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Why Does "Instant Gratification" Drive Modern Technology?

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MarcT

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If you read Objectivist literature, your lead to believe the is something inherently wrong with persuing "concrete bound" (a fancy name for short term) actions. Emphasis is given on the pursuit of "long range" actions i.e. by the maintenance of principles such as honesty, productiveness etc.

What Objectivism fails to recognize is that this same "instant gratification" mentality is and has been one of the strongest drivers of technological advances and continues to exert a hugely beneficial effect on our lives.

Ordering books on Amazon.com, for example, has rendered trips to the bookstore obsolete (bad example though as I love bookstores and the bookstore experience). It can be done in mere minutes and I can continue on with my day.

The "long term" benefits of rapid technological progress are obvious, yet it is hugely driven by "short term", "concrete-bound" behavior. People seek "instant" solutions to the their problems and its this central motivator that is responsible for much of the progress we are seeing in our day and age.

Again how is this a bad thing?

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Productivity improvements like Amazon are great and I image most Objectivists would agree. In her essay against environmentalism, Rand praised all the little home-automation that make life so comfortable for modern human beings. I figure you've misunderstood something. If not, provide an actual reference and perhaps that will allow people to know what you're talking about.

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I think that your confusion stems from not identifying the fact that Objectivism is aimed primarily at producers rather than consumers. The fact that consumers want an easy way to buy books is barely relevent. They want all sorts of things from prius's and cocaine to brocoli and ipads. Human desire, in general can be good or bad depending on the premises of the individual doin' the wantin'.

To actually produce what is necessary to feed those desires, however, requires long term conceptual thought and mountains of delayed gratification. The desire does not create the technology. The ability of some to move away from "concrete bound" thinking and wait and work for what they truly want rather than what they want in any particular whim filled moment, does.

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If you read Objectivist literature, your lead to believe the is something inherently wrong with persuing "concrete bound" (a fancy name for short term) actions.

"Concrete bound" is not "a fancy name for short term."

Concrete-bound is a reference to Pragmatism. (Lexicon)

"To give you an example: if a building were threatened with collapse and you declared that the crumbling foundation has to be rebuilt, a pragmatist would answer that your solution is too abstract, extreme, unprovable, and that immediate priority must be given to the need of putting ornaments on the balcony railings, because it would make the tenants feel better.

"There was a time when a man would not utter arguments of this sort, for fear of being rightly considered a fool. Today, Pragmatism has not merely given him permission to do it and liberated him from the necessity of thought, but has elevated his mental default into an intellectual virtue, has given him the right to dismiss thinkers (or construction engineers) as naive, and has endowed him with that typically modern quality: the arrogance of the concrete-bound, who takes pride in not seeing the forest fire, or the forest, or the trees, while he is studying one inch of bark on a rotted tree stump." "How to Read (and Not to Write)," The Ayn Rand Letter, l, 26, 5

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Objectivism does not denounce instant gratification, in an of itself. It denounces the pursuit of instant gratification without any thought to what the consequences may be. Otherwise known as Hedonism, I believe.

iTunes is a particularly good example. Yes, you can buy an entire album, at home, in less than thirty minutes instead of driving to the store. But, are there any negative consequences of this action? Is this going to hinder your life in any way? Hopefully, you've thought about this before you downloaded the album, and not only that, but came to the conclusion that it wasn't harmful to your life.

"concrete bound" (a fancy name for short term)

I have to second Trebor on this. What does one have to do with the other? Concrete (in this sense) is the opposite of abstract. It has nothing to do with the short term.

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