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Superoldmanhermann t1_j26cob6 wrote

Reply to comment by Mediocre_Truth_6115 in What would Cardi B be called if she decided to live a healthy lifestyle ? by stepanek112

Nah. People talking about dicks or pussy or sex or paraphilia is as old as hell, as are people who overvalue their function (see kanye for a current example).

And popular music is de facto popular because it checks the lowest common denominator across the board. It's very often very dumb.

There are exceptions, of course. Where the wild roses grow, for instance, is pretty atypical (for a song that hit the charts, not nick cave), being about a murderers obsession with and killing of his victim, and then the same from the victim's point of view.

Though that Falco song Jeanny shares the general dark overtures, so it could be an indication that certain trends more likely produce certain art, and currently the trend is that of 'me', which yeah, is depressing.

Think I may have just talked myself into agreeing lmao.

Anyway my point is it's more complex than just 'mankind dumb af smh'

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Mediocre_Truth_6115 t1_j26e3ib wrote

I think I get where you're coming from. Youre completely right that there has been things before that were equally obscene, but what gets me it's that it topped the charts AND lacks any and all subtlety. It seemed that in the past things in that vein were at least camouflaged and could still arguably be called art. That's just utter dreck, and it's being lauded.

Utter dreck that would have been paid no attention in the past is now the most popular thing.

That song and others like it in and of themselves are not a problem, it's a symptom of other things which are actual problems.

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Superoldmanhermann t1_j26ga5l wrote

Yeah, basically. Again, it's complicated, but our fast paced, vapid, endorphine pumping lives these days are probably what's feeding the ugly machine.

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Mediocre_Truth_6115 t1_j26iwxb wrote

Nah. That's also a symptom. There's something else going on that I cannot claim to understand.

Those two things are analogous to a fever and an abscess.

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Superoldmanhermann t1_j26kkk0 wrote

I mean it could be both that these symptoms are feeding into a loop that sprung, originally, from multiple factors.

I suspect the solution will have to be worked on at different fronts. For one thing, unfettered growth leads to pretty undesirable side effects, but we aren't all that good at putting a hard cap on human ambition.

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Mediocre_Truth_6115 t1_j26nj4y wrote

Perpetual growth is impossible. The learned prior to the advent of the "global economy" were aware of this, but the "ambition", as you kindly put it, of a few with too much influence lead to warnings going unheeded.

Perpetual growth, like a cancer that eventually kills it's host.

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Superoldmanhermann t1_j26ohbf wrote

As a bit of an aside, there's a theory that the reason larger animals, such as whales, don't succumb to cancer is because eventually multiple tumours end up combating each other, keeping each other in check enough to keep the host alive.

Obviously that only works if all the tumours function similarly though, and one isn't upending the balance through shifty means.

A pretty apparent analogy to the free market idea, and it does beg the question why cancer should occur in the first place, but perhaps the analogy starts falling apart at that point.

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Mediocre_Truth_6115 t1_j26p20s wrote

That's an interesting and apt point.

However the whale is nevertheless a mortal creature, and the balance between life and death always eventually tips towards death. We could discuss what exactly the whale will eventually succumb to, but I'm not sure if that would add anything.

Anyway, the important thing is that there are still other healthy whales, which there won't be at the current trajectory.

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