| I don't think well-argued and well-researched are going to make it.. Mamdani.. even his supporters might find it hard to grasp what's so new about him. He won't inspire edgelords, for starters. Was just thinking about Chomsky. Almost impeccable cred, he's Jewish, but not a hidden nepo baby, at least not the way Mamdani or Obama are :) I mean "activist parents" Chomsky is like the "activist theory" version of Gibson.. not enough humanity. Even Graeber falls short, he's like Bruce Sterling, or Stephenson. (Bruce must be fully french-theorified by now ;) We need an Ursula K :) K-theory! We need a break even from McLuhan, towards Ivan. This-- AI-assisted! --thread gets it started https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44612434 >Illich relates this story: "Recently I was talking to my night-watchman, Marcos, about his 11 year old son who works in a barbershop. I noted in Spanish that his son was still a nino. Marcos answered with a guileless smile, 'Don Ivan, I guess you are right.' I felt guilty for having drawn the curtain of childhood between two sensible persons." >Thanks Claude for validating my hunch about the late-century subtweet. We need vitriol so subtle, yet so un(-British)-Canadian(-emigrant)* one tastes it like an elixir !!?? Channel the inner Quebecois if you have to. AI could help. In theory. Prompt: "edgy but not lordly"? *Referring to McLuhan, Jacobs, Gibson etc. one is not allowed further northwards than Portland :) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrad_of_media_effects
His prediction that television would displace reading was way too early: in his day it was ABC-NBC-CBS with no Selectavision, VHS, DVD, Laserdisc, Cable and then YouTube, Netflix, and all that; there was CCTV then but it was expensive, you couldn't get a Amcrest camera for $35, never mind be able to afford the footage or transmit it wherever. When my son started learning how to do things from YouTube though, I knew he was right. It took television 75 years to get to TikTok, but YouTube was the real revolution that we didn't realize was a revolution because it happened so slowly and across all age groups.
(Even the pictures can be a red herring in that a lot of YouTube content plays just fine with or without the video such as Joe Rogan or The Ezra Klein Show which must be the establishment left counterpart)
I don't blame the nepo baby, the vast majority of them are agreeable and talented enough. The Ivy League needs the SAT to keep the bottom 20% of them out. What I miss is the paths for other people to rise up, people like
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Aronowitz
I worked on the latter's campaign for governor. (Met him multiple times, videotaped him accepting the nomination at the Green Party convention, went to a fundraiser at Howie Hawkin's house, etc.) I was outside the debate and watched a Republican in a Syracuse Orangeman jacket punch out a hippie, reported it on our web site, and got a call from the Marijuana legalization candidate who told me it wasn't one of his activists. Aronowitz was smart and he worked really hard but he struggled to connect even with activists and got less than 1% of the vote in the end and us Greens lost our ballot line.