Junk food is bad comparison, because listening to unchallenging music will not harm you at all. For that matter, the same goes with visual arts and fashion and design. There are movies and books that can actually harm you (when it teaches wrong history or facts for example, when violence is more then you can handle), but I would argue the cheap predictable popular ones are rarely those.

It is cheap argument to try to imply that unchallenging pop music somehow harms the listeners, but that argument does not have base in reality.

Being cognitively unchallenged by music or visual arts could be considered "harm". I know i do but anectada I guess.

The fact that you imply his argument is "cheap" or that you very quickly judge it as "bad comparison" with no more arguments than whatever you think could be interpreted as "his point exactly".

> Being cognitively unchallenged by music or visual arts could be considered "harm".

Is being cognitively unchallenged by something being harmed by that something in general? That is extraordinary claim that would require evidence. That is not standard we apply to other daily activities. And listening to music is not even activity, it is just something you put onto environment as you do something else.

If I go somewhere without listening to music, arguably getting even less challenging sounds into my ears, am I being harmed even more?

> I know i do but anectada I guess.

Do you have anecdote of someone being harmed by unchallenging music? Anectada require anecdote that confirms one case of it happening. I see only claim itself, but no anecdote.

> The fact that you imply his argument is "cheap" or that you very quickly judge it as "bad comparison" with no more arguments than whatever you think could be interpreted as "his point exactly".

Me thinking and saying that is comparison is bad and arguing by no harm is not proving "his point exactly". He did not wrote any arguments for why unchallenging music harms listener. He avoided need to put in such arguments by avoiding direct claim, opting for implication instead. It is common tactic when people want to appeal to emotions and instincts. It is also completely valid to answer it.

It is quite literally valid disagreement with quick judgement someone else made. Also, I did not implied his argument is cheap, I said it openly.

I think "lack of development/enrichment" might be a better term than harm. And "challenge" might not have been a great word-choice of mine, either. Depth? Craft? Some value.

For example, imagine a programmer/software engineer who never, ever, in their entire career, saw good code written by others?

Does that lack of good code (and there's lots of ways for code to be "good") harm their development as software devs?

I think to make a food comparison work, you need to set the reference point straight. Since your body (and your mind) doesn't require any music / movie / book to survive, the proper comparison is to food eaten on top of nutritional baseline - to all the extra things you eat above minimum survivable calories/nutrients.

This way, pop music can be correctly likened to McDonald's food: won't harm you at all, and it's one of the most pleasant things you can get with low effort. The "movies and books that can actually harm you" can be likened not to fast food, but to poisoned food. E.g. infected with E. coli because it wasn't prepared properly.

And another extra danger reveals itself: just like you can hurt yourself by overeating, you can hurt yourself by overconsuming entertainment.

> Since your body (and your mind) doesn't require any music / movie / book to survive ...

I respectfully disagree : ). Name a single culture that has ever existed which had no art. No storytelling, pottery, visual crafts, music, dance, etc.

It might not have been art purely as its own thing as in today's Western art, it might have been art as part of religion ritual or tradition, but everyone everywhere has art.

Would you want to live in a world with zero music, and zero decorative arts, zero visual arts, zero stories, etc? Zero designed objects, zero rugs that have any sort of color or pattern, etc?

Art is totally necessary for our survival. It's so fundamental that we don't realize most of the time it's there.

Early example of fashion? The military, to distinguish soldiers and make people feel special about killing. Also, music (drums, etc) - to coordinate folks and lift their spirits. One example of how pervasive art is.

That's why the art/technology divide breaks down and why design is so interesting, imho. As soon as any material technology starts to get sophisticated, you start to get "aesthetics" and "styles". Think Russian vs U.S. engineering styles, for one example.

Creating tools is a creative act.

Plus, look at the cave paintings. Art's been around since day one. %;-)

Also if you only eat McDonalds it does indeed harm you, FYI :). Or, like, eating really unhealthy will harm you over time. Or eating ice cream all day : ).

The typical issue with McDonald's food put on top of other food is that it makes you fat and also unhealthy in the long term. As in, it is bad because it does some harm.

Otherwise there would not no issue with McDonald's food on top of regular food.

Yes, there are two problems.

First McDonalds wants customers to go to McDonalds so they make it taste good even if that means it is no longer healthy. (the entire food industry does this)

Second they try to get away with spending as little money on ingredients as possible which lowers the overall quality of the food.

The big question is how is cheap and low quality but addictive music harmful? It's not like people can overdose on music.

"Unchallenging" isn't quite right for the food comparison, you're correct.

For instance I don't consider The Beatles, say, or Michael Jackson or Jay-Z or Frank Sinatra or Mozart necessarily "challenging" (for some people some of those artists are), but would consider them "healthy".

Healthy food can be tasty and delicious, too ; ).

I do think if someone listens only to music without any depth (again, I'm using the Beatles - or Led Zeppelin, or Jimi Hendrix, or Taylor Swift, or Robyn or Daft Punk, or Lauryn Hill, or Billie Holiday, or Kanye West as examples of popular artists with depth), it is a lost opportunity for development of the self, and in a sense, "stunts" the growth of one's own self.

It's also just a huge loss. There's so much beautiful art that is not "challenging", and much of the "challenging" work simply requires a friendly environment and an introduction, and they yield huge rewards.

At the same time I think the emotions which a lot of art can stimulate cause fear to a lot of people, which can be cause for avoidance of them, but that's a separate (albeit related) conversation : ).

I dunno. I did start off talking about "challenging" art. But, the line is so thin!

I don't think Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" would "challenge" many people - it's maybe the most popular jazz album, one of the best, and a beautiful piece of listening. It has lots of depth though, and his other work can be considered challenging, for sure ...

Really I guess I'm making an argument for the value of cultivation of the self through education, which includes the arts : ).

There's just so much out there: Indian classical music, Afrobeat, Latin jazz, country music, tons of electronic music from everywhere, traditional Chinese music, etc.

Not unlike programming/computer science, there's so much neat stuff that people have done in the arts that often people don't even realize exists.

Not all of us have the time and the inclination to do the deep digging, but, I think it's important to have a balance and at least an appreciation for the vastness of what exists in our lives, and that doing so enriches our selves.

I guess there are lots of types of "challenging". I suppose i was thinking of it in a technical sense - the way great classical music has really complex melodies and what not. I've always been impressed by the technical achievement of that sort of thing, but i mostly don't actually want to listen to it. The technical complexity is impressive but it doesn't aid what im trying to get out of music.

If we want to make metaphors to books - a very imperfect one might be a book written in old english or latin. It is very challenging, but its challenging (to me) for the wrong reasons. Some other people might relish that challenge, and that is great for them, but for me i want to be challenged by the story not the grammar.

Any form of art or hobby can be appreciated deeply or used for simple minded entertainment. You can enjoy everything at a surface level but going deeper requires commitment and you can't commit yourself to everything at once. Therefore saying something along the lines of "It’s your loss, IMHO." will be understood as disrespect of someones personal preferences and invites unnecessary hostility.

No disrespect intended.

Agreed, not all of us go deep on all things. I am biased towards being open to new experiences and continuing to learn and develop over the course of our lives, and do think it's good for people, and important, and that includes the arts.

I think part of the beauty of film (including TV), music, and literature (those three things in particular), is just how much really good stuff is easily accessible and easily available these days. Video games, too.

The real barrier is lack of familiarity and lack of that one person to introduce / guide you, in my heavily biased and optimistic opinion : ).

It's why the kids with the older siblings often knew about all the cool music ; ).