“This is a history of play” “a history of what we do for fun” beyond “daily grind of subsistence”
“When human beings create and share experiences designed to delight or amaze, they often end up transforming society in more dramatic ways than people foxed on more utilitarian concerns.”
“Because play is often about breaking rules and experimenting with new conventions, it turns out to be the seedbed for many innovations that ultimately develop into much sturdier and more significant forms.” “You will find the future wherever people are having the most fun.”
Phoenicia purple dye from snails inspired sailing out of Mediterranean
1600s England made protectionist acts to ban calico and protect wool industry; also to eliminate “calico madams” with taste for cotton
Cotton’s initial success due to fashion over utility
British shopkeepers with ostentatious displays allowed space for fashion and slow revolution of shopping
Cotton spawned industrial slavery in 1800s; without it no Civil War?
Musical technology (bone flutes) almost as old as technology for hunting and warmth: “Aeons before early humans started to imagine writing or agriculture, they were crafting tools for making music. This seems particularly puzzling because music is the most abstract of the arts.”
Octaves have 2:1 ratio of waveforms; fourth is 4:3, fifth is 3:2
Music emerged because certain sounds were new, different enough from others: “Because the sound was new, it was interesting, worth repeating, worth tinkering with.”
Music as auditory cheesecake, or evolutionary value?
“The pleasure in hearing those captivating sounds doesn’t just establish a demand for more of the same. Instead, music seems to send us out on a quest for new experiences: more of the same, but different.”
“We don’t need to hear that sound in any existential sense, but nonetheless something about it captures our attention, prods us to seek the experience out in future environments.”
“The pull of opiates is centripetal; most heroin victims die alone for a reason. But music, like other similar forms of play, is a push: it propels you to seek out new twists. That exploratory, expansive drive is what separates delight from demand: when we are in play mode, we are open to new surprises, while our base appetites focus the mind on the urgent needs of staying alive. Understand that distinction is critical to understanding why play—despite its seemingly frivolous veneer—has led to so many important discoveries and innovations.”
Map of Muslim spice trade circa 900 CE corresponds almost exactly to map of Islamic populations today
Doritos chip conglomeration of world flavors; “cosmopolitan melange of flavors”
Thomas Jefferson brought vanilla ice cream to U.S. via France’s vanilla pods
Spice trade facilitated plague in 1300s
Cinema had panoramas, magic shows as ancestors in London West End
Chess to explain society: “games have a wonderful ability to cross borders”
Checkmate from Persian for shah-mat; for “king defeat”
Chess as open source game, spurred probability theory
Aztec rubber balls formed from naturally occurring latex
Darwin saw orangutan exhibit dressed as humans: evolution
“The surge of dopamine that accompanies a novel event sends out a kind of internal alarm in your mind that says: Pay attention. Something interesting is happening here.”
“Perhaps we have been wrong to worry about what will happen when the machines start thinking for themselves. What we should be really worried about is what will happen when they start to play.”
[Play = embodied delight]