"Simpsons did it."
Apr. 25th, 2006 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f4f3Just hepped by this article
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1759802,00.html
to
this speech http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds06/text/60420-18.htm#60420-18_spopq0
I really must get better at inserting links.
As the journalist says, not the sort of speech we see in the commons too often.
Reading both, I was struck by the degree to which ideas that used to be the preserve of writers like Phillip K Dick, and later of cyberpunks like Bruce Sterling are becoming part of everyday life. In 20 years a gap has opened between us "of the Twentieth Century" (a chilling phrase, too) and our children in terms of how we learn the world (apologies to Ken McCleod), and I can't imagine how wide that gulf will be by the time our grandchildren make it on the scene.
At school we used to talk about the possibility of comprehensible allusion (well, when we weren't trying to hit each other with paperclips, and how this was one of the main glues for culture. In those days the allusions we referred to were books, history, the classics - these seem to have been replaced with allusions to tv programs, net events (events which, to misquote Alan Moore, are so small and happen so quickly they can scarcely be said to have happened at all), memes... I'm not going to say that these are any less valuable than those of a previous generation, but they are all distinguished by their brevity - an allusion made today might be dated by next week, or tomorrow, or in an hour. I'm not saying a society can't be built on these connectives, but it will seem a very strange place to us.
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1759802,00.html
to
this speech http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds06/text/60420-18.htm#60420-18_spopq0
I really must get better at inserting links.
As the journalist says, not the sort of speech we see in the commons too often.
Reading both, I was struck by the degree to which ideas that used to be the preserve of writers like Phillip K Dick, and later of cyberpunks like Bruce Sterling are becoming part of everyday life. In 20 years a gap has opened between us "of the Twentieth Century" (a chilling phrase, too) and our children in terms of how we learn the world (apologies to Ken McCleod), and I can't imagine how wide that gulf will be by the time our grandchildren make it on the scene.
At school we used to talk about the possibility of comprehensible allusion (well, when we weren't trying to hit each other with paperclips, and how this was one of the main glues for culture. In those days the allusions we referred to were books, history, the classics - these seem to have been replaced with allusions to tv programs, net events (events which, to misquote Alan Moore, are so small and happen so quickly they can scarcely be said to have happened at all), memes... I'm not going to say that these are any less valuable than those of a previous generation, but they are all distinguished by their brevity - an allusion made today might be dated by next week, or tomorrow, or in an hour. I'm not saying a society can't be built on these connectives, but it will seem a very strange place to us.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 05:31 pm (UTC)I really don't agree with Susan Greenfield, because I don't think things are anywhere near as fragmented as she seems to suggest; also this response to the chaos of modern life goes back centuries, as far as I can see.
Also, I can text and keep a blog and go on AIM, so it's not like it's some sort of odd impossibility for the more mature among us...very few of my RL friends do but that's more to do with frivolity/lack of need than the technology..
Also also, some internet culture is fundamentally much more creative than what went before...
The notion that lack of shared reference is a problem is interesting, in that entertainment is becoming more and more atomised and individualised (your movie, my music, her book).
More fundamentally I find it odd to realise that because I'm now an agnostic adult, my kids do not get the steeping in Christian culture that I got and that is really pretty helpful for understanding lots of things in life; on the other hand, they'll never have to pretend to pray in school. But it's certainly a cultural loss, whatever your beliefs.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-26 08:03 am (UTC)I don't think the problem is in adults being unable to participate in the new technology - I've just had an email from a friend complaining of the withdrawal pains from the internet, but commenting that at least his phone can pick up emails - but that the new tools are not as conducive to communicating complicated reasoning, and that as a result we may jettison that mode of thought. As far as I'm concerned, rationalism underpins the modern world - if we stop understanding genetics or electronics or politics, then things like evolution, computers and government become indistinguishable from magic again, and instead of being in control of our destinies we'll start worshipping the shadowy dieties that control these mysterious forces.
David Hume, you should be alive at this hour.