

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus - bdfh42
http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html

======
pauljonas
>So I tell her all this stuff, and I think, "Okay, we're going to have a
conversation about authority or social construction or whatever." That wasn't
her question. She heard this story and she shook her head and said, "Where do
people find the time?" That was her question. And I just kind of snapped. And
I said, "No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the
time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for
50 years."

Odd, I had a moment like this about a year ago or so…

I had just recently revamped an organizational website and made it more
interactive, more user-participatory, and had made a remark to an office
assistant on how great it was that new "editors" were jumping in and adding
all this content, citing one in particular. Her response was the same as the
TV person Shirky described - "it must be nice to have all that free time"…

Irony being that unlike me (that I rarely watch TV and basically live on the
net, work time and a good bit of off time too…), most of these folks can
rattle about endlessly all the TV programs they watch and how much they love
their DVR…

~~~
simonw
My least favourite phrase in the English language has to be "they must have
too much time on their hands" in response to something creative but niche (re-
creating Star Wars in animated ASCII art, for example). My usual response
these days is "at least they weren't just watching TV".

~~~
lancashire
This is so true. A very quick story - last year when I was coming up to leave
University I decided to make leaving presents for my housemates as we were all
about to part ways. So using my fairly basic Photoshop skills I created some
digital photo collages, very simple but very effective, then went out and got
some cheap frames and printed them out. When I gave them out later that
evening they absolutely adored them, they were very cool. They also said I
must have had far too much time on my hands to have done these, to which I
replied 'I did it while you all watched Happy Gilmore'.

This notion that contributing or creating something is seen as a waste of time
really gets to me. Personally, I get far greater satisfaction spending my time
this way than watching the mind-rotting junk that finds its way onto the
television, yet this is seen as the normal way for us to spend our time. The
worst part was I felt I had to watch it just so I could spend time with my
friends. I really hope there is a shift in thought upon us.

(I am so sorry Adam, for the record I love that film. I don't care if it
contradicts my comment, that film rocks.)

~~~
eelco
I like your last remark. Especially because it doesn't contradict your comment
as much as you think. Shirky said: "People like to consume, but they also like
to produce, and they like to share". He probably means to say that people like
to share what they produce, but (at least) in case of TV people also like to
share what they consume. Having seen the same movie/show/etc. makes us feel
'connected'. In that sense 'traditional media' actually hit two of his three
points, not one.

~~~
eelco
No, wait, that's not entirely right :) The traditional media of course don't
enable the 'sharing' through them. Still, I think there is a lot of (social)
value in watching TV in the sense it 'gives you something to talk about' (to
say without nice words ;)

~~~
danohuiginn
Yes. This is why I grudgingly approve of the idea of a 'canon' of great (or
maybe just popular) works. The actual quality of the work isn't so important -
but shared culture both acts as social lubricant and provides a higher-level
language to discuss your lives. That's true whether you're quoting Buffy or
Faust.

------
phaedrus
We should remember that not all time is interchangeable; just because you're
up to spending 4 hours zonked out watching TV in bed does not mean you are up
for spending 4 hours doing useful cognitive work. Maybe you're tired, hung
over, sick, not feeling it, etc. However, even given this caveat, the author's
point still stands. Because even if 4 hours of TV watching only translates to
1 hour of useful creative work and 3 hours of blah, that's still a huge amount
of cognitive surplus.

But I think that it is like exercise - just because you watch TV for 4 hours,
doesn't mean you could have jogged or rode a bike for 4 hours straight
instead; your body isn't up to it. Why isn't it up to it? Because you're used
to watching TV. So even if we only get a very poor 4:1 conversion rate at
first, as we exercise our minds or bodies at doing other things besides TV, as
a society we'll improve that exchange rate.

~~~
davi
Along this line: when people say, "I would <x>, but I don't have the time"
(where <x> is some creative, interesting thing), usually one can substitute
the word "energy" for "time" in their statement, and learn a lot more about
them: they are essentially asserting that they are too energy depleted to <x>.

~~~
Xichekolas
I think when people say they "want to do <x>, but don't have time" it really
translates to: "I _feel like I should_ do <x>, but I don't really want to."

Exercise is the classic example.

~~~
nradov
Right, that's common behavior. And "I don't have the time" can also just be a
polite excuse to get out of doing something unpleasant. When something is
truly important people find a way to make it happen, regardless of how little
time they have.

------
poepping
"We should remember that not all time is interchangeable; just because you're
up to spending 4 hours zonked out watching TV in bed does not mean you are up
for spending 4 hours doing useful cognitive work." --phaedrus

This statement is somewhat wrong. I gave up T.V. about 3 years ago and this
may have been true at first, but as you go on you realize that when you feel
tired you are usually just bored, and need to do something. If you are really
tired then go to sleep, don't stay awake forcing yourself to be entertained
(gorging when you eat?)

It isn't Just T.V. that is bad. Anything that updates is bad since you come
back over and over looking for a new fix of "something new"; I've found this
activity extremely draining on your ability to go out and do new things; you
drop into a mode of wanting to do to a mode of just wanting things to come to
you to entertain you. This means that the internet is almost as bad as T.V.
(if not worse, more content to surf around) Think of all the things that are
currently popular : myspace, youtube, stumble, facebook..etc.. Almost exactly
like T.V. People go to those sites to zone out and have information handed to
them. The same goes for email, people keep checking their mailboxes hoping to
have a new nugget of joy that will keep them busy for a few more minutes.

I started off With No T.V. (cold turkey), I used Movies to supplement the
cravings, then I started cutting back on movies, not because I was trying to
cut back on them, but because I just don't find them interesting any more.
Next I cut out all forms of gossip and news from the internet. Pretty much
anything that you read that can make you angry from either a) "how stupid" the
person writing it is, or b) how anything like "that" could ever happen, you
just need to cut it out; why do you want to work yourself up? This would
include sites like slashdot.org, digg, reddit..etc. After cutting these sites
out, my over all mood has become much better; those sites just contain
thoughts that do you know good what so ever. (How did I read this to be
posting on it? Someone sent me the link. Which is a great system; if something
is worth knowing, someone will tell you.) After giving up most every news site
(they are all tripe that just spread gossip and violence.) I started reading
just "creative" blogs (make magazine for example.) Recently I have found that
It doesn't matter what you read, since you'll end up just going back to be
"entertained". Why is this bad? Because you switch off, you might think to
yourself that you'll get inspired by reading inspiring blogs, but you won't.
What you'll find out if you are paying attention is that most blogs are just
recycled content over and over; there are very few original ideas out there.

After giving up almost all forms of "updating" sources. I have found that I no
longer have enough time in a day to do all the stuff I want to get done. If I
feel too tired even to read a book (not usable energy as someone stated.) then
I go to bed.

There are millions of things to do out there, you just need to find them.

One other mistake I made was when trying to learn a lot of new things I would
bounce around between them, which isn't bad, but I found that when I got stuck
learning something new, I would switch over to doing something else, which is
bad. So If you plan on learning new things, set a time for yourself. If you
start an activity stay with it for at least 1 hour (or whatever) to make sure
that if you hit a wall you work your way over it instead of moving on to
something else. Also, I have found that keep a journal of all the things you
learn to be very useful. Whenever you have some free time, you can read
through the past things you have learned to refresh your memory.

You can respond to this comment all you want, but as stated i've pretty much
given up this type of entrainment (blogs) altogether and I'm just here because
someone sent me the link; I wrote this in hopes that it may help some people
that are moving down this path already. If you think this was all dumb crap
(maybe it is, life systems change over your life.) , well then don't use it.
If you have any questions: matt.poepping@gmail.com

~~~
fa
I think poepping's comments here are the most accurate so far (everyone else
has been great also!). I myself replied to the author of the original piece
with a tidbit that poepping elaborates on further. I said, "I would just add
that I suspect many of my college-age and young-professional friends and
colleagues spend significant percentages their cognitive surplus on not just
the standard funny-media but the news. NPR, cnn.com, many news aggregate
websites, etc. This seems a little more insidious than gin and sitcoms since
they actually think they're benefiting in some way. I'm afraid I believe that
they are not only wasting their cognitive surplus, but are also being loaded
up with expert-vetted beliefs that they ingest with as little thought as with
anything else."

Gin and sitcoms are only the beginning, we aren't through deploying all of our
cognitive surplus yet, by far. I love hacker news, but I think I need to
follow through with this understanding :D.

------
Alex3917
I don't understand why Shirky used the phrase cognitive surplus as opposed to
time surplus. After all, free time could be spent productively doing cognitive
work, but it could also be spent productively performing routinized labor.
Most of the top wikipedia editors rack up their massive edit counts from
correcting spelling mistakes and wikifying content, not writing original
articles.

------
stcredzero
Free time is not just a recent thing. Back in our hunter-gatherer days, many
of us had tons of free time. Even as agriculturalists, it was common for
people to have to devote zero time to work for months on end. At times like
this, young people could sing, dance, and play music for over 12 hours a day.
There were places in Ireland that were like this in living memory.

~~~
jlb
I disagree. Leisure time for the masses is a recent development. If one
observes modern small farmers and seasonal agricultural laborers, reads
history on peasants, pre and industrial laborers then one should take away the
observation that these people work and worked all day long most if not all
their lives. Even for hunter gatherers, they spend most of their time half-
starved scratching for food.

~~~
zasz
Hunter gatherers actually had plenty of food and leisure time and were much
better nourished than their agricultural compatriots. Jared Diamond wrote a
good article summarizing their lifestyle: <http://www.awok.org/worst-mistake/>

Seasonal farmers in Europe and Russia spent half the year doing nothing. Even
if they had to work their asses off during the growing season, they had
nothing BUT leisure time during the winter.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/opinion/25robb.html>

~~~
pg
If hunter-gatherers had such great lives, you have to ask why they took up
agriculture. Presumably it made their lives better or they wouldn't have done
it.

I think one problem with pre-agricultural life was that it was so
unpredictable. You had plenty of food, until you didn't.

Another downside was what hunter-gatherers had to do to their parents when
they got too old to travel, and to children born too close together.

~~~
stcredzero
There is a well known study of Native American cultures in the Mississippi
valley where we have access to skeletal remains over many hundreds of years.
We can see the health of individuals decline as they made their switch to corn
agriculture from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In fact, there are considerable
increases in disease and a shortening of lifespan. The reason why the
agricultural lifestyle won-out was because it was capable of supporting larger
populations with ruling theocratic elites who could then organize manpower for
military and other purposes. Hunter-gatherers, despite being healthier
individually, couldn't compete.

~~~
pg
_The reason why the agricultural lifestyle won-out was because it was capable
of supporting larger populations_

Think what that implies. If the hunter-gatherer mode of life couldn't support
a large population, how was that limit enforced? It had to be by people dying.

But that wasn't what I was asking anyway. I wasn't asking why agriculture won,
but why it started. The first agriculturists must have switched from being
hunter gatherers. Why, if life wasn't better?

(I realize the switch was a matter of degree, so consider the preceding
question as an abbreviation for asking why about each degree of switch.)

~~~
ingenium
I would think that it would have been more gradual than that. Some people in
the community probably started growing the plants that they usually went out
and gathered, since it was easier. Maybe during a time when they weren't
moving as much. Or maybe they migrated between different areas depending on
the season, so they planted, say, berries at all the different sites. I think
it would have started more like that. Then because there was more food
available from this, more people started doing it, and eventually it won out
over migrating all the time or even staying in one place and hunting and
gathering.

~~~
stcredzero
The wild rice gathering practice of current-day Native Americans in Minnesota
is a great example of incremental drift into agriculture. They go back to the
same patches in the water brush rice into their canoes with paddles,
inadvertently spreading the seeds of new rice plants in the process. It's easy
to imagine how this could've turned into rice agriculture over time.

------
D_T
These are the kinds of articles and thoughts that really make me cherish
Hacker News.

------
yangyang42
IMHO, this was definitely one of the best key note of the entire Web2.0
conference.

~~~
aschobel
Agreed, did you talk to him at Speed Q&A at Web2Open?

<http://www.socialtext.net/web2open/index.cgi?speed_q_a>

That was my favorite part of the conference.

Thanks again to Tony for putting it together, being able to talk to these
people in an intimate setting was amazing.

-Andreas

------
dejb
>The Internet-connected population watches roughly a trillion hours of TV a
year... One per cent of that is 10,000 Wikipedia projects per year worth of
participation.

I think he messed the maths up

1 wikipedia = 100 Million hours (from earlier in the article)

Annual TV watching = 1,000,000 Million hours

1% of annual TV watching = 10,000 Million Hours = 100 wikipedia's

Correct me if I'm wrong.

~~~
scw
>The Internet-connected population watches roughly a trillion hours of TV a
year. That's about five times the size of the annual U.S. consumption. One per
cent of that is 10,000 Wikipedia projects per year worth of participation.

He switched context from discussing the US-only consumption to total global
television consumption. It seems worth thinking about the implications of this
change even if the numbers are inaccurate.

~~~
dejb
Yes I agree it is useful to consider the rest of the world. However that was
not the cause for the discrepancy and the numbers are still out by a factor of
100. If you think that 1% of global surplus attention could annually create
10000 wikipedias instead of 100 then you are likely to reach some very
different conclusions. Maybe he switched context from 1% to 100% - that would
make sense.

~~~
scw
You're completely right. To convince myself:

    
    
      trillion = 10**12
      wikipedia = 10**8
    
      surplus = trillion
      applied_surplus = surplus * 0.01
      print applied_surplus / wikipedia
    

which leaves us with only 100 wikipedias, as your numbers claimed.

------
r00k
Is it me, or does this guy speak like Paul Graham writes?

------
cousin_it
Well I agree with him, and I don't ever watch TV, but... interactive media
seem to be better at sucking people in than TV. And they're getting better all
the time. This is starting to scare me, nobody else?

And there's an exceptionally thoughtful Reddit thread on the topic:
<http://reddit.com/info/6h7ph/comments/c03u0jv>

------
rms
Where do anti-depressants come in?

~~~
SwellJoe
Since many of the most popular anti-depressants don't actually do anything, I
guess TV has to play a role as well.

[http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn13375-prozac-
do...](http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn13375-prozac-does-not-
work-in-majority-of-depressed-patients.html)

Maybe we need more gin carts.

~~~
rms
>Since many of the most popular anti-depressants don't actually do anything

I of course have only read the mainstream summary of the study, but I think
the study must say that anti-depressants usually don't cure depression. But I
can assure you that messing with serotonin reuptake makes people happier.

~~~
SwellJoe
One might assume my previous post was made in jest, based on the flippant
closing comment. But without a smiley, who can tell? ;-)

------
arthurk
What about _good_ movies that make you think?

~~~
adbachman
I don't think the author was claiming we should or would stop watching purely
passive media. His statement was more that, on the whole, time spent passively
receiving is cognitive surplus. If the floodgates are opened even a bit (1
hour in 100), the resulting output will be immense.

And this is only the beginning.

------
nazgulnarsil
"all you do is play on that computer!" _goes back to watching TV_

Yeah, because your time watching entertainment tonight is better spent than my
time researching for economics.

I fucking hate old people.

~~~
Jesin
I thought those first two lines were pretty good. It's probably that last one
that brought on the downmods.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
By old people I mean people that criticize any paradigm they aren't familiar
with. You don't have to be old to do this, but old people are more likely to
do it. I could have used the term neophobe I suppose.

OTOH, the thought of old people down modding me makes me lol.

