Why Windust & Maxine?
David Morris
fqmorris at gmail.com
Sun Dec 15 08:15:13 CST 2013
Maybe P should have included Bitcoin in BE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/sunday-review/the-bitcoin-ideology.html
One could argue that bitcoin isn’t chiefly a commercial venture at all, a
funny thing to say about a kind of online cash. To its creators and
numerous disciples, bitcoin is — and always has been — a mostly ideological
undertaking, more philosophy than finance. ... bitcoin isn’t merely money;
it's "a movement" — a crusade in the costume of a currency. Depending on
whom you talk to, the goal is to unleash repressed economies, to take down
global banking or to wage a war against the Federal Reserve.
On Sunday, December 15, 2013, Fiona Shnapple wrote:
> Postman distinguishes the Orwellian vision of the future, in which
> totalitariangovernments seize individual rights, from that offered by
> Aldous Huxley inBrave New World, where people medicate themselves into
> bliss, thereby voluntarily sacrificing their rights. Drawing an
> analogy with the latter scenario, Postman sees television's
> entertainment value as a present-day "soma", by means of which the
> consumers' rights are exchanged for entertainment.
>
> The essential premise of the book, which Postman extends to the rest
> of his argument(s), is that "form excludes the content," that is, a
> particular medium can only sustain a particular level of ideas. Thus
> Rational argument, integral to print typography, is militated against
> by the medium of television for the aforesaid reason. Owing to this
> shortcoming, politics and religion are diluted, and "news of the day"
> becomes a packaged commodity. Television de-emphasises the quality of
> information in favour of satisfying the far-reaching needs of
> entertainment, by which information is encumbered and to which it is
> subordinate.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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