From my perspective, you really are stuck in a bubble of old music, whether or not those takes are "new". Modern art music is old music. Jazz, even the most forward-thinking of forms, is old music. I don't think you're able to draw the conclusion that young people aren't interested in music from the concerts you attend, because you are simply listening to old music.
If you want to see hordes of young people who are genuinely interested in music (new music), you'll find them within the sprawling umbrella of club music. Not your local top 40 pop club, but the underground places.
Young people who are interested in music are focused on novel atmospheres/noises coupled with danceable rhythms. They're not interested in harmony, chord progressions, or sounds created near-exclusively by acoustic or electroacoustic instruments. That's the purview of old music, and that's why you'll only find it in music schools (which are fantastically archaic) + old people.
On that note, I'm willing to accept the hypothesis that the "average" young person today is less interested in music than in the past. It's probably true. But your evidence is... well, I think in a bit of a bubble.
It's a logical leap to suggest that indirectly benefitting from something means one is indifferent to that thing. We're all beneficiaries of child labour in the third world; it doesn't mean we're all indifferent to it. Most of us at least disapprove.
Errol Musk claimed to the New York Times that he belonged to the anti-apartheid Progressive Party at the time. Elon Musk said in his biography that he did not want to partake in South Africa's mandatory military service because it would have forced him to participate in the apartheid regime.[1]
I understand that this an emotionally charged issue, and I would never expect the wider public to behave differently, but I'd at least expect this community to engage in more critical thinking -- to not make logical leaps, and to be honest about the facts at hand. We're not going to reverse the world's social progress because the nerds on Hacker News decided to pause for thought.
> Elon Musk said in his biography that he did not want to partake in South Africa's mandatory military service
The children of rich people deciding they don't want to participate in the draft isn't a moral stand. It's not a unique thing, nor a condemnation of the country.
Even from 2004, when Brad Pitt was arguably less popular than in the 1990s, we can see that Tom Holland has never reached the same 'peaks' that Brad Pitt had reached. Tom Holland blew up in December 2021 (though never reaching two of Pitt's peaks), and is now down to a level of interest lower than Brad Pitt is today.
Whatever the internet tells you about what is "standard"... as someone who has spent his life in New Zealand, I can assure you the majority of under-30s usually use "zee". "Zed" is on its way out.
It probably started with the popularity things like Sesame Street and Dragon Ball Z (Dragon Ball Zee).
However, interestingly, the one time everyone uses "zed" is when we acronymise the country name -- NZ, or N-Zed.
I can’t relate to this “three Ps” thing at all. I just want a partner who is deep thinking (most important), reasonably kind, and reasonably good looking.
I couldn’t give two shits about some weird notion of being a provider or a protector. Income, strength? It doesn’t come into the equation for me. But then, I also don’t have a strong need to be a procreator.
I have no success dating due to my own seemingly excessive standards (almost impossible to find deep thinkers) so I can’t give any advice on that front.
But you shouldn’t rule out being a single mother, because I suspect you’d regret that once it’s no longer possible.
It's actually interesting to look at reviews of disco music on RateYourMusic going past the last decade. You might notice a pattern of the older reviews criticizing it as vapid and cheesy, while the newer reviews praise it as danceable and fun.
I think we're finally brushing off the excessive dismissal of the form, probably in no small part to the rock-worshipping generations being drowned out by the newer generations that have no such allegiances.
Perhaps just to shatter the illusion that one will instantly become an enlightened productive person, this is what I did when I got rid of screens and books[^]:
* Sat around philosophising about what to do with my life
* Walked around philosophising about what to do with my life
* Walked around discovering abandoned places in the city
* Played instruments (which I already did when I had screens)
That's about it. It's not a bad way to live, but I didn't get any great projects done, or create anything, or build anything.
Instead, I've made the most progress in life by setting myself up with social environments that force me to get things done. Joining bands and sketch comedy groups has essentially peer pressured me into writing and producing a shitload of songs and screenplays. I've played more times live than I can count.
I achieved not through ridding myself of the drug of the internet, but by supplementing it with the drug of social belonging.
Hypothetically, most of our motivation for creating or building things comes from wanting to be valuable to our tribe. If we have weak social ties, or our tribe doesn't really value what we want to do, then motivation will be very difficult to find. (I think some people are exceptions to this, where they create endlessly in their splendid isolation, but it may be worth being honest and asking whether you are one of these exceptions, or whether you fit the rule like most of us.)
[^]: Failing to get rid of books meant I just sat around reading books all day
This is a semantic distortion of what most people mean when they say something is political.
Yes, a painting of fruit can be discussed within a political context.
But when we say a piece of art is political, we don't mean it can be seen within a political context. We mean that the piece of art is intended to be seen within a political context, or that the political context is blatantly apparent. Yes, this means whether or not something is political is subjective. That's how people use the word, just as they might describe something as angry or meaningful.
When people say "everything is political", just as they say "racism is prejudice plus power", they are discarding the in-practice meaning of these words and replacing them with meanings that were invented to support a particular cause.
How are you actually defining "new" here? Have you considered that you are defining "new" in an amorphous way that allows you to reject everything new that VR/AR offer?
AR allows one to create virtual objects with actual position and shape in the real world. We can see these objects in their location in the world, and interact with them. That is the abstracted case of what is truly new -- the thing that simply does not exist without AR.
From this abstract case, we can give concrete examples. When buying products online, one can discover what furniture will look like in their house, or what clothing will look like on their body -- they can better see it from every angle and the form it will take. In terms of "adult entertainment", one can literally experience a virtual person up in your face and on your body, something that is just not offered by any existing form. Shit, we can attach a virtual note to a physical object (that only select people get to see!), we can use a ping pong table without needing to own a ball, we can see "subtitles" next to a person who is talking, we can see a label next to our friend in a crowded place without having to constantly cross-reference a map on a phone screen... honestly. Have some imagination.
If you can see this list of things and say "none of that is new", then I seriously challenge you to define "new" for me, because I'm willing to bet you are not applying the same rigorous definition to smartphones.
Sure, but that's still all just UI. You can build all of those things on a 2D screen. If you build a Unity 3D app, you get to choose to build for whatever platform if it's Windows or Android or VR rig. In fact, I have done the 3d furniture simulator thing for a furniture retailer but it was all just done on screens. I've also done a load of work in AR with both handheld and headset devices. We had clients who desperately wanted a cool AR experience and we spent many weeks and months brainstorming things we could do and really just came up with fluff. We looked at everything in the market, talked to manufacturers, did some experiments with users. Nobody came up with anything compelling. We built some cool novelty experiences, but nothing anyone would pay money for. I can believe that a massive (and it has to be like 10X current gen) improvement in resolution and refresh rate will make the experience smooth enough to be a complimentary technology for some niches.
A smartphone is merely a dumbphone with better UI. Look how transformative that was.
None of these things are achievable in the same way with a 2D screen because by definition a 2D screen lacks the ability to literally display along the Z axis. Our minds perceive in 3D, not 2D. A 2D screen literally provides less information about distance and location to the senses. Moreover, a 2D screen has a complete inability to create the feeling of presence, something that is new to AR/VR.
Actually, to act as if the feeling of presence is not new, despite you apparently having used a headset, seems bizarre to the point of incomprehensibility. Use VR porn and tell me that’s not a completely new, compelling experience. I’m addicted to it — it’s like I’m literally having sex. Honestly, your rejection of presence as revolutionary means I don’t actually think it’s possible to get anywhere with this discussion.
Lastly, your difficulties developing something compelling with AR is not a sufficient argument that nothing compelling can ever be achieved with it.
I'll add to this that having subtitles next to the person one is speaking to is completely transformative for hearing-impaired people. The only way you could replicate this with a 2D screen is by having them either (a) avert eye contact to look down at a phone, which prevents them from being engaged with the person, or (b) hold up a phone camera to someone's face, which is obviously significantly more cumbersome and socially awkward than wearing some glasses (and please try to imagine the future of AR headsets that are becoming increasingly compact like sunglasses, not a bulky existing Hololens headset).
So, take that idea. It's not a novelty experience. It's not fluff. It significantly improves the lives of hearing-impaired people.
Did you even come up with this idea? If so, why were you not able to create it? Have you considered that perhaps it was due to the fact that something like this is extremely difficult to develop and can't be done by a regular team over a period of 'months'? Have you considered that AR/VR isn't just going to be made transformative within a <1 year time period of you getting your hands on it?
On the other hand, if you didn't even come up with such a practically beneficial idea as this (or were unable to see how life-changingly useful it'd be for the hearing-impaired), then the issue with all of your ideas being "fluff" was not due to the technology at hand.
This even sparks my imagination further. Right now, if someone yells at a hearing-impaired person from behind, they have no immediate way of knowing (any phone-based solution is not going to give quick information about the direction of the yell when it's in-pocket). On the other hand, an AR headset will be able to immediately inform that person that a loud voice has come from exactly the direction it is pointing to, because it can literally show an arrow in their visual sight. That is so goddamn exciting and useful. And I simply can't comprehend how you cannot see it.
Believe it or not, overlayed closed captions was one the first things I came up with. It's also not that hard to do with commodity voice and face recognition. We did a POC just on a 2d phone screen in like a week. Trying to capture multiple people speaking at once is way beyond the capability of any retail headset and would require an elaborate 3d microphone array and noise filtering to pinpoint where a voice is coming from. Ours worked pretty well sitting across a table, but would struggle mightily trying to hear something across any distance in a noisy room.
If you want to see hordes of young people who are genuinely interested in music (new music), you'll find them within the sprawling umbrella of club music. Not your local top 40 pop club, but the underground places.
Young people who are interested in music are focused on novel atmospheres/noises coupled with danceable rhythms. They're not interested in harmony, chord progressions, or sounds created near-exclusively by acoustic or electroacoustic instruments. That's the purview of old music, and that's why you'll only find it in music schools (which are fantastically archaic) + old people.
On that note, I'm willing to accept the hypothesis that the "average" young person today is less interested in music than in the past. It's probably true. But your evidence is... well, I think in a bit of a bubble.