Writes Shadi Hamid, in "Missing the solitude of covid," one essay in a WaPo collection of 5 essays looking back on the lockdown — free access link.
1. "And in constraint I discovered a new kind of freedom" — reminds me of the line in The Book of Common Prayer, "whose service is perfect freedom." The "who" is, of course, God. The service is chosen. The lockdown was imposed from the outside and it wasn't anything like God. But it's interesting to contemplate the difference... and to ask Grok to sketch out an "Ingmar Bergman" screenplay on the subject.
2. "The Paradox of Choice" — yay! Glad to see that come up again. I've got a tag for it. I made that unusually specific tag because I could see this is what "they" have in store for us: a world without choice and with an induced and cultivated belief that the constriction of choice is the key to happiness. We practiced within the lockdown and "they" got to see how well we did.
3. "The Executioner’s Song" — I wrote a law review article about it long ago: "Standing, In Fluffy Slippers." That was back in 1991 when I believed I could find a new way to write within the genre of law review articles. Mailer's book is about Gary Gilmore, who, condemned to death, chose the firing squad. How's that for a "Paradox of Choice"? Oddly enough, just last Thursday a man was executed — in South Carolina — by firing squad. Could have picked lethal injection. Picked firing squad.
4. I like that the essay writer, locked down, eschewed dating apps but embraced live-tweeting. He didn't want to feel so all alone.
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50 comments:
Too many choices can be a non-starter. You're Homer Simpson placed into a candy store. Where do you begin?
https://static.simpsonswiki.com/images/0/07/The_Land_of_Chocolate.png
" I mostly ignored dating apps, which are as awful as they are necessary because everyone else is on them."
Lost me right there; necessary?
"2. "The Paradox of Choice" — yay! Glad to see that come up again. I've got a tag for it. I made it because I could see this is what "they" have in store for us — a world without choice and with an induced and cultivated belief that this is the key to happiness. We practiced within the lockdown and "they" got to see how well we did."
You'll own nothing
And you'll be happy
"I mostly ignored dating apps, which are as awful as they are necessary because everyone else is on them."
Necessary as a root canal. Complete cancer and were since before covid.
I would choose a firing squad too. Who wants to be strapped down and injected with something. Much cleaner and more manly to die by a firing squad.
Of course, they shoot at the heart to spare the feeling of the firing squad, not to make the death more certain for the prisoner. A bullet to the back of the head is a quicker and more certain way to die. And you could rig up a gun so that only one man would have "push the button".
And yes, the amount of choice is decreasing. Deliberately so. But then that's what 'muricans want. I think most of our fellow citizens want to be told what to do by Big Business or the Government. Choice is something they don't need.
I don't know if Norman Mailer was truly the literary giant of his generation, but the literary giant that the current generation is celebrating is Truman Capote. His life is the one that they're making movies and tv series about although Mailer's life was far richer in scandals and sensations......I think many people would rate "In Cold Blood" higher than Mailer's books about criminals.
There's no getting around it. Dying is an unpleasant experience.
Worthless people who lack the mental capacity to handle choice and responsibility hate those of us who are capable of handling it
It'll be interesting to see to what extend A.I. becomes a decision support system that facilitates individuals making their own choices from among myriad options versus A.I. becoming a mechanism that constrains those choices.
Even if A.I. has no hidden agenda and perfectly facilitates identifying the best option available, won't that choice efficiency itself in the long run limit choices through preference cascade, and choke-off the process of search and error that leaves room for new entry and choice?
"The lockdown was imposed from the outside and it wasn't anything like God."
More like a god-complex.
Could have picked lethal injection. Picked firing squad.
A reporter described the execution scene. The signal to shoot was silent so the sound of the rifles firing was a surprise to the witnesses. Bullets from high powered rifles are supersonic; the murderer’s heart was shredded before the sound reached his ears. There’s evidence that condemned criminals feel pain, possibly considerable pain, when they die by lethal injection, so the choice of firing squad is pretty rational.
Yes I enjoyed it. I wrote a book, learned a new instrument...now it's all forgotten lol
My older son met his wife through a Christian dating app. They attended different churches so would not otherwise have met. Since they went on to marry and produce the world’s cutest and smartest and most adorable granddaughter, I think we can say that it worked.
I naturally already live in a way that coincides with the strictures of the lockdown. I had to make small adjustment -- like letting the mail sit for 48 hours so the fomites could die.
There was an anonymous interview in the 80s with one of the shooters at Gilmore's execution. It was in one of those alt magazines, In These Times or something like that. Of the six on the firing squad, one was given a blank so that none of the six would know if they actually killed a man. The dude in the interview knew he got the blank because of the lack of kickback from the round. The execution didn't bother him for Gilmore had it coming, but he found the experience surreal.
Die Qual der Wahl. Tell me about it.
There was much talk in the 1960s and 1970s about media like film and television replacing the reading of books. It wasn't really happening then. People had to rely on what a handful of television channels or local cinemas were showing. If you wanted information about something else or you wanted your entertainment in a different form, you resorted to print media.
Now that you can get everything from everywhere all at once, it does seem like the internet has cut deeply into the reading of printed books. Ironically, perhaps, much of what you do get -- much of what's hurt book and magazine reading -- is itself text, but the medium in which it's delivered cuts into the attention spans needed to get through novels.
Big Mike said, "A reporter described the execution scene. The signal to shoot was silent so the sound of the rifles firing was a surprise to the witnesses. Bullets from high powered rifles are supersonic; the murderer’s heart was shredded before the sound reached his ears. There’s evidence that condemned criminals feel pain, possibly considerable pain, when they die by lethal injection, so the choice of firing squad is pretty rational."
And that was a shot to the heart, not the brain stem, which is considerably more effective.
The agony of choice versus the firing squad. Which to choose?
And how did I live through COVID 24/7 without learning the word "fomite"?
Yeah, after trashing the citizens of Utah, Mailer went on to champion Jack Abbott.
Ed Asner lookalike Mailer was a legend in his own mind.
Jaq said...
“I don't believe that dating apps are necessary, any more than pizza delivery is necessary. Basically they are pimp services for five percent of men to create little harems.”
As a former pizza delivery guy, I can assure you pizza delivery is nothing like that.
When dealing with the new Canadian premier, Trump faces the difficult choice of whether to use the formal "Allez vous en foutre" or the familiar "Va t'en foutre".
“ He didn't want to feel so all alone. ”
Everybody must get stoned.
That is why liquor stores were declared essential industries.
You'll be locked in a box with a bag full of biting flies over your head and you'll be happy...metaphorically speaking, of course.
This is why: thou shall abort, became an integral commandment in the modern left religion. One less burden to worry about and other progressive memes.
I got an envelope in the mail from an NGO probably funded by USAID marked, "Open immediately!"
Inside it said. "Won't you please think about the fomites?"
I have never been paralyzed by choice, never felt I would be better off with fewer options. The closest thing to this phenomenon is when I can’t tell difference between choices well enough to know which one I want. But that’s a problem of packaging design, not of choice.
I have never been paralyzed by choice, never felt I would be better off with fewer options. The closest thing to this phenomenon is when I can’t tell difference between choices well enough to know which one I want. But that’s a problem of packaging design, not of choice.
The appeal of lethal injection is that firing squad is a little bit, kinda, maybe... barbaric? (Picture church lady saying that)
That choice was generated to assuage the stress of the executioner. The idea that an injection would be a less cruel and unusual to the executed is bs.
"Missing the enforced solitude of covid" is more like it. I mean, it's not difficult to enjoy a couple hours solitude any day of the week, even now, post-COVID! Don't rely on the government to force you into solitude if you like solitude.
The paradox of choice in financial decisions was proved long ago. As I recall, a table was set up in a grocery with sample cheeses. After sampling, the customer was given a coupon for whatever cheese he or she favored. The table with three cheeses had the most coupon usages, the table with 12 cheeses had far fewer.
When I had to choose from only three networks what to watch on TV, generally the choice was very easy. Now I seem to spend more time surfing through the previews than I do watching the shows. Of course, that's also because nothing very good is being made anymore.
Choice means accountability. A lot of people don't want accountability, so they don't want choice.
"Ann Althouse said...
I naturally already live in a way that coincides with the strictures of the lockdown. I had to make small adjustment -- like letting the mail sit for 48 hours so the fomites could die."
Fomites don't live or die. They are inanimate objects. The mail was the fomite in your example.
"I naturally already live in a way that coincides with the strictures of the lockdown. I had to make small adjustment -- like letting the mail sit for 48 hours so the fomites could die."
Yes, because mailmen were dropping like flies.
Choice means accountability
Responsibility. Shared, with consensual agreement, shifted when they take a knee.
paradox(n.)
1530s, "a statement contrary to common belief or expectation," from French paradoxe (14c.) and directly from Latin paradoxum "paradox, statement seemingly absurd yet really true," from Greek paradoxon "incredible statement or opinion," noun use of neuter of adjective paradoxos "contrary to expectation, incredible," from para- "contrary to" (see para- (1)) + doxa "opinion," from dokein "to appear, seem, think" (from PIE root *dek- "to take, accept").
Just a little too ironic.
I'm reminded of Bernie Sanders's complaint that there were too many different deodorants on drug store shelves. I hear he was paralyzed by all the choices, so he just gave up on using deodorant.
So, whatever you do, stay upwind of Bernie at all times.
When dealing with the new Canadian premier, Trump faces the difficult choice of whether to use the formal "Allez vous en foutre" or the familiar "Va t'en foutre".
That's schoolboy French as spoken in France. Blasphemous Quebecois sacres using religious terminology are considered much more offensive than scatological or sexual insults, and the more of them you string together, the more intense the expression of your anger and contempt. These curses can get very intricate and lengthy. Trump might want to learn something like "Sainte-viarge de ciboire de sacrament d'ostie de tabarnak, j'vais te décâlisser la yeule".
The paradox was confounded with gender simulation, grooming, and drag races.
None of the occasional products e.g. toothpaste can be found when purchased again. It's always some variant or addition to what you were happy with.
"Now that you can get everything from everywhere all at once, it does seem like the internet has cut deeply into the reading of printed books."
****************
That hasn't kept my suburban Boston town from replacing our old library with a Taj Mahal-sized version, at enormous expense.
I figure it will wind up being a de facto day care center for the kids in the gargantuan high school building across the street, which which was expanded despite years of declining enrollment.
None of this makes any sense---except to local contractors with town officials securely in their hip pockets. But this is Liz Warren/Ed Markey territory, so.... whaddayahgonnado?
Oh, and the state Senator who "represents" us at the Snake's Palace aka the State House came out as bisexual a few years ago.
What was the old slogan on some chewing gum years ago? "Double your pleasure, double your fun"
Paradoxically, people found relief in the popular book "50 shades of gray", and its sequel "51".
The paradox of choice evolves in a kleptocratic state. A little too ironic, don't you think?
That was first introduced to the topic of the paradox of choice when I was in an American supermarket with a guy we recently hired who had defected from the Soviet Union. This then turned into the necessity of choice upon being driven by this very inexperienced driver in the streets surrounding Atlanta. The poor fellow, talk about information overload and analysis paralysis.
The truth of the matter is there is no paradox it's just another thing that humans adapt to. The apparent paradox is just a failure of some people to evolve.
The paradox of choice, and the only solution is more socialism, where bureaucrats take on the loathsome task of choosing for you. Yay, bureaucrats.
Rocco, are you telling us the pizza man porn-flick trope is a lie!?
JSM
We're nothing but lab rats and live stock to the Prog.
Who is Althouse's "they" who are observing how we lived in COVID and concluding it was a good thing (presumably)?
The paradox of choice is why I shop at Aldi, not Woodman's. I don't want to have to pick between 20 different kinds of peanut butters and 100's of different kinds of pizzas. Just give me the basic options at a good price so I can get in and out of the grocery store quickly and enjoy the rest of my life.
Mailer hasn't become a subject of Hollywood movies, maybe because unlike Capote, or Ginsberg, or Kerouac, or Roth or Plath, he has a whole phalanx of children by different women to defend him from filmmakers. There is a lot of material in the lives of mid-20th century writers for Hollywood to play with if they ever outgrow the comic book movies.
The new Canadian PM must be able to speak French, but he's not a French Canadian. He may be a very British Canadian, having been the head of the Bank of England -- though nowadays that means a globalist, rather than a jingoistic, Kiplingesque Briton. Trump may make Carney, like other "masters of the universe" look like a non-player character, but when you take on the bankers, aren't they the ones who usually win?
Those brands are on the shelf because there are people who want them, like them and buy them.
People have jobs and careers producing and distributing them.
They didn't check with you first? I'll be darned.
In my old sales career, occasionally I would offer some clients too many choices, because we had such a loaded line and I thought they would appreciate it. Over time I found that was not helpful to them at all. It did seem to confuse the issue. When you know they have something they like- stop. Get them what they want.
I always thought back to this scene from one of my favorite underrated movies, Moscow on the Hudson.
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