I really liked this post. Not sure if you meant it this way, but for me it mostly applies to imagining / fantasizing about the future. Some kinds of imagining are motivating, and they tend to be more general. The ones you describe as “soul-sucking” are more like an Experience Machine, or William Shatner’s Tek (if you’ve had the misfortune to read any of his books).
For me this brings up the distinction between happiness (Fun) and pleasure. Soul-sucking is very pleasurable, but it is not very Fun. There is no richness, no striving, no intricacy—just getting what you want is boring.
ShardPhoenix—I agree that concreteness is important, but there is still a key distinction between concrete scenarios that motivate people to work to bring them about, and concrete scenarios that people respond to by drifting off into imagination and thinking “yeah, that would be fun.”
I really liked this post. Not sure if you meant it this way, but for me it mostly applies to imagining / fantasizing about the future. Some kinds of imagining are motivating, and they tend to be more general. The ones you describe as “soul-sucking” are more like an Experience Machine, or William Shatner’s Tek (if you’ve had the misfortune to read any of his books).
For me this brings up the distinction between happiness (Fun) and pleasure. Soul-sucking is very pleasurable, but it is not very Fun. There is no richness, no striving, no intricacy—just getting what you want is boring.
ShardPhoenix—I agree that concreteness is important, but there is still a key distinction between concrete scenarios that motivate people to work to bring them about, and concrete scenarios that people respond to by drifting off into imagination and thinking “yeah, that would be fun.”