History/learning as escapism?

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

So most everybody's familiar with the idea of escapism (as a bad thing, as an excess), some people live in fantasy worlds of books or video games or movies or whatever, and they turn into space cases and let their lives fall apart around them because

What if you do it with real world stuff, though? I don't think I've ever heard of it, but if you read history books all day long, or watch I Fucking Love Science videos all day long, or other such where it's not a literal fantasy world, but it has fuck all to do with actual day-to-day life for you.

Reason it's on my mind is I started reading history books a few years ago and I've gotten where I think it might be an actual addiction, and it's like, maybe it's just a more pretentious version of being a Star Wars consoomer, just consooming "Real Life."

 

[millais]

I do this and sort of hate myself for indulging in it. It is literally peak consumerism and escapism; don't be fooled by the appealing notion of intellectualist superiority.

Consider:
The average Star Wars consoomer regularly wastes a couple dozen bucks a month on his Funko Pops, vidya, Lego sets, and streaming subscription service (let's assume the physical goods are mass produced and shipped from China in bulk). In the past, he wasted a couple dozen bucks to buy box set of Original Trilogy and watch the prequels/new trilogy in the theaters.

Meanwhile, I regularly waste hundreds on acquiring out-of-print books and antique memorabilia that have minimal resale value and often need to be airmailed across the ocean to reach me. In the past, I wasted tens of thousands on the university education required to simply enjoy and appreciate the books and memorabilia and to gain a basic knowledge of where to start acquiring the book/memorabilia collection.

I have zero doubt that I wasted more fossil fuels, electricity, raw materials, agricultural produce, etc per capita in the pursuit of my historical hobby interests than the average Star Wars consoomer did in pursuit of his. For the same investment of resources, energy, and capital, my hobbyist costs could have paid for the hobbyist costs of a dozen Star Wars consoomers.

Unless you are learning something with a transformative or creative potential and applying it to a creative pursuit, you are still a consoomer. Your mind might become more highly ordered in your pursuit of esoteric knowledge, but when you evaluate the final balance in the material world, you're still generating net entropy. Even if you end up writing/publishing a tract or treatise with the fruits of your newfound knowledge, I don't think it really counts unless you turn out a best seller that actually generates substantial revenue for you.

You're maybe slightly above the Stars Wars consoomer, but you're both still consoomers compared to the guy whose leisure hobby is carpentry or welding or vegetable gardening.

If you get locked into the pursuit of useless historical knowledge, it can devolve into something like the intellectual equivalent of those coomers who get addicted to increasingly perverse hardcore porn and can no longer be satisfied by vanilla porn.

After a while, you're no longer satisfied by the top online article in search results or the NYT best-selling introductory primer; you gotta get your hands on the 3-volume authoritative academic text, then when that's not enough, you gotta get the primary source account written by the guy who was there 200 years ago, and then you gotta get it in the unedited original language edition- no translations! - that comes with the rare photo prints that never got digitized so you can't pirate it and instead gotta have it airmailed from an antique bookdealer across the ocean.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I do this and sort of hate myself for indulging in it. It is literally peak consumerism and escapism; don't be fooled by the appealing notion of intellectualist superiority.

Consider:
The average Star Wars consoomer regularly wastes a couple dozen bucks a month on his Funko Pops, vidya, Lego sets, and streaming subscription service (let's assume the physical goods are mass produced and shipped from China in bulk). In the past, he wasted a couple dozen bucks to buy box set of Original Trilogy and watch the prequels/new trilogy in the theaters.

Meanwhile, I regularly waste hundreds on acquiring out-of-print books and antique memorabilia that have minimal resale value and often need to be airmailed across the ocean to reach me. In the past, I wasted tens of thousands on the university education required to simply enjoy and appreciate the books and memorabilia and to gain a basic knowledge of where to start acquiring the book/memorabilia collection.

I have zero doubt that I wasted more fossil fuels, electricity, raw materials, agricultural produce, etc per capita in the pursuit of my historical hobby interests than the average Star Wars consoomer did in pursuit of his. For the same investment of resources, energy, and capital, my hobbyist costs could have paid for the hobbyist costs of a dozen Star Wars consoomers.

Unless you are learning something with a transformative or creative potential and applying it to a creative pursuit, you are still a consoomer. Your mind might become more highly ordered in your pursuit of esoteric knowledge, but when you evaluate the final balance in the material world, you're still generating net entropy. Even if you end up writing/publishing a tract or treatise with the fruits of your newfound knowledge, I don't think it really counts unless you turn out a best seller that actually generates substantial revenue for you.

You're maybe slightly above the Stars Wars consoomer, but you're both still consoomers compared to the guy whose leisure hobby is carpentry or welding or vegetable gardening.

If you get locked into the pursuit of useless historical knowledge, it can devolve into something like the intellectual equivalent of those coomers who get addicted to increasingly perverse hardcore porn and can no longer be satisfied by vanilla porn.

After a while, you're no longer satisfied by the top online article in search results or the NYT best-selling introductory primer; you gotta get your hands on the 3-volume authoritative academic text, then when that's not enough, you gotta get the primary source account written by the guy who was there 200 years ago, and then you gotta get it in the unedited original language edition- no translations! - that comes with the rare photo prints that never got digitized so you can't pirate it and instead gotta have it airmailed from an antique bookdealer across the ocean.

Okay, you're on a whole different level than me.

 

[Bassomatic]

So I'm guessing I'm being judged for that time I jerked off to the story about Anne Frank being sent to 1863 and helping the south win the US civil war.