Mastodawn

3/3
And I can't stress enough that this isn't about being jaded or cynical. Take the inverse, let's call it Salemo. "This place has only unending suffering where everyone is tortured all the time and there's no hope." Boring. Literally the tvtropes page of Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy. "They do this because it ensures a perfect life for one child." Wow! Mass self-sacrifice! What's so important about the child that they all agree to undergo extreme suffering? Tell me more! Is there a lesson I could apply to my own life? I don't believe in perfect joy without a catch, sure, but I don't believe in perfect pain without a catch either. Even stories that start bad and end bad don't stay bad all the way through. Instead it's "Ah, things are terrible. Oh look, the main character is trying to turn things around! Oh no, they failed because of some tragic flaw in their character that they couldn't overcome!" And I say "Wow, what a bad fate, I should think about what kind of flaws I have."

I'm almost wondering if this was her actual point? To play around with what makes a story complete? Not just call me an edgelord?

#omelas #ursulaleguin #books

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tentiv May 1

2/3
I think where the disconnect lies is that I'm engaging with her story as just that, a story. The purpose of a story is both to entertain and to convey some information to get us to think about our own life and experience. An interesting story makes us have interesting thoughts. The story of "this place is perfect and nothing ever goes wrong" isn't interesting, but not because we think that's naive, it's because there's no useful information being conveyed there. Okay, they're perfect. Why? How did they become this way? Can I apply anything they do to my life so that I can make things better? Oh, you don't want to tell me? Then it's not a full narrative, it's only a snapshot of a setting. My brain is starving here.

Oh, they torture a child! Wow, what a shocking moral dilemma. One innocent's suffering for the welfare of thousands, hm, that makes my brain think about whether I would want to live there. Now I'm engaged and interested, not because a child is being tortured but because there's actually a topic of discussion.

#omelas #ursulaleguin #books

tentiv May 1

So, I'm thinking about Omelas. Maybe I'm misreading, but the point is to make you think about why you didn't believe in the perfect place and felt it's more believable when a kid was being tortured to make it perfect, right? The whole "The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting." Like, not really? Maybe that was true in her context. All the pedants and sophisticates I see constantly stress that things are terrible right now and that we have the power to make them better. (This could be just a byproduct of social media used for mass political mobilization?)

1/3

#omelas #ursulaleguin #books

J Lou Apr 28

RE: https://mastodon.social/@gwynnion/116483532834192001

This post notes out that defending absurd levels of wealth and income inequality with no social safety net is similar to believing “there must always be an Omelas child.”

“The Ones Who Walk Away from
Omelas” by Ursula K. #LeGuin describes a utopian city called #Omelas “whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child.”

This idea critiques the moral philosophy of standard #utilitarianism, which allow such situations if happiness outweighs suffering

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas

PugJesus Apr 15

Just walk away

https://piefed.social/c/lotrmemes/p/1985138/just-walk-away

Dr. Omed Mar 22

I don't watch, use, or follow any of the media listed. I realize a lot of people do, and a lot of people work for them, but personally, if all the above media companies disappeared from the face of the Earth tomorrow, I wouldn't notice until people started caterwauling online. Old timey news media like CNN and CBS in particular. It's a shame that a venerable organization like CBS is being destroyed by the likes of Bari Weiss, but it was already dead to me. #ellisontakeover

Yes, it is oligarchy, but I long ago walked away from that particular Omelas (per Le Guin). #Omelas all the way down tho.

solastalgia kris ☀️🧘🚲Feb 26

Gonna tell my children this was the #omelas child

Regan King Feb 21

RE: https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/116109623550360087

I really enjoyed this. Tante touches on the ethics of using ill-gotten research, Le Guin’s #Omelas story, and possibly a wink to Illich’s #ToolsForConviviality. #OpenSource #Accelerationism #LLMao

Alec Muffett Dec 10

Two posts from 2014: Trolley Problems, Nuclear Weapons, Snowden, Jocks, and Meat-Grinders https://alecmuffett.com/article/134649 #TrolleyProblems #omelas #philospohy #snowden

Two posts from 2014: Trolley P...

Two posts from 2014: Trolley Problems, Nuclear Weapons, Snowden, Jocks, and Meat-Grinders

These are a pair of Facebook posts from 2014 which I just want to transfer over to my blog for ease of finding; but if you are particularly interested in questions of utilitarianism and outcomes (h…

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Alec Muffett Dec 10

Two posts from 2014: Trolley Problems, Nuclear Weapons, Snowden, Jocks, and Meat-Grinders
https://alecmuffett.com/article/134649
#TrolleyProblems #omelas #philospohy #snowden

Two posts from 2014: Trolley Problems, Nuclear Weapons, Snowden, Jocks, and Meat-Grinders

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