Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
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Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
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Re: Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
#2Great read. Thanks for sharing. I am not familiar with Adam Curtis' work but will be looking for more!
Re: Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
#3Great read. Thanks for sharing. I am not familiar with Adam Curtis' work but will be looking for more!
His 4-part Century of the Self series is on Youtube, IIRC. Interesting watch. Hypernormalisation didn't grab me as much.
Re: Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
#4Adam Curtis Documentaries on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m25q3it0rDs&list=PLtsknc8NVn...
Re: Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
#5Great read. Thanks for sharing. I am not familiar with Adam Curtis' work but will be looking for more!
His 4-part Century of the Self series is on Youtube, IIRC. Interesting watch. Hypernormalisation didn't grab me as much.
I think “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” may be of more interest, topically, to hacker news readers, because it converges on the use of computing as a means of controlling social unrest.
Re: Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
His 4-part Century of the Self series is on Youtube, IIRC. Interesting watch. Hypernormalisation didn't grab me as much.
I think “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” may be of more interest, topically, to hacker news readers, because it converges on the use of computing as a means of controlling social unrest.
Can watch it here https://thoughtmaybe.com/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/
Re: Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
#7Huh.
"Computers can see us as large groups, but they’re glum and only aggregate us to sell us stuff. In reality, the computers give great insight into the power of common identity between groups. No one’s using that."
That's from 2017. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. From ISIL to Q-Anon to MAGA to LGBTxx, finding dispersed but like-minded people and using them to build a political movement is now common. Worse, automated blithering with LLMs works all too well.
"The history of modern self-expression dates from the hippies."
It goes back further than that. Find a copy of "Swing Kids". The "music is the weapon" concept of the 1960s and 1970s was mainstream for a while. Back when being in a band was a big deal. Before Live Nation got to decide who performs where. Now music is just a business. Even rap.
We have a huge problem trying to get society to go in useful directions. People have forgotten how to make democracies work. So we get autocrats.
Re: Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
#8Huh. "Computers can see us as large groups, but they’re glum and only aggregate us to sell us stuff. In reality, the computers give great insight into the power of common identity between groups. No one’s using that." That's from 2017. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. From ISIL to Q-Anon to MAGA to LGBTxx, finding dispersed but like-minded people and using them to build a political movement is now common. Wo…
It goes even further back to the days of late 19th/early 20th century and artistic communes. The first time someone monetised it on a large scale was Bernays who repackaged Freud's psychoanalysis and sold it to US government and companies. His "torches of freedom" campaign tapped into the women's right movement and desire for self-expression. The tobacco industry was very pleased with the outcomes, because until then women did not smoke cigarettes. Bernays also wrote "Engineering Consent" and "Propaganda", which he renamed as Public Relations after WWII. Curtis has an interesting documentary on the subject.
Re: Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
#9Great read. Thanks for sharing. I am not familiar with Adam Curtis' work but will be looking for more!
As noted below, Century Of The Self would probably be the best starting point:
Re: Adam Curtis on the dangers of self-expression (2017)
#10Huh. "Computers can see us as large groups, but they’re glum and only aggregate us to sell us stuff. In reality, the computers give great insight into the power of common identity between groups. No one’s using that." That's from 2017. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. From ISIL to Q-Anon to MAGA to LGBTxx, finding dispersed but like-minded people and using them to build a political movement is now common. Wo…
It goes even further back to the days of late 19th/early 20th century and artistic communes. The first time someone monetised it on a large scale was Bernays who repackaged Freud's psychoanalysis and sold it to US government and companies. His "torches of freedom" campaign tapped into the women's right movement and desire for self-expression. The tobacco industry was very pleased with the outcomes, because until then…
Exactly. In the US culture specifically, in the XX century before the hippies, there were limited pockets of "self-expression" (discarding previous culture, really) as depicted by Henry Miller, and later the whole Beat Generation. Only after that, this tendency picked up enough steam so that the masses picked it up, in the form the Hippies movement.