[t2015_08_25]

This is interesting to listen to, b/c Eno is well-known and has some interesting observations and ideas, but as far as his main idea, that art is play, he seems tragically unaware of the sexual implications of "hair styles, boob jobs, music," It's not merely play, it's demonstrations of reproductive fitness. Even when he talks about two females on a bus "synchronizing." How can he be so oblivious?

It's ironic b/c he begins the discussion invalidating the idea that art is an "industry," in order to enable it to merit value under contemporary economic systems, but then spends his time constructing an alternate view in which art has value as "play." And this definition of culture as a collection of rituals has already been thought by people hundreds of years ago. Rituals are a subset of culture, not an ersatz.

I'm only halfway in so far...

[theoh]

A lot of what he says about play seems consistent with Huizinga's book. It's not an eccentric theory.

Although presumably only behaviours which demonstrate reproductive fitness get selected for, I don't think wasteful activities (like art) are necessarily evolved in this way. See e.g. Jeremy England on thermodynamic drivers of evolved complexity.

[t2015_08_25]

Wow, thanks for the downvotes, everyone! Maybe I'm simply in the wrong community? I thought some intelligent discussion would be welcome, but let's try this:

Go driverless cars!

Microsoft Bad! Google Good!

Javascript Javascript Rah Rah Rah!

[dang]

"Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

FWIW, I think the problem with some of your comments, including this one, is that they're too dismissive. It's fine to make substantive critiques, but if the substance/dismissiveness ratio gets too low, people treat those as bad comments.