Home
Artists
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register
Partychan Matrix ThePornDude
Home Artists Posts Import Register

Book Club December - Amusing Ourselves to Death (Patreon)

Published:
2022-12-20 15:54:15
Imported:
2024-12
Tags:

Downloads

Content

We read Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.


Let us know what you thought. 



Comments

Asymetra

I'm reminded of a coworker who claimed, "A century ago, people were smarter than we are today. They just knew every thing and didn't have to look it up." First, they didn't have the resources. Second, they focused on very few things, so they were good at that thing. Third, they didn't know, they made up, ala Dunning-Kruger style.

Asymetra
>>98355422

Reminds me of the constant praise people still have Ayn Rand. Like, why? She wasn't a philosopher, she was even original. She just built a cult of personality around her, contributing literally nothing to the conversation.

Asymetra
>>97983244

I agree. I think it's also a combination of volume, time, money, and culture. Shows are no longer limited to 3 stations + PBS. Social content isn't limited to what's curated and gatekept by the media/TV execs. People don't all consume the same content, so no longer gather around the water fountain to discuss something we have in common. People also don't have the time to consume everything out there, so resort to a little TL;DR and a lot of DR (that's why inflammatory headlines are so effective). We don't often have to wait a week for the next episode, and can opt out and just binge watch it at the end. Platforms like Patreon and Kickstarter do allow people to connect to a lot of independent creators, but there are a lot of interesting people and very few patrons have the unlimited funds to pay to follow everything, so they have to be more discriminating in what they pursue. Attention spans are diminishing, but we're increasingly forced to "multi-task," which means cutting everything short, putting in minimal effort to achieve mediocrity, and then move on. Corporate capitalism has sacrificed long-term thinking for short-term profits, pits employees against one another, and millennials are always connected to work, interrupting their limited rest time to answer company emails (unpaid work). Individually, no one is at fault, collectively, we are.

Jonathan Jarry

The way the two of you describe the book reminds me of my impressions reading The Death of Expertise: a lot of "back in my days" statements by someone who sounds very dyspeptic, but not a lot of evidence to argue his case....

TreeHuggerPestControl.com

One of Roger Water's solo albums was inspired by this book, so it's been on my list for a long while. Unfortunately my list contains more reading than the time I have remaining to me.

Bob Brady

I found the "TL:DR culture" part of this conversation interesting. I wonder how much of this impression is formed by the availability heuristic. Much more of peoples day-to-day communication is open to us than it was 20 years ago so it appears that fewer people are reading longform but maybe that's not what the actual data would say. Perhaps there used to just be a "DR culture" that we weren't aware of. And, of course, we're only discussing the English speaking world. I think the subject is probably too broad for a single book by one author to really cover.

Deadeye Nick

I have to say that I don’t think he is all wrong, but maybe that’s because I’m a crone. This reminds me of a book I read many many years ago - the disappearance of childhood by Neil postman. It starts back in history when there were no children. There were infants and the miniature adults who had jobs. Then we discovered that 8 year olds aren’t just tiny adults. His idea was that once we culturally had children, learning to read was a major part of becoming adult. The mental discipline of the learning and the ability to absorb all those ideas and whatnot, and that true literacy is part of a gatekeeping structure for adulthood. He laments our television culture (this was published in the 80s) because he believes it has led to a reduction in functional literacy. Between that and the obsession of older people not to seem old, there is a blurring between children and adult. It kind of finishes by considering that if we disappear childhood, then there is really no such thing as adulthood. It’s a really interesting read that probably predisposed me to be sympathetic to this author’s thesis.

NSaneAtheist

You are correct that people stay and watch Trump speeches for hours and he never really says anything, but it’s actually been tested. At some election rallies in 2020, they had him start talking about policy issues and things of that nature and the audience did not respond well !! they became unattentive and even upset, because they wanted him to be combative and they wanted him to talk bad about his opponents. Which just solidifies that comparison

CarrieBoo

I finally got around to listening to this; I had to read this book at least twice for various high school and college courses..and after hearing your take I need to say *THANK YOU*. I thought I was nuts for thinking this book was pretty flawed. The teachers praised the heck out of it and I couldn't grasp why...therefore I thought something was off about me. (I know I have a copy somewhere but it's probably because the classes gave me Stockholm syndrome.)