Does humanities greed for $ overshadow passion?

[Libitinarius]

Has our passion and creativity been lost over the past decade due to the our self indulgence and techno-logic conveniences (eg, IPOD, YouTube, Tablets, DVR)?

For Example: Music

Every rock song I hear from the lead vocalist nowadays sounds similar to this:

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In Sports, players like LeBron James and Dwayne Wade talk of their desire to win a championship, but not at the cost of their 100 million dollar contracts, when in reality they could of taken pay cuts and had a better supporting roster.

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Literature: if the best we have to offer today is shallow teenage romance that lasts about a millisecond and is aimed towards the EMO teens of twitter, we are in sad shape as a society:

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Movies: Can you name a good movie in the past 3 years?

[lemmingllama]

Our passion and creativity have not been eliminated, just that it is being focused on some other things than what you are suggesting. Let me go through your points and we can see.

So first for music you say that rock isnt that great. Thats mainly because the activity for new music is all in the pop or metal genres, there have been lots of breakthroughs and good songs in those categories. Likewise, modern rap is much worse than it was a while back, and also some older musics like scat are coming back. Techno has also been re-defined in the new genre of dubstep.

For sports, dont say that people are money hungry because they dont want to lose the money they are making. These people you are saying play sports solely for money. However, we also have olympic athletes who make very little yet they get to train their butts off. The olympics are where athletes want to go if they actually want to compete and get as best as they can, pro sports is only for money and entertainment of the masses.

For literature, yes the Twilight saga isnt that great. I know, I read them all. Yet sadly it seems that people dont really like good literature. Just look at the original Harry Potter books or the Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter 1 was all plot and had virtually no description, you were just hurled from one event to the other to try and put this intricate series of plots together but it was harder to follow due to the lack of description. Likewise, LotR has way too much description, the story is good but it is buried under pages of text about how pretty the leaves are. However, do not say that all modern literature is bad, it is simply that most of the more popular books are bad. I can vouch for authors like R A Salvatore or Ed Greenwood who have been publishing great trilogies and although they arent household names, they still get recognition because their books are great.

For movies, there arent that many that have come out that are great because they are mainly just reusing old ideas. However, it is the ones that give out new ideas that are good, like Inception. And I think we can all agree that it was a pretty good movie. Besides, most movies that come out nowadays are actually decent if you just go in to watch something and want to be entertained, not mentally stimulated or in awe of the movie, but just be entertained. With a mindset like that, the films do exactly what we want to do

[Libitinarius]

I agree with certain things you said about literature and music (a few signs of life, but imo the majority has become bleak in creativity). Ideas are constantly being recycled as you said yourself. But I also think that statistics are collected and targeted toward a certain demographic, record labels financing the project know teens like the catchy high-pitch pretty boy tones, and produced it into the mainstream, where the public buys it like wildfire.

Sports however were not always played for the soul purpose of money, I mean common? LeBron James has millions of dollars in endorsements already. Do you really think he loves/cares more about the game then his shams for publicity and prestige? Yes, professional athletes should earn money for playing, but should it be all about the paycheck? Of course there are those who do not receive nearly as much recognition (like the Olympics), but these are not the role models of this era. Think of players like Larry Bird/Magic Johnson/Julius Erving.

[lemmingllama]

Sports however were not always played for the soul purpose of money, I mean common? LeBron James has millions of dollars in endorsements already. Do you really think he loves/cares more about the game then his shams for publicity and prestige? Yes, professional athletes should earn money for playing, but should it be all about the paycheck? Of course there are those who do not receive nearly as much recognition (like the Olympics), but these are not the role models of this era. Think of players like Larry Bird/Magic Johnson/Julius Erving.

I understand what you are saying. We can also look at the fact that there are lots of people who pay to play sports, just because they love the games. I would have a more solid position on it, but I barely watch sports so I couldnt really give an answer and be able to justify it

[Alegend1994]

I mainly listen to Japanese styled music nowadays, which is definitely repetitive, and I stay away from anything mainstream if I can at least on the English side. Also not to sound shallow but as soon as something becomes too popular I start to loose interest in the thing, with anime being the only exception, so I probably haven't got a good in sight on the mainstream media.

One thing I have found is that anime is becoming repetition and I think this is because the directors and producers are trying to fit everyones interests into a single story-line, which is like mixing a load of colourful paints and getting the colour brown as a result. But this is mostly harems and really any romance that I have seen.

I can't really comment on literature since I read like a book a year, sometimes less than that, and I don't watch sport at all but my opinion on the sports players that earn a load of money are only in the game for the money and no longer have a passion for the game. But I do have a massive respect for Olympic athletes since they have so much determination and passion for their sport and do it to excel in the sport and show what humankind is capable of.

[salmun]

people say money is the root of all evil, some say the root of it is just the love of money itself, although I tend to agree with the second one. Now a days some people are more focused on getting this money instead of doing a good job at what they do. Not saying money is bad, you need that to pay the bills, its just that some would almost sell their soul if they could just to get more money and in the end they spend it all trying to stay alive when they get sick. "Music isn't what it used to be," I hear people say that, but some of them who think that way only fallow the trend of whats hot now and what everybody is listening to in the radio. Fallowing the heard and never thinking theirs anything all's worth their time, thinking if this is as good as it gets why bother with anything all's. Theirs plenty of good music out there that not many know about because people(some not all) think this way.