It's not about productivity. Humanity could spend these 14,526 years listening to J.S. Bach, a genius whose talent found no match in the human history and yet dedicated as much as humanly possible of his life to music.
I love Bach; love, love, love Bach. Both of Gould's recordings of Goldberg variations, plus the Kimiko Ishizaka recording from the Open Goldberg Variations project (early backer).
That said, Gagnam style brought a smile to my face and added a bounce to my step; there's room for many things in culture and not all time is wasted, even "downtime". I'm sure Bach took breaks too.
And yet I find that his work is not the thing I need most of the time. And even when I want some Bach, I mostly resort to the excellent "jazzy" interpretations of Jaques Loussier[1].
Gangnam Style is brilliant. You can watch it dozens of times, always discovering something new. It also spawned a large number of extremely entertaining spoofs.
It would indeed be a sad world if we had peaked culturally at Bach. Fortunately, we haven't.
That said, Gagnam style brought a smile to my face and added a bounce to my step; there's room for many things in culture and not all time is wasted, even "downtime". I'm sure Bach took breaks too.