somebody told me that americans are well known for something called a "puritan work ethic" which is where you try to never have fun. unfortunately, some small parts of work actually can be fun, or at least interesting, which is why the americans have recently been trying to invent a machine that does all the fun and interesting parts for you
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i'm not american so i don't know if it's true, it's just a rumor. i've heard that in america, you are only supposed to have fun by spending money. if you have fun doing something that isn't supposed to be fun, apparently that's seen almost like a fetish, a kind of perversion, and you're making it weird for everybody else who does that thing for normal reasons like 'making money'. it's really weird that you care about it and enjoy it for your own weird reasons, they don't like that. apparently
@jk there are kinds of fun that you're allowed to have without spending money, but some of them run the risk of being seen among the ranks of the poors, like playing basketball in the park instead of in the country club. Cooking, making things from wood, knitting, etc are potentially acceptable because while those might be fun they also produce a product. A big part of the puritan work ethic is that you are always, always working - for others for money, making clothes or tools for yourself, etc.
@jk Yes, but you need to understand the whole concept of "Convenience" which is the meaning of life. Any time some new doodad that theoretically saves some time is heavily promoted, you have to buy it for a lot of money. And now that you have the thing you have to spend a lot more time using it being more "productive" so that you can earn enough money to maintain the credit you took to buy the thing.
@jk I... don’t think that’s an American thing though?
@jk YES! Here's the perfect example: Chuck E Cheeses.
It used to be free to just take your kid there to go and play in the ball pit or the indoor playground. There were arcade games to play as well. Parents can spend their money on pizza and beer (during the 80s and 90s.)
Now, you have to pay to play. You put real money onto plastic credit cards because EVERY SINGLE FUCKING APPARATUS takes tokens. This idea is seen everywhere now and it sucks.
@jk you can see it in how we come up with new sports, which are always just old sport with new equipment for you to buy. some enterprising sports fans figured out that you only need one frisbee to play frisbee with a friend but golf requires a whole set of golf clubs for each player to buy to play with a friend so they came up with disc golf so that every player has multiple frisbees to play with friends that they don’t have because they’re into disc golf.
@djsundog a good walk, monetized
@jk boomers popularized "working to the bone for literally no reason and treating it as a point of personal pride", "only having approved hobbies", and "getting to age 70 and feeling weirdly empty"
@jk https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Cults-Like-Us/Jane-Borden/9781668007808 😬