alt Hacker News>If we are moved emotionally by slop, does it matter?
Yes, because that's not what matters. That kind of sentimentality is deficient because it's as Wilde said wanting to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. It's like asking, why pursue a real relationship if pornography gets me off
You're supposed to be into the world, not into yourself. If that was what mattered we should stuff you into the matrix pod and turn the VR goggles on. That's exactly what Williams is talking about.
Sure, you can cry or feel exited about reading an adventure or talking to your "AI boyfriend", but you're supposed to go out and have an adventure and risk something instead of living in a simulation on the other end of which is nothing at all.
> luxury of an emotion without paying for it
That’s just an echo of a religious-age idea that one’s life “must” include suffering. Which is merely an attempt to answer a “why” when one feels miserable, a consoling lie from the ancient times.
But what if one isn’t supposed to? A lot of people can slogan about price, and earning and breaking sweat, and so on - but is there really anything to it, except that this is how things currently are?
There’s no “why” in the actual reality. From where we are, it just is. No one is fundamentally supposed to do or be anything. They just do and are what the circumstances dictate. And circumstances can change someday.