Highly recommend reading Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death.
in the 80's, he wrote about how shift from print media to TV has caused us to trade critical thinking for a 'numbing' addiction to constant amusement. Little did he know about social media..
The hardest part of a 2026 reading of Amusing Ourselves is that nothing within the pages is extraordinary anymore — the book is plainly boring once you know about the internets... definitely groundbreaking, for its time.
Fair point. However, books like these show where society is heading and what values we are promoting as a society.
As an aside, what was really interesting to me was learning that in 1850s white Americans had a 95% literacy rate (highest globally) and were able to easily follow debates between presidential candidates that lasted 3+ hours, and ask relevant questions.
I doubt even the most educated people would be able to do that today. Certainly, I would find it extremely difficult to do so.
>I doubt even the most educated people would be able to do that today.
Certainly this is a valid point.
>able to easily follow debates between presidential candidates that lasted 3+ hours, and ask relevant questions
This is likely one reason for keeping the masses month-to-month (~70% in US, 2024~). I hate to quote this madman, but Father Jones once said (before flavor-aide-ing his entire congregation):
>>~"Keep them poor and tired. If they're poor they won't have time to organize; if they're tired they won't have energy to fight back"~
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>1850s white Americans had a 95% literacy rate (highest globally)
Working in construction these past few decades, some of my favorite co-workers have barely been able to read — yet are brilliant field electricians (that often can read blueprints — but fuck this engineer they'll proudly mumble, often ["what the hell was he thinking, here?! wuz he thinkin'?!"]).
fuck this guy . laughter
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I fully support returning to a time when countries had smaller populations and embraced technologies in running themselves, their more-isolated population's needs.
As an older millenial american, I fully support the breakdown of USA into smaller territories (too large to reasonably rule, IMHO).