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by beepbooptheory 18 days ago
This has a nice, Borgesian, charm to it but I feel like it's premise is confused. If it's just about the here near-empty signifier of "happiness," what does the magic tech of the earring actually contribute to the parable that some hypothetically perfect narcotic wouldn't?
1 comments
jvanderbot 18 days ago
The earring doesn't make you feel better, it actually produces a better result. It's never wrong. You might regret addiction, for example? Also, it's a parable. Take it too literally and it loses its charm.
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beepbooptheory 18 days ago
> It always tells you what will make you happiest. If it would make you happiest to succeed at your work, it will tell you how best to complete it. If it would make you happiest to do a half-assed job at your work and then go home and spend the rest of the day in bed having vague sexual fantasies, the earring will tell you to do that. The earring is never wrong.

It just has to be this in the story because it doesn't want to engage with why what the earring indicates is so good except that it provides unfailable "happiness". It implies a static world where "the right decision" always exists, but doesn't want to engage with the details. It also implies a kind of akrasia[1] that I don't think resonates with lived experience: "happiness" is a state we pass in and out of, not the accumulation of correct decisions. We undergo unhappiness for the sake of future happiness. "Happiness" is a questionable end-all goal first of all, but either way not even the kind of thing ontologically compatible with the author's framing.

It just feels half-baked, it doesn't actually say anything even when it has all the pretenses of that. Maybe that's too harsh though.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrasia

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Revisional_Sin 17 days ago
You're getting too hung up on the word "happiness". The earring gives you good advice. Good according to whom? According to you. It helps you succeed at your goals and live a fulfilling life.
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beepbooptheory 17 days ago
This doesn't make sense with the story. If it's good advice according to you, why do you need it at all? Doesn't it provide you something that you otherwise don't have?

Maybe I am just not smart enough for this.. What is the parable supposed to be about? What are we supposed to learn from it?

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