I finally read Neil Postman's AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH and, while I appreciated his punkish pushback against telegenic society, I was slightly underwhelmed. Richard Hofstadter is a far more incisive critic of our slide to serving up nothing but cultural pablum than Postman. Moreover, if thought and entertainment are intertwined, I don't see anything wrong with it -- provided that the thought is there. (I have a friend who sends me lots of chicken videos. Because she knows I like chickens. But, bless her, this does get tiresome without the thought.)

I realize that this book came out in 1985, well before the Internet. And some of Postman's complaints are laughable from the vantage point of 2023. I appreciated the provocation, but if the object of what we do here is to persuade more people to think, I'm more of the "by any means necessary" school, which would include humor and entertainment.

#neilpostman #amusement #thought

Seeing discussions of tech, #AI (machine-generated text from #ChatGPT) ke eps sending me to #NeilPostman(1991), #PaulGoodman(1970), and Bertrand (and Dora) Russel(1924!). The pattern is the same with "science," "#computers," or "#AI" tech getting hyped and applied by morons: "..it once was thought necessary to bring closed-circuit..[TV].. to the classroom." Key point from Paul Goodman:
".. #technology is a branch of #MoralPhilosophy, not of #science."
#技術 は #倫理学 の一部門であって、#科学 の部門ではない。

> Of all the disciplines that might be included in the curriculum, semantics is certainly among the most “basic.” Because it deals with the processes by which we make and interpret meaning, it has great potential to affect the deepest levels of student intelligence. And yet semantics is rarely mentioned when “back to the basics” is proposed. Why? My guess is that it cuts too deep...

#NeilPostman #Technopoly on #Semantics #Meaning

> Why blame people? We may call this line of thinking an “agentic shift,” a term.. from #StanleyMilgram to name the process whereby humans transfer responsibility for an outcome from themselves to a more abstract agent. When this happens, we have relinquished control, which in the case of #TheComputer [#AI] means that we may, without excessive remorse, pursue ill-advised or even #InhumanGoals because the computer can accomplish them or be imagined to accomplish them.
#NeilPostman #Technopoly

It's great to start reading of #HarryFrankfurt's work on #Bullshit.^1

I just learned of it while reading a conversation between #JuliaAngwin and #ArvindNarayanan^2about #AISnakeOil. It keeps making me think of #NeilPostman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, and marketing... lack of humility, "irrational exuberance"..

^1 https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122946/on-bullshit
^2 https://themarkup.org/hello-world/2023/01/28/decoding-the-hype-about-ai

Harry Frankfurt's Bullshit came to me while reading about #ChatGTP and #AI in general: Sounds like advertising.
> ... bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122946/on-bullshit
#HarryFrankfurt's #Bullshit #Bullshitter sounds like #NeilPostman on #Advertising since the 1890's

David Owen's sentence:
> Assigning dates to transitions in grammar and usage is difficult.

Reminded me of Neil Postman's #AmusingOurselvesToDeath_ Maybe we started becoming morons about, er... inattentive or not-thinking toward, our wriiting from the 1890s?

#NeilPostman:
> As late as #1890, #advertising, still understood to consist of words, was regarded as an essentially serious and rational enterprise whose purpose was to convey information and make claims in propositional form.

> Idea 1: Culture always pays a price for technology.
Idea 2: There are always winners and losers in technological change.
Idea 3: Every technology has a philosophy: “The medium is the message.”
Idea 4: Technological change is not additive; it is ecological.
Idea 5: Media tend to become mythic.
#NeilPostman #Technopoly?
I found this link while looking into the book, PLAI: _Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation_.From the book's site to https://lukc1024.github.io/

“Truth does not, and never has, come unadorned. It must appear in its proper clothing or it out it is not acknowledged, which is a way of saying that the truth is kind of cultural prejudice” - #NeilPostman (Amusing ourselves to death)


I have highlights on every other page of this #book also love the way of looking at how #truth is mostly subjective or as said in the book, “Cultural Prejudice”. #readingcommunity

“Truth does not, and never has, come adorned. It must appear in its proper clothing or it out it is not acknowledged, which is a way of saying that the truth is kind of cultural prejudice” - #NeilPostman (Amusing ourselves to death)

I have highlights on every other page of this #book also love the way of looking at how #truth is mostly subjective or as said in the book, “Cultural Prejudice”

Given the circumstances that have led many of us to this facility I thought this short video describing the late Neil Postman's prescient warning, 'Amusing ourselves to Death', might be of interest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtM0omZgeQ4

#socialmedia #neilpostman #marshallmcluhan

“… the pace at which news is delivered, the emphasis on sensationalism and the sheer numbers of outlets, has turned important information and conversations … banal and destructive …”

https://ideasandthoughts.org/2018/06/11/amusing-ourselves-to-death/

#SocialMedia
#NeilPostman
#AmusingOurselvesToDeath

#NeilPostman in #Techonoploy with a description of the #LovingResistanceFighter.
https://nerdica.net/display/a85d7459-1762-8a0a-471a-b86933128604

> Whether or not it draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science.
> それが新しい科学の研究を身につけているにしろ、 いないにしろ、 技術は倫理学の一部門えあって、 科学の一部門えはない。

#NeilPostman in #Technopoly quotes #PaulGoodman's #NewReformation
#ニールポストマン #技術vs人間 #ポールグッドマン #新しい改革

"It is commonplace that the years between 1300 and 1650 saw within the intellectual culture of Western Europe important changes in the apprehension of time...Lewis Mumford makes suggestive claims in Technics and Civilization (1934), esp. pp. 12-18, "
The #ActivityRhythm of #NicolasCarr #BullshitJobs of #DavidGraeber and #WorkDiscipline of #EPThompson all take one to Lewis Mumford and the #clock I first read of in a #NeilPostman book.
https://libcom.org/library/time-work-discipline-industrial-capitalism-e-p-thompson

> ... villagers who came to meet #Kurdukar in Kevadia Colony ... had accepted resettlement in #gujarat only on paper... government records took priority over... reality... A #tribal person who does not defer to these records is called an illiterate … what do you call a judge who disregards the people in favor of the records?
https://signalsinthefog.wordpress.com/2000/11/11/peoples-knowledge-in-the-paperless-society/
#Aravinda writes of a #judge of #dams turned #bureucrat by #NeilPostman 's #definition #bureaucracy in the book #technopoly , #DavidGraeber

> Richards divided the class into three groups. Each group was asked to write a paragraph describing language. However, Richards provided each group with its first sentence.
Group A had to begin with “Language is like a tree”;
Group B with
“Language is like a river”;
Group C with “
Language is like a building.”... Our discussion centered on how metaphors control what we say, and to what extent what we say controls what we see. #NeilPostman #Technopoly with #IaRichards on #metaphor #language

> ... the purposive aspect of definitions. We want to do something and a definition is a means of doing it. If we want certain results, then we must use certain...definitions... But no definition has any authority apart from a purpose, or to bar us from other purposes. And yet they endlessly do so... we are often deprived of very useful thoughts merely because the words which might express them are being temporarily preempted by other meanings? #iarichards quoted by #NeilPostman in #Technopoly

> Of course, there are plenty of ... places... from which profound ideas about language may come. The work of I. A. Richards (generally) and what he says, specifically, on definition and metaphor are good introductions to language as world-maker. On definition (from his #InterpretationinTeaching )
#NeilPostman in #TheEndOfEducation about #language recommends #iar #IaRichards on #definion and #metaphor

> ... a #bureaucrat is little else than a glorified counter. The French word bureau first meant a cloth for covering a reckoning table, then the table itself, then the room in which the table was kept, and finally the office and staff that ran the entire counting room or house... the word... has come to mean a person who by training, commitment, and even temperament is indifferent to both the content and the totality of a human problem. #NeilPostman in #Technopoly on #richguy #bureaucracy #dams