way that music moves me. These aren't the only art forms obviously but they are the ones I can speak to the best. I think the capacity to be moved and the engagement with that capacity is a form of relief and human existence would be greatly diminished without it.

art and suffering are both a waste of time; subtweeting President of the United States Donald P Trump is all that matters

http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/jazz-icon-sonny-rollins-on-giving-up-playing-and-his-legacy.html

Even though you can’t play anymore, it must bring you some satisfaction to know that you gave people so much through your music.

Not really.

Why not?

I’m thrilled when somebody tells me that listening to my music gives them some solace or peace, but I played music for myself, too. I was getting something out of it. So I don’t consider my musical gifts as any kind of servitude. It wasn’t giving of myself, because I got too much out of it. I had to play music. I had to. It’s something I wanted to do when I was a child. That’s like a gift to me. It’s not me giving. Do you understand what I mean?

I think so. You’re saying that your playing music wasn’t an act of giving because it didn’t come from a purely altruistic place.

Yeah, that’s right.

rings true for me

Lots of ppl believe this nowadays I think.

Anyone who says they are a musician just to make other people happy is an asshole.

Otm

humans spend a lot of time on this planet doing bullshit, creating art seems pretty low on the entropy scale. as for reducing suffering, hey go for it, Batman.

seems like if you are a musician or an artist, thats what you do because that's just what comes natural. it's something you enjoy doing and you would probably do it even if there was no material reward because you enjoy the process of the work itself. in fact you enjoy it more than the final product. i think this is where a lot of self-hatred and self-criticism comes in. maybe the thrill of creation is far more interesting than the finished piece. i know that many, many times, once i'm done with a painting or song or whatever, it's dead to me. i look at it and i just see the imperfections, i just see the stuff i should be fixing. my mind instantly snaps into wanting to do the creative process itself.

i don't think anybody sings a song or draws a picture and thinks "wow, this is really impressive, i need to show this to the world because of how impressive it is". that seems like a convenient myth to sell the suffering artist, and it's a bullshit myth that still has plenty of currency. this expectation that you are "doing it for the fans" and to just make art or music because you like isn't really enough, you have to fit into this pre-defined role. your role as artist is to create the product and these roles are part of that product. the act of creation itself must be justified by its marketability. it is not enough to find joy in the creation, you have to provide product, you have to do it for the right reasons. whenever any musician is asked about live performing, they must declare over and over again how it is done for the fans, how thrilling it is to receive adulation, etc. validating the consumer role, etc. it's culture-wide and so annoying (and probably a result of the critical class being often untrained and inexperienced in the art processes they are describing).

imo if you find real joy in the creation of art then chances are that a genuine joy will be reciprocated in its appreciation, which could very well lead to suffering reduced.