Commentary on technologies of reading, writing, research, and, generally, knowledge. As these technologies change and develop, what do we lose, what do we gain, what is (fundamentally or trivially) altered? And, not least, what’s fun?
By: Alan Jacobs
June 29, 2015
I encourage you to read Adam Greenfield’s analysis of Uber and its core values — it’s brilliant. I find myself especially interested in the section in which Greenfield explores this foundational belief: “Interpersonal exchanges are more appropriately mediated by algorithms than by one’s own competence.” It’s a long section,...
June 25, 2015
John Martin, Pandemonium (1841) In Milton’s Paradise Lost, almost as soon as the rebel angels crash to the floor of Hell they begin thinking about how to alter their environment. They design and construct the great city of Pandemonium, in the coffeeshops of which they debate theology and philosophy. Having built out their immediate...
June 24, 2015
The thing about making the same joke over and over and over again is that after a while it becomes pretty clear to everyone concerned that you’re not joking. Did any of you people ever notice that your parents read to you without needing to tell the world how annoying it was? Many of the elementary duties of life are not especially...
June 24, 2015
So I continue to think about this whole technological history of modernity thing, about which I have some announcements. 1) A few days ago I thought Hey, I’m ready to write an essay about this, and within 24 hours thought No. I am not even close to being ready to write about this — if indeed I ever will be. It’s all so big and...
June 23, 2015
Holy cow, does Nick Carr pin this one to the wall. Google says, “At any moment in your day, Google Play Music has whatever you need music for — from working, to working out, to working it on the dance floor — and gives you curated radio stations to make whatever you’re doing better. Our team of music experts, including the...
June 21, 2015
Makoko neighborhood, Lagos Lagoon Ross Douthat writes: It’s possible to believe that climate change is happening while doubting that it makes “the present world system … certainly unsustainable,” as the pope suggests. Perhaps we’ll face a series of chronic but manageable problems instead; perhaps “radical change” can,...
June 20, 2015
Having made some preliminary comments on Pope Francis’s new encyclical, I now want to develop more specific thoughts. First, I would call attention to Francis’s constant reference to the Earth as “our common home” — not a planet or even an environment, but home. All the economic questions he explores later in the...
June 18, 2015
1) The encyclical is noteworthy for its dialogical character. The word “dialogue” appears repeatedly, and Francis begins by situating his thoughts in conversation with (a) recent popes, (b) Patriarch Bartholomew, and (c) St. Francis of Assisi. Throughout the encyclical he cites several national conferences of bishops. 2) A key...
June 14, 2015
In his extraordinary book The Presence of the Word (1967), Walter Ong wrote, Growing up, assimilating the wisdom of the past, is in great part learning how to organize the sensorium productively for intellectual purposes. Man’s sensory perceptions are abundant and overwhelming. He cannot attend to them all at once. In great part a...
June 9, 2015
A quick note: in response to my previous post several people have emailed or tweeted to recommend Jacques Ellul or Lewis Mumford or George Grant or Neil Postman. All of those are valuable writers and thinkers, but none of them do anything like what I was asking for in that post. They provide a philosophical or theological critique of...