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This must have been a fascinating experience! Thank you for sharing it!

We certainly have more free time, but are our lives happier overall? We mostly kill that free time watching TV or consuming social media, which does not make us happier or more fulfilled. In older times they did not have as much "free" time, but much of their "working" time was filled with meaningful, creative work, similar to what we would do today in a crafts class. Perhaps one doesn't need so much free time if one's time is filled with meaningful activity.

That sounds terrible! Especially in the current environment, where most information young people are viewing comes mainly from unregulated and often anonymous sources, containing all kinds of factual inaccuracies, sometimes intentionally. I don't think people appreciate how fragile civilization is. When a society rejects reality, it's on an unsustainable path.

I wonder if the problem with managing stress today has to do with the fact that we don't have any stress-free times in our lives any more. When I grew up, there were no phones, no Internet, and TV had two channels. When there wasn't anything to do, one just did... nothing. As kids, we spent endless time daydreaming, looking out the window, playing with other kids, or reading. In my late middle age, I can still spend an afternoon happily doing nothing at all, just sitting on a sofa and looking out a window. I suspecting that people who grow up with smartphones and social media never have this stress-free experience of empty, relaxing time. Social media are inherently stressful, engaging the viewer in constant scrolling and engagement, in the constant chase of confirmation, likes etc. How can people whose whole lives, including their free time, are full of stress, learn to manage stress?

Thank you for your comment, but I don't quite understand what you mean. Are you saying that prostitution a human right? For whom?

@@dailyphilosophy for both the seller of the service and the person buying, absolutely. The terms of one's consent shouldn't be dictated by society or the state.

Hi, and thank you for your comment! I really appreciate it when comments are honest and point out real issues with the videos. Unfortunately, the problem is not easy to solve. First, it's difficult to find "someone else to do the talking." Who would do this? Should I pay a presenter? This I cannot do, as all my videos currently bring in less than 10 USD each month, together. And my friends and family are, naturally, the same kind of foreigner that I am, so there are no native English speakers among them either. I could use AI, I guess, but then it would have to be a faceless video with AI narration, and this would be an entirely different thing, and CZcams is already swamped with those. Despite my bad delivery, I believe that there is a value in connecting in person with a creator, and I would not want to give that up and replace it with AI. That said, I am constantly trying to improve, particularly in the areas you mentioned. I'm already recording endless takes of the same sentence to get the intonation sound as natural as possible and the pauses removed. I've recently changed microphones to improve the quality of the recording itself. And I think I'm improving somewhat over time, although there is still a long way to go. I'm also trying to improve (reduce) my accent, but since I'm now almost sixty, it takes time to change one's speech patterns. So I don't really see what I could do to solve the problem immediately, without going the AI route. I'll keep practicing and hope that eventually my videos will be less painful to listen to. Thanks!

​@@dailyphilosophy personally i find the slower pace of the videos refreshing. Content is getting too fast, too focused on getting our attention just for the sake of it. Also i love the politeness and comprehensiveness of the answer to a rather rude comment. As for the original commenter, maybe look inwards and try to improve your "foreign accent understanding" skills, man's speaking as clearly as he is coherently

Thank you so much for that! About the music, it's funny because I actually intended to add sound effects and music, but we were on the way to catch a plane for the holidays two days ago and I could just managed to finish the upload before the taxi came to get us to the airport. That's the reason the video does not have any sound effects :) I was feeling bad about it, to put up such a raw and unfinished video, and so I'm particularly pleased that your comment now makes me look like a considerate creator rather than what I am, a hack who was too slow to get his video done in time. But I'll keep this in mind for the future and perhaps cut down on the sounds and music generally. I always thought that they improved the emotional experience and the immersion of the viewer in the video, although I know that they can be troublesome for people with hearing difficulties. About the young people problem, I'm always reluctant to blame them. They really don't have a choice - it's society that raises them in this way, their parents, schools, media -- and these are the things that *we*, the older generations, are supposed to control. I always feel that it's my generation that got things wrong. It was us who developed the Internet as it is now, it was us who ignored climate change and microplastics for decades, it was us who allowed this rampant capitalism to take over... and so on. The question is now, how to fix all that?

@@dailyphilosophy Contrary to what's said in the other comment, I find your way of presenting and speech very clear. But guess that differs from person to person. The lack of sound effects or score makes the whole thing more genuine.. like say the Star Talk channel.. podcast-like.. but you'll know better.. Love your optimism and kindness on the young people issue. I'm an 86-born and the social/behavioural changes I've observed are to me rather sudden and drastic, and guess hence the lack of optimism. But maybe I'll have a better understanding in time..

@@dailyphilosophy I'll blame media, though I guess it's really the brain itself that is at fault. Growing up in the 90's, as a kid, I didn't really watch a lot of kids shows, I loved watching Discovery channel and Animal Planet. They used to do a lot of interesting documentaries from around the world, how things were done among tribal farmers who moved around every year and a lot more. In the 8th grade, we had a verbal test that I hadn't studied for, specifically about tribes, including tribal farmers that move around each year. I got a 4 (out of 6) without reading anything about the topic in school, just from watching Discovery channel and Animal Planet. That said, the format I grew up with isn't "entertaining" enough, people would rather watch quick and funny stuff, it does after all feel good to laugh. There is not enough money in educational content anymore, and why would the media houses invest in quality content that no one watches? Even with interesting areas (such as the mesoamerican pyramids) there's usually some quest to verify some conspiracy theory or a myth, or for good measure, make it about aliens... Predictable profit decides where media invests their money, and our brains enjoy chemicals that make us feel good quickly.

@@dailyphilosophy A lot of information and well presented, being clear and easy to follow. I agree with @harshjoshi1364 about the lack of music and sound effects. Although it's not how you wanted to present the video, I found it works very well. With no such distractions, my mind can easily focus not only on what you're saying but also my own thoughts and experiences, simultaneously. It really helps to focus on the subject (without the emotions). I think we automatically lose a few IQ points whenever our emotions kick in and the stronger the emotion, the more points we lose. Please keep up the good work!

I think that this is a very difficult question to answer. Studies seem to support that intrinsic motivation, that is, working to solve a problem rather than to get a grade, is better for learning. But I don't think that one lecturer or teacher can do that alone, if the rest of the young people's lives are lived chasing grades (or other similar tokens of social approval). One cannot fight this system alone. If a whole school decided to abolish grades (or at least reduce their weight) or if a university tried to emphasise self-motivated learning instead of teaching to the exam, then perhaps it might work. There are some institutions (Montessori schools or the old Summerhill experiment come to mind) which have tried this. Depending on how you evaluate the results, some people see them as successful, others as failures. The problem is that after school, these same people will go on to work in competitive job markets, where again they will be subject to numerical performance evaluations, only now they will be unprepared to succeed in those. Perhaps the creator economy might offer a way out of this competitive school-workplace cage life? It's also competitive, but at least it focuses on actual productivity and results rather than empty performance numbers. Who knows. Thank you for your comment!

If we got rid of grades, we'd leave learning to the own kid's choice. And we all know what choices children make. Let them chose between ice cream and math homework, you already know what's gonna happen. Humans are not born civilized, curious and edcuated. No grading would simply accelerate the intelligence decline. You are right about passion. And that's precisely why the no-grades idea doesn't work. Passion in some sense is an ability you aquire. You can only passionate about subjects you've already built some competence around. In order to gain such competence, you need to go through boring, mundane studying no one wants. How do you make kids go through such boring tasks? You punish or reward them with grades. No grades, no competence, no passion. With respect to Montessori schools: In my experience they fail. Anytime I have met someone from Montessori, they joke about how they don't do learn anything in those schools, how it's a complete joke. I had classmates, who had come to us from Montessori. They said it's completely different. They actually were somewhat happy that now, attending a normal school, they could learn something.

I've heard similar stories. But it's sad, isn't it, that we need to be forced with grades and threats to learn. The basic idea of Montessori was that children are naturally curious and eager to learn. Is this wrong, or is it that today's children in particular have lost their natural curiosity, perhaps due to the overuse of smartphones, computer games etc?

@@dailyphilosophy I think if the knowledge that was allowed was meaningful and productive no matter the subject matter could be beneficial to learn. SOMEONE has to study ice cream, otherwise you wouldn’t have good ice cream. SOMEONE has to study math, because we need math in life. I enjoyed going to a Montessori school for my 6th grade year, being able to use your own time to get the work done was great. We still had lectures, but we were allowed to go at our own pace and if we needed help we could ask. I would love an educational system where all world knowledge is available to students, like what we see on CZcams. You might think learning about “how ants farm fungus” or “how to weave a 15th century basket” is useless information, but I happen to think otherwise. Knowledge comes from different perspectives, you gotta look or experiment outside the box to evolve. Definitely still required to learn basics, and definitely still required to practice writing. But I think learning other “useless” information should be okay too. As long as they’re spending their time productively learning. Teach cooking, cleaning, how to use tools, how to budget, taking care of plants and animals, childcare, etc. If the student wants to specialize in something they like, then give them ALL the resources. Let them learn as much as they can.. But I digress, I love to learn.. some people dont. Some people do need that extra push, but if the push is towards their special interests you’ll find that it’s easier to push.

@@PixPunxel Great comment again! 👍

@@dailyphilosophy Hehe. Sorry it was low effort. But I think you said all that was needed to be said 😄

Sorry for the late reply and thank you so much for your kind words! I'm traveling right now, so I cannot immediately answer you on the Interface theory, but I'll do that within the next few days. Thanks!

I agree with everything you say. Erich Fromm, by the the way, about whom I made a video recently, says something very similar. But he thinks that it is industrial capitalism that encourages conformity. If we have these factories that churn out thousands of identical pieces of clothing every hour, then we must also have thousands of customers who are all willing to wear the exact same clothes. And the same applies to every mass-produced item. Of course, we must admit that mass-production has also brought unparalleled material wealth to most citizens of industrialised societies. Even the poor today have vastly better access to material goods than, say, the poor of the middle ages. So I'm not sure that we would want to give that up. What do you think?

@@dailyphilosophy I like Fromm, the little I know so far. While I would agree that industrial capitalism encourages conformity, I would go a little further and opine that industrial capitalism caters to our most fundamental and primitive traits as social animals. Among these traits is the need for a larger share of our population to conform in order to have social cohesion, thus ensuring our continued survival and success. Mass non-conformity would destroy our species. Therefore, one could, with a straight face, say that one's opinion about conformity correlates with one's opinion regarding whether or not humans deserve to exist. Either way, industrial capitalism, like everything else, has a limited lifespan. Some say it's currently in the winter of its life. If that's true and it goes away, we'll still finagle a new way for the majority of us to conform, and we'll insist we had a choice in the matter.

And your prospective employers probably are using ChatGPT to scan the job applications... So in the end it's robots talking to robots to decide on your future. Isn't this scary?

I agree - but can we do without institutions? For example, how could a society make sure that dangerous jobs like doctors and pilots are done by people who have the relevant education and experience if there weren't any institutions in charge of delivering this education?

@@dailyphilosophy First, let me thank you for this video. You articulate amorphous feelings/ideas that motivate me, but that I was unable to clarify because I'm not very self-aware. I work for a university as a cog despite being someone who has always fallen afoul of institutions. Anyhow, I've thought about your questions and I suppose it's a choice of the lesser evil, but those with independent unbroken spirits who also possess some degree of competence above average (natural aristocracy?) should prefer fewer institutional guarantees and greater onus on bearing personal responsibility for vetting those professions through other means. We can see one example of the unmitigated failure of an institution in the recent virus hysteria, so we know that even the guarantees themselves are not always reliable. I'm curious about your own opinion on the questions you posed if you're not too busy.

Just to be clear: I'm not advocating to use AI for that. But I think the thought is that it would improve the efficiency of the marking (most years I'm making hundreds of exams over Christmas) and that it would also make sure that grades given by different instructors are really comparable and fair. This is always a problem with human instructors who may have very different standards and expectations when marking a piece of student work.

Vonnegut said many wonderful things. I'm just reading Cat's Cradle again. It's all so true about the craziness of human nature. Unfortunately, he isn't much read today outside the scifi world...

@@dailyphilosophy “Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.” Cat Cradle is my favorite Vonnegut novel, indeed. And yes, I completely agree - and regardless people need to read more :)

Thank you so much for this and your kind words! Unfortunately, I don't (yet) know much about Plato's ideas about the soul -- I will look into it. About the colours, there are many examples for how our optical system can be cheated to perceive colours differently. There was, I think, something about a blue/golden dress on the Internet (you can google it) that shows how differently the same photograph can be perceived. Also, when you look at a coloured spot and then quickly away, you see the complementary colour as a ghost image etc. So it's truly as you say that our perception is to some extent constructed by the brain. About quantum states I don't understand much, unfortunately. I wish I had been paying more attention to physics when I had the opportunity. Now it's too late, I guess. But I've also heard this theory that consciousness can be seen as a fundamental feature of the universe. This would be interesting to explore in a future video. Thanks again!

Thank you!

Thank you! I'll get that book!

That's my first thought - it feels like *this*. We stare at screens for hours, pressing buttons and calling and responding to algorithms. We carry around a small device at all times, without which we would be screwed. If the electricity went off, most of us would be screwed. Yes, the tech is not implanted ... physically ... but that will only be a matter of time. We are early stage borgs. If Neanderthals met us moderns, we'd give them uncanny valley vibes.

Thank you for your kind comment! About the implants, there is a lot of research going on right now on assistive devices for the blind. This includes both devices that transform images into sound and implants that directly stimulate the visual areas of the brain, allowing the patient to actually see something like flashes of light that correspond to things in the environment. I am not sure which particular case you mean, but you can find much research online, for example: www.tue.nl/en/news-and-events/news-overview/04-05-2022-allowing-blind-people-to-see-again-with-a-wireless-implant www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/06/844908/a-new-implant-for-blind-people-jacks-directly-into-the-brain/ www.npr.org/2021/10/23/1048699230/scientists-used-a-tiny-brain-implant-to-help-a-blind-teacher-see-letters-again www.seeingwithsound.com/ The last one really looks like something out of Star Trek TNG :) Let's hope that humans will use these technologies for healing rather than (once again) to create weapons of war and new means of control and domination of others.

So is anyone left who finds your approval?

​@@dailyphilosophy From the philosophy principles of Descartes, the planetary physics theories and mathematical formulas of Copernicus and Kepler, Newton's theory of universal gravitation, to Heisenberg's philosophy of quantum theory, we know that Ten Commandments are eternal moral laws; physical-chemical laws are part of the scientific knowledge that determined by LORD. So philosophy scholars should be humble before LORD, confess sin and repent to LORD, lest they teach more people to be Democrats, Nazis, and Communists.

Thank you for pointing out these additional issues! You are right that there are many other points worth discussing. Here we focused on public monuments because in this case, every citizen can claim to have a right to be involved in their choice. With private displays, this is not the case. In your example, the passing Russian person does not have a claim to regulate what you do in your yard. But when your local council puts up a Ukrainian flag on a public square, the same Russian person could reasonably object (assuming they are a citizen of that place, pay taxes and so on). Your point about the flawed historical persons is also very relevant. As you say, it is human to be flawed. But of course, we don't want to put up monuments to flawed people per se -- this would glorify bad behaviour, and this is generally not what we want as a society. We don't put up monuments to thieves, murderers and other flawed people. But then, even the "best" among us can be flawed, and historical "greatness" is often the direct result of these flaws. If Napoleon had been more considerate and Stoic, he might not have become the Napoleon we know. If Mother Teresa had been more compomising about her faith, she might not have achieved what she did. And so on. So it's all quite difficult to sort out. The interview did not aim to give the final answers, just to provide some points to think about -- like all philosophy. In the end, every one of us must arrive at their own conclusions. Thanks again!

@@dailyphilosophy I see no difference-in-kind between Issis defacing / destroying Persian monuments and students defacing / destroying Confederate monuments. Every moralistic justification I hear smacks of post-hoc rationalization based subjective / temporal viewpoints. It is disingenuous, even societal self-delusional to take one particular, narrow, and unaccommodating view of what those before us thought / did - something which your guest alluded to. For a less-politicized example; tour a museum of Pompe - you will see none of the ubiquitous street lamps that were there two thousand years ago. They are all locked away from public view, because they are of the Roman good luck image of a phallus. Something we find offensive today. Yet, can we say we honestly study the past if we are selective about what we study?

Thank you for your comment! I agree with everything you say, it's just so upsetting for philosophers to have to admit that we are much less rational than we think we are. Because, in the final consequence, the talk of mirror neurons and us reacting via these mechanisms, means that our behaviour is not controlled, as Kant would have wanted, by our autonomy and rationality, but by some basic biological process that probably predates even the development of our higher brain functions. I do believe that this is the case, but it kind of destroys any hopes that we might be able to organise our societies in rational ways, create rational legislation and so on. On the other hand, if compassion is biologically programmed into our nervous systems, then perhaps this is a good thing too, a guardrail against the excesses of possibly cruel rational conclusions (eg what utilitarianism sometimes offers). But, looking for example at Ukraine and Palestine, the mirror neurons don't always seem to work that reliably either. Thanks!

That's a nice idea, but unfortunately wouldn't actually work in Greek, where it's θεός and ήθος (one with epsilon, the other with eta).

@@dailyphilosophy true but if u do change the letters it does spell ethos theos, and ethos could denote his character. Like in poetry the 2 words would rhyme agreed

Secular humanists and atheists have a personal relationship with reality.........

In earlier times, when people were struggling to survive and material goods were scarce, it is understandable that humans developed a preference for material security which, among other things, suggests accumulating stuff that could be useful or life-saving in the future. So I wouldn't necessarily blame the ancients. It is only in recent decades and in affluent places that capitalism has created this empty and meaningless race to own more things, although nobody's survival is dependent on them today. Unfortunately, I don't know much about Hindu philosophy, but among the Greeks, Epicurus comes to mind. But probably, as you say, there were earlier critics of meaningless hoarding. Thank you for your comment!

@@dailyphilosophy It wouldn't surprise me if hoarding and greed have been present with us for our entire existence and beyond. Even some [other] animals exhibit these qualities. Yes, seems to be related to instances of a combination of excess and fear. Doomsday Preppers are a poignant example of this. Or the Great Depression grannies with overflowing pantries. I ordered a copy of Fromm's first book on having and being. Thank you for the video.

Thank you, Jackie! That's interesting what you said there at the end: perhaps we're wrong to even be judging cultural appropriation with a rigid set of criteria derived from contemporary US ethics. Perhaps we should indeed look more at how the cultures we're taking content from would judge the act of taking according to their own moral standards. Thanks!

Thank you!

Thank you so much!

As a philosopher, this *is* my business! 😂