Neil Postman (with others interspersed):

What a technology undoes is a subject that computer experts apparently know very little about.

With one exception -- namely, Joseph Weizenbaum -- I have never heard anyone speak seriously and comprehensively about the disadvantages of computer technology, which strikes me as odd, and makes me wonder if the profession is hiding something important.

In a world populated by people who believe that through more and more information, paradise is attainable, the computer scientist is king. But I maintain that all of this is a monumental and dangerous waste of human talent and energy.

It’s hard to get people to do something bad all in one big jump, but if you can cut it up into small enough pieces, you can get people to do almost anything.

In the Middle Ages people believed in the authority of their religion, no matter what. Today, we believe in the authority of our science, no matter what.

As states recede and the new mediaevalism advances, the outside world is destined to move increasingly beyond the control -- and even the understanding -- of the new Rome.

In a world without spiritual or intellectual order, nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise.

By exposing people to an endless stream of advertising, television taught them to take nothing at face value, to read everything ironically.

The computer is, in a sense, a magnificent toy that distracts us from facing what we most needed to confront -- spiritual emptiness, knowledge of ourselves, usable conceptions of the past and future. Does one blame the computer for this? Of course not. It is, after all, only a machine.

Hopeless emptiness. Now you've said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.

Informing Ourselves To Death

On sale in two weeks.

Celebrating twenty-five years of the ultra-heavy beat, KMFDM proudly announce their new album of eleven new sonic blasts, tipping the scales at over 52 minutes. Under the direction of founder, leader, and vocalist Sascha K., "Blitz" is dominated by analogue synthetics with high-powered hooks, singer Lucia lends her vocal power, and the tracks are rounded out by some assistance from the KMFDM line-up of the last half decade: Jules Hodgson, Andy Selway, and Steve White.

From Decius's profile, years ago:

"Someone is writing down your mistakes. Someone's documenting your downfall." - KMFDM

More recently:

This was the largest two-day advance since 1987, and, more importantly, the rest of the entire list is populated by the Great Depression.

Also, from the archive:

Having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, he asked, what did the turtle rest on?

Another turtle.

And that turtle?

"Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down."

KMFDM: Blitz

Neil Strauss has a new book.

Before the next disaster strikes, you're going to want to read this book. And you'll want to do everything it suggests. Because tomorrow doesn't come with a guarantee.

From the archives, a trio of Jim Kunstler:

What we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about.

World Made By Hand: a novel of America's post-oil future

All parties join in a game of "pretend," that nothing has really happened to the fundamental equations of business life, as the whole system, the whole way of life, enters upon a circle-jerk of mutual denial in a last desperate effort to forestall the mandates of reality.

How long will these games go on?

A parting thought:

“People loved comedies during the depression, too,” said R. J. Cutler, executive producer of “Flip That House.”

Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life

Matt Labash:

Time magazine recently declared Facebook more popular than porn. But who are they kidding? Facebook is porn.

Even as I pile on with the critics, it would be unfair to place blame with Zuckerberg et al for the fact that as their brainchild has expanded from Harvard to America to the world, "thefacebook" has taken on the visage of America to a much greater extent than America has become more like Harvard.

Two from last year's best-of:

Privacy, to me, is not about keeping my personal life hidden from other people. It's about sparing me from the intrusion of other people's personal lives.

Minor drama is the lifeblood of suburbs.

Down with Facebook!

Timetric's here to help you make sense of data. If you think about it, most of the numbers we come across every day are things like temperatures, prices, rates, volumes: numbers which vary over time. That's what Timetric focuses on: graphing, tracking and comparing the movements of data over time.

From some time ago:

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."

Timetric

David Kamp:

This is not a matter of any generation’s having to “lower its sights,” to use President Obama’s words, nor is it a denial that some children of lower- and middle-class parents will, through talent and/or good fortune, strike it rich and bound precipitously into the upper class. Nor is it a moony, nostalgic wish for a return to the scrappy 30s or the suburban 50s, because any sentient person recognizes that there’s plenty about the good old days that wasn’t so good: the original Social Security program pointedly excluded farmworkers and domestics (i.e., poor rural laborers and minority women), and the original Levittown didn’t allow black people in.

But those eras do offer lessons in scale and self-control. The American Dream should require hard work, but it should not require 80-hour workweeks and parents who never see their kids from across the dinner table. The American Dream should entail a first-rate education for every child, but not an education that leaves no extra time for the actual enjoyment of childhood. The American Dream should accommodate the goal of home ownership, but without imposing a lifelong burden of unmeetable debt. Above all, the American Dream should be embraced as the unique sense of possibility that this country gives its citizens—the decent chance, as Moss Hart would say, to scale the walls and achieve what you wish.

Rethinking the American Dream

The resignation of the federal government's cybersecurity coordinator highlights a power struggle underway over how best to defend the government's civilian computer networks against digital attacks.

Rod A. Beckstrom resigned the post Friday after less than a year on the job, citing a lack of funding and the National Security Agency's tightening grip on government cybersecurity matters.

"He brought a completely different perspective, which in one way could have been his undoing," said a senior member of the intelligence community.

From last year's best-of:

Someone needed to bring it, so I brought it.

From the archive, a personal favorite:

The evidence suggests that from an executive perspective, the most desirable employees may no longer necessarily be those with proven ability and judgment, but those who can be counted on to follow orders and be good "team players."

From the documentation:

MemeStreams has a reputation system, which takes your perspective into account.

From Decius, in 2007:

It is our failure to avoid embracing fear and sensationalism that will be our undoing. We're still our own greatest threat.

Always the classic:

Is more what we really need?

A Struggle Over US Cybersecurity

Richard Morrill:

America’s demography tells not one story, but many. People concerned with looking at long-term trends need to familiarize themselves with these realities – and also consider whether these will continue in the coming decades.

The 33 rapidly growing counties are ALL suburban except for the new metropolitan area of St. George, Utah. Suburban Atlanta dominates ...

From a year ago:

Fundamental changes in American life may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.

From yesterday:

First world shanty towns.

Peter Schiff:

I think things are going to get very bad.

Freeman Dyson and Stewart Brand:

You must have principles that you're willing to die for. This is a cross-generational issue. It's caring for children, grandchildren. In some cultures you're supposed to be responsible out to the seventh generation -- that's about 200 years. But it goes right against self-interest.

America’s Ever Changing Demography

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it.

Thomas Powers:

Is more what we really need?

Noam Cohen's friend:

Privacy is serious. It is serious the moment the data gets collected, not the moment it is released.

From the archive:

Money for me, databases for you.

From last year's best-of:

Focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps pose to a democratic society.

Jon Evans, at The Walrus:

I can’t shake the notion that police cameras are only the thin edge of the panopticon wedge, and that the loss of privacy will lead slowly but inevitably to the loss of liberty.

From FPF, which includes Daniel Solove and Peter Swire, among many others:

Society is approaching a turning point that could well determine the future of privacy.

Finally:

Said Diffie, "The future will be a golden age for intelligence."

The SSD Project | EFF Surveillance Self-Defense Project

Robin Sloan:

Is our high-tech future really just an asymptotic approach to zero effort? Is it only about making things easier than they already are?

I can’t decide if that’s utopian or dystopian.

John Lanchester, from a recent issue of LRB:

If I had to name one high-cultural notion that had died in my adult lifetime, it would be the idea that difficulty is artistically desirable.

From the recent archive:

For many of us -- not least adolescents -- reality is now largely a virtual experience.

And from five years back:

Do you understand the difference between "Is it worth buying?" and "Can it be sold?"

The Future, It Will Be So Easy