ReadingNotes

Amusing Ourselves To Death

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman - ISBN 0140094385 - Pengouin 1986

Motivation

Reading yet another time the comics on Orwell/Huxley and how the later was right despite not appearing as gloomy as the former then discovering the Seedea:Content/Newconcepts#InformationActionRatio concept.

Pre-reading model

Draw a schema (using PmGraphViz or another solution) of the situation of the area in the studied domain before having read the book.

Reading

1 The mediums is the metaphor
2 Media as epistemology
- important remark that epistemology can not ignore the medium
  - consider today scientometrics and graph with Cognition#HistoryOfDominantCognitiveModels or Google's PageRank
    - i.e. as librarians who are not the epistemic engineers that WithoutNotesMay11#JeanClaudeGuedon able to master such tools a medium behind?
3 Typographic America
4 The typographic mind
- defining Seedea:Content/Newconcepts#InformationActionRatio (unsure about the chapter but appears page 66-67 and 69)
  - context-free information as a result of the telegraph in particular
5 The peek-a-boo world
6 The age of show business
7 "Now--this"
- see News and discussion with Simon during a summer at his place on how one would make his own news journal
8 Shuffle off to Bethlehem
9 Reach out and elect someone
- mention of the specific role of the media counselor, probably requiring an efficient OwnConcepts#gToM too
- one is not constructing an image for the audience but rather of the audience
  - a compelling image of themselves
10 Teaching as an amusing activity
- quotes of Dewey on collateral learning
- the importance of games, to go with the classical Latin quote panem et circenses
11 The Huxleyan warning
- mention of computer technology and that, once again, the important question about the social impact are hardly ever asked
- metaphor of doors closing and how through learning (but even through reflexes like other animals) we instantly know that something wrong is going on
  - whereas when there is bliss or pleasure involved we are much less scrutinizing
  - cf soma and KeyExperiments#SuperHedonists
- mention of Huxley's own warning on the epistemology of media
  - see Aldous Huxley: The Mike Wallace Interview 1958

Overall remarks and questions

several mention of the Global Village and in general McLuhan's work
if epistemology depends on the media, is there also a selection of key work dependent of the medium of the time?
- consequently is epistemology itself linked (or even slave of) media technology evolution?

Synthesis

So in the end, it was about X and was based on Y.

Critics

Point A, B and C are debatable because of e, f and j.

Vocabulary

(:new_vocabulary_start:) new_word (:new_vocabulary_end:)

Post-reading model

Draw a schema (using PmGraphViz or another solution) of the situation of the area in the studied domain after having read the book. Link it to the pre-reading model and align the two to help easy comparison.

Fabien Benetou's PIM