The major occupation in a post scarcity (of essential goods) society, is the creation of unique designer goods, which by their nature, cannot be mass produced.

A designer suit, made by a tailor.
A song, performed by a live talent.
A hand arranged bouquet of flowers.
An original hand painting.

Those sorts of things.

Since all your basic needs are met, you really don't HAVE to do anything. You CAN just be a couch potato, and I expect some people will do that. Hell, videogame deathmatch TV might become a popular thing! The idea here, is that what you would do, would be most profitable when it produces something the robots cannot make, (hand crafted is mutually exclusive to robot mass manufacture) that other people would want.

Things like ebay would explode with such limited run items.

Assuming that AIs with a rational personaity construct are in charge, everyone will have *needs* met, but not wants.

Fridge will have food, but not cobe beef.
People will have electricity, and running water, but not fancy recessed lighting nor a jaccuzzi.

This means that humans won't focus on making screws that get packaged with ikea furniture.

Instead, they will focus on making human comfort items for other humans to consume, to sate human desire.

Armani suits. Designer handbags. Novelty appliances. Etc.

The natural scarcity of something being hand made in a world of post scarcity commodity goods, will command high worth.

That is what people will do.

You are forgetting the internal moisture sensors that void the warrantee.

I find your over-generalizations and sensationalist methodologies taxing.

Your basic argument is that I can't define "excessive". I defined it several times. When it causes defiticts of other interests.

Me? I *do* have dozens of interests. One a month for an hour is a well moderated activity for me. If you have a shorteg of things you enjoy doing, naturally you will have more time to devote to the more limited selection.

I presented myself as an extreme, since you leveled an accusation that my participation in that activity was extreme. I simply clarified it was not, by nearly anyone's imagination.

It is important to point out that it isn't just time you spend watching MLP, but also time you spend shopping for merch, how much you spend on merch, how much time you spend making or looking at fan art or stories, etc.

I knit. But I am not a member of any knitting clubs, contests, or any subscriber to any publications related to knitting, and don't typically go out of my way to find things to knit. I don't associate with any larger knitting demographic. (Like say, speed knitters.) It isn't really a part of who I am, just something I know how to do, and do occasionally to relax.

Bronies on the other hand, are not nearly so moderate in their behavior or zeal for their constellation of activities. This is clearly manifest by the sheer number andkinds of personal attacks, ad hominems, and overal vengeful candor of much of this thread demonstrated by them. They aren't even capable nor willing to moderate their behavior, ad cleary manifest fanatical behavior.

It has been nearly a whole week since this thread hit slashdot, and yet, here you are AC, still beating your drum.

Qed.

The etymology of fan from fanatic is correct. Simply because certain forms of fanaticism are widely culturally accepted, does not make it suddenly healthy.

Being a couch potato, for instance. Excessively sedentary lifestyles are quite popular. This does not make them any less unhealthy. Being a sports fanatic is quite popular. This does not make it less unhealthy.

The real issue is that you do not like the connotation of being considered "ill".

That's another matter entirely.

More like, "when your desire to eat cheeseburgers has you define yourself as a "cheesburgerer", you are now clearly eating cheeseburgers pathologically, and demonstrate having an eating disorder."

It isn't that you go one place because you like the cheeseburgers. It is that you go there compulsively, at the deficit of going other places, and eat the cheeseburgers with priority over other foods, and doing so makes you assign yourself a group identity, as belonging to a wider group of people who also do so, to justify this decision.

People who like MLP is a bigger set than people who are fans of MLP. People who are fans of MLP is a bigger set than people who self-identify as bronies.

People who like cheeseburgers is a bigger set than people who are fans of the cheeseburger. People who are fans of the cheeseburger is a bigger set than people who self-identify as "chesseburgerers".

The self identification is the major diagnostic criteria, because it indicates that the practitioner of the behavior expresses knowledge that the behavior is excessive, experiences a deficit in social situatons because of that excess (AKA, "harm"), and self associates with others that share this excessive behavior to make up for it.

The impetus to self associate is the diagnostic criteria. It indicates that harm is present, and that the behavior causes illness. All by itself. Simply by existing.

(And yes, I know "cheeseburgerer" isn't a real word. Then again, neither is "bronie")

I am sorry if this makes you angry. How it makes you feel personally is not really relavent to it being truthful.

Let me help you.

"Fan".

It is short for "fanatic". Merriam webster defines fanatical behavior as synonymous with excessive behavior. A fan of MLP is by definition excessive in their degree of association with that show.

A bronie is a fan of MLP who's excessive like of that show compells them to ascribe to a group identity of other fanatics.

Even if you disagree that there is a separation between MLP fan and bronie, there is still a separation between people with a non extreme appreciation or approval of the show, and a fan of the show.

The point where fanaticism becomes pathological, is when that fanaticism causes the fanatic, or others, harm.

That is, and has been the message I have been repeating. The "You are saying bronies are insane!" Line is a radicalization of yours and other's creation.

I am saying that they exhibit signs of mental illness which shows a graduation of intensity, the more fervent their devotion to MLP is.

A bronie exhibits more devotion than does a simple fan, owing to the choice to group associate. (And no, asserting that no MLP fan is not also a bronie is a no true scottsman.) This makes bronies, by observed intensity of their devotion, more extreme, and therefore more likely to be mentally ill to a degree.

But feel free to go off the deep end, and hurl unfounded accusations like everyone else in this thread, totally ignore what I have said repeatedly to you and others, ignore the tenents of your show's basic message of acceptence and forgiveness and expose yourself to be a raging and emotionally petulant individual like everyone else.

Apparently you seem to enjoy doing so.

I knit maybe once a month. Often less. Its for relaxation.

How often do you watch MLP?

If it's several times a week, you may have a problem.

It isn't about liking something odd. Its about liking it to excessive degrees.

But you clearly can't or won't accept that answer, and will instead resort to more adhominems.

No, "saccharine rainbow powers solve everything!" Isn't "deep". Not even for a show intended for children.

Want a show that really is?

watership down

Its intended age range is 8 and up. (Hint, that's most of the same age range for MLP, which is 6 to 12 (and bronies).)

I saw it when I was 7. My parents had already explained death to me, and the cold war was still going on. It did not leave me with emotional baggage, and I liked it, much like this reviewer liked it. It depicts "serious shit happens! Only hard work and bravery really fixes it."

It prepares older kids for the not so nice things in the world around them as adults, and helps them be more than 2 dimensional emotional fountains when the saccharine landscapes they were sheltered in are violently ripped away.

I wouldn't show it to 6 year olds, but 8 year olds should be able to handle it, if their parents haven't tried to unnaturally extend their childhoods with a diet of saccharine to stunt their mental and emotional growth. Thankfully, my parents fed me a more healthy diet of media that featured consequences and resolutions that had real meat in them.

MLP:FIM is not "deep". No, Not even for a kids show. HR Puffinstuff had deeper meanings hidden in it, and it was made for 3 year olds.

Children need to learn that "saying sorry" and "let's be friends" doesn't absolve dickery, and it doesn't fix a wounded heart, or a scarred mind. It helps, and is the first step, but that road is a long and hard one. Friendship isn't really magic.

It isn't about being noir, or gloomy, or broody about things. That's equally unhealthy. It's about accepting consequences, and learning that often times the best ways to avoid those consequences, BECAUSE they are hard to resolve, is to just not do those things to begin with. (And when you have to, accept those consequences gracefully and with maturity.)

If the people hooked on the saccharine in MLP were absorbing THOSE lessons instead of cancer causing sugar substitutes, they wouldn't be as callous about their candor with other people and other people's interests, and react so violently and negatively when people demand they stop. (No, putting pinkiepie in places she does not belong is NOT 'cute', and IS an offensive gesture. People getting mad about it and telling you to stop is the consequence, acting like a petulant child and throwing a fit and resorting to creating lynch mobs and retaliatory strikes on communities outside the fandom is aggression, and people hating you and your lynching pals for it is the consequence. Saying "I'm sorry!" In a saccharine sweet voice, then going off and doing it right away again like nothing happened is NOT resolution.

Again, you would have learned this, if you watched things with *real* substance.

MLP is not such a food item.

So, in other words, "serious shit happens, then saccharine to the rescue."

(And yes, I did watch the episode.)

The "its a contrived plot to set up for the saccharine rainbow of friendship that solves everything because being lockeded up for years on end doesn't leave any kind of deep emotional scarring or sense of betrayal at all! M'Hm!, and friendship makes it all better like mommy's kisses!" Line is hardly what I would consider "real sincerity".

Instead, we have a ruler (celesta was it?) Who has a cult of personality around her, and a jealous sister. Celesta locks up her sister, rather than say, throw her a slumber party, or some other self-esteem boosting activity. If all the other ponies fall asleep, give them some coffee or something. If the real cause of her nerosis was that she was lonely, why didn't celesta listen to her then, and work something out THEN? Nope-- into the magic prison spell you go!

Holes like this in the story expose the series as just more saccharine, just sans the merchandising.

Again, refusal to acknowledge the existence of the riptide is pathological.

People who are excellent swimmers drown all the time when they get caught in one. For comparison, look at addiction. People who are addicts believe they are in control. They aren't. They react badly when people perform interventions, because they believe they are in control.

The same thing happened here.

Go talk to a recovering alcoholic about it sometime. It might be enlightening for you.

"Fan" is short for "fanatic".
merriam webster on "fanatic"

Since "sports fan" is short for "sports fanatic", then sports fans are by DEFINITION, excessive.

So, no, not absurd at all.

That's because it isn't a precipice.

Its more like wading out into the ocean. Near the shore, the water is shallow. You are still walking out to sea, but the water is tractible. This can give the false illusion that all of the water is safe, and that you can handle it. Eventually, you are no longer standing in the water, you are swimming over your head, and if you keep going, will hit the tide, and go out to sea.

Where is the tide? When do you stop standing on the bottom? Different for each person.

I am not saying "you are out to sea." I am saying "walking away from the beach will lead you over your head, if you don't moderate your activity. When your overconfidence makes you want to drag people out with you who don't want to go, there is a problem."

Splashing around in the shallows is usually harmless, but not always. Some people do indeed drown there. Much more people drown out by the riptide. When somebody says you might consider swimming back, because it looks like you are by the riptide, it isn't a personal insult. Is an expression of concern for your well being.

Refusal to accept that the riptide is there, and can and will consume you if you keep going, is a pathology.

Again, where the shallows end and the deep water begins is different for each person. For convenience, I split "fans" from "bronies", based on the observed depth of water they seem to be treading. I was relentlessly booed and catcalled for this.

That's about the complete summation here.

But at least the wiccans genuinely are interested and apologetic if their activities cause emotional harm to other people.

They take great efforts to be as non-offensive in their practices as possible, as a general rule. (There are always exceptions.) That is to say, they don't recite the rede outside a crowded church, dance naked at beltine around a flagpole in public, or scratch pentacles on people's floors.

That is clearly not being conserved here, where we have people giving each other "brohooves", verbally assaulting people who honestly suggest they may have a problem and should consider being more moderate, and generally refusing to acknowledge that their interest is undesirable to the wider majority, who would frankly rather not see it, but don't really care if those people watch ponies otherwise.

The wiccans have the highground here.

(Has seen one of the new MLP. Will dissect it cruelly now.)

In one episode, one of the ponies has the magical power to bring out sunshine, where her sister has the magical power to create nighttime.

The one that creates nighttime (nightmare, I believe is the name..) likes night time a LOT. I mean, *A LOT.* so much so in fact, that her desire for it to be night time is obcessive.

(Eerily poingant..)

Attempts at reasoning with her prove fruitless; she becomes ever more obstinant about her obcession. (Irony.) Threatens to make it night time forever.

Rather than do a real intervention, the daytime pony simply imprisons her sister magically, and does nothing to help her, and keeps her trapped for a VERY long time.

One of the less magical ponies discovers a prophecy about this event, that one day nightmare would escape, and realizes that the prophecy is coming true.

They spend the rest of the episode dealing with nightmare and her obcession.

Now, my cruel deconstruction:

If the sunshine pony loves her sister, why does she lock her up and forget about her 1800s sanitorium style? Why is this an acceptable solution, as opposed to supressing her powers, or transfering her powers to somebody else for awhile? How does this function as a role model?

Nightmare has an obcessive fixation on creating darkness. Her obcession causes others distress, but she does not care about that. She only cares about satisfying her fixation. She does not recognize that her fixation causes harm, and views all attempts to convince her that it does as a personal attack. Through the narrative, she recognizes that her obcession is unhealthy, and acts with moderation from then on.

That is the real story to take away from the episode.

It is also one totally lost on many of the people in this thread, who have the "Doing X is fun for me, and perfectly harmless! You are attacking me and are a bad person for insisting that I not be extreme about it!" Point of view.

When you are presented with such a message, and focus on trivial frivolaties like "Pinkie Pie is just so awesome! :3" instead, you really don't have a leg to stand on concerning the "new MLP actually has substance!" Line.