

Our culture is toxic - erikpukinskis
http://snowedin.net/blog/2011/01/20/our-culture-is-toxic/

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nonrecursive
It's fairly juvenile of me to feel this way, but I was pretty amused to see
this in his footer:

"Did you know you can write your own about section just like this one? It's
really easy. Head into the the Titan Options menu and check out the footer
section. Type some stuff in the box, click save, and your new about section
shows up in the footer.

Wondering about those Flickr photos on the right?

We didn't take them, they are a random sampling of the most popular photos on
Flickr with the tag 'nature'. All rights are reserved to the original
copyright holders where applicable."

Using an off-the-shelf wordpress theme in service of protesting an off-the-
shelf life. And at the same time randomly sampling other people's actual
creative work.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Yea, I'm kind of lazy. :)

~~~
justin
Well, news flash: so is everyone else. Hence all the things you hate about our
culture.

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VMG
tl;dr: I don't like labor division and waste and I have read Chuck Palahniuk

~~~
besquared
I was searching for the words and now I don't have to, thanks.

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WiseWeasel
Though I feel this piece shines a useful light on the harmful nature of
certain aspects of the culture promoted in commercial media, this is different
from how real people live their lives, ignoring the individually empowering
influence of the internet, along with other forms of decentralized
communication. While the piece helpfully defines the motivations of various
commercial entities marketing their products to us, it seems to discount the
value of those services as sources of inspiration (if not convenience) to us,
and to understate the individual will and ability to oppose the detrimental
aspects of this culture.

It would be easy to spend a week-day at home watching daytime television, and
come away from it with the impression that our culture is toxic, but that
would be exaggerating the accuracy of this supposed window into our culture.
Reality is much more complex.

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thecoffman
_Erik Pukinskis is the founder of SproutRobot, a web app that makes it dead
simple to start a vegetable garden._

Want to start a vegetable garden? That starts at $20/year and goes up from
there. Can we say hypocrite?

~~~
anthonyb
From their homepage: "SproutRobot tells you when to plant & sends you seeds."
So it's helping you to garden, not taking control away from you.

They're heirloom seeds too, rather than hybrids, so you can let some of your
plants go to seed and replant next season. Again, it's not taking control
away.

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weavejester
If people want to cook, they can cook. There's plenty of raw ingredients at
the supermarket, and no shortage of cookery TV programs, books, magazines and
websites.

Similarly, you can find a great deal of resources on all sorts of activities.
Want to catch a fish? Learn a musical instrument? Write a novel? At no point
in the whole of human history has it been easier to learn a new skill.

And it's not like these cookery programs are put on to an empty audience. If
no-one was buying all these books and magazines and watching these TV
programs, they'd stop being produced.

So it's not that people aren't doing things; it's that they are being
selective about what they do, because modern life _allows_ them to be
selective. People are free to buy the things they don't want to spend time
making, and instead use their time to do the things they want to do.

~~~
pavel_lishin
And this is GREAT. No, I'll never be great at a musical instrument because I
don't want to take the time to do it. But other people will be, and the music
they make will be much better than anything a bunch of dilettantes sitting in
a park can strum together with their three guitars and a bongo.

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pavel_lishin
> You don’t have time or you’re bad at art.

Yes I do, and no I'm not.

> But you have to drive to Target to get one.

No I don't, I can walk.

> Oh and while you’re don’t you want to buy some other things? …

Because I'm just here to buy a card, ok?

Seriously, man. You can opt out.

edit: Or you can spend money to watch movies instead of - gasp, toxicity! -
making your own: [http://snowedin.net/blog/2011/01/02/favorite-
films-2008-2010...](http://snowedin.net/blog/2011/01/02/favorite-
films-2008-2010/)

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knowtheory
Dude, somebody needs to go see a psychologist, and possibly get on some anti-
psychotics to deal with their rampant inner critic.

You want free hobbies? Become a writer. Code web apps. Borrow books from the
library and read them. Volunteer at a homeless shelter. Go bird watching.
Learn how to sing.

 _nothing is stopping you from trying new things_

Just cause someone, or even a lot of people are trying to sell you things,
doesn't mean you have to buy it.

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bcaulf
I agree with the article. The safe, high-status choice in white American
suburbs today always seems to involve spending money. Making clothes yourself
has become rare. Little food is made from scratch, let alone beer and wine.
Live bands are being strangled by DJs.

However, I see a lot of interest in doing it yourself among young people here
in New York City. There's a phenomenon of individual cooks selling out of
their home kitchens. Theater and live music is far from dying.

The Burning Man Festival is another exhibit of a nice countertrend. There, you
feel like an asshole if you don't get directly involved in creating,
performing, contributing, taking action. Selling to the public is not
permitted at all.

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rfugger
I generally agree with the ideas, but I'm not sure our culture is as toxic as
the tone of the article.

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wyclif
_So adanced!_

Advanced.

~~~
erikpukinskis
thanks, fixed. :)

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Mz
Weird. Skimmed it only as this article is toxic.

I sleep on the floor. Own no furniture. Own no car. We cook a lot from scratch
and are making up our own recipes. Why? Because doctors told me "people like
you don't get well" and we don't agree with that sentiment. So homegrown
recipes are required to effectively implement our homegrown health solution.

If you live like this article describes (and are over age 18), you do so by
choice. And whose fault is that?

(Though, yes, I have canned Wordpress themes on my sites. I am trying to move
towards putting up more content and coding everything by hand has been an
obstacle to that. Nor do I have the money to get something custom.)

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abrown28
So anyone want to bet on when this idiot guns down Lady Gaga?

