Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
It seems distant now, but once upon a time the Internet was going to save us from the menace of TV. Since the late fifties, TV has had a special role, both as the country’s dominant medium, in audience and influence, and as a bête noire for a certain strain of American intellectuals, who view it as the root of all evil. In “Amusing Ourselves to Dea... See more
Chris Hayes • On the Internet, We’re Always Famous
Neil Postman's questions to ask of a new technology:
What is the problem to which this technology is the solution?
Whose problem is it?
What new problems might result from solving this problem?
Which people and institutions might be harmed by this solution?
How does the new technology change our language, and what are the implications of tha... See more
Postman believed that technological change tended to shape every aspect of the world around us, and that its danger was that it would set the boundaries for our thinking. The major risk Postman identified is that we might begin to accept technology as a part of nature, as though it were the inescapable way of things. We have to remember that these ... See more
What is happening here is that television is altering the meaning of “being informed” by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation.
Neil Postman • Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.
Neil Postman • Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
“We Americans seem to know everything about the last twenty-four hours but very little of the last sixty centuries or the last sixty years.”
Neil Postman • Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
