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In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

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Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#181

Post by cess11 »

ninalanyon wrote: post #113
cess11 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think the elites are generally better informed than the rest? They don't fall prey to stuff like celebrities, gossip media and so on? I haven't seen any sign that this is the case among politicians where I live, or among the few quite rich people I've looked into the lives of, mainly through their email and interviews. Compared to the leftists in my "in-group" they're generally very uncritical, poorly info…

But they are better informed about and better placed to exploit the things that are profitable. The rest is just background noise.

My impression is that generally they surround themselves with people that are well informed and rely on them.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#182

Post by latexr »

FredPret wrote: post #138
cess11 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power, like money, is mainly inherited.

This sounds more like a slogan, a belief, than a fact. It’s not true for the extreme top end: [0] Here’s a Yahoo Finance article citing several efforts to investigate inheritance vs self-made wealth in the upper middle class: [1] We keep electing new politicians and buying the latest and greatest thing. Technology keeps revolutionizing everything. This leads to a ton of churn at the top as incumbents are replaced. Wh…

> It’s not true for the extreme top end

Any extreme is, by definition, unusual. You don’t need to be a billionaire (which is what the articule you linked to focus on) to be considered powerful or wealthy.

Tellingly, that articles notes that:

> The proportion of those in the list who grew up poor or had little wealth remained constant at roughly 20 percent throughout the same period.

Which suggests that inheriting power and money does make a difference in your chance of success. They continue:

> Most individuals on the Forbes 400 list did not inherit the family business but rather made their own fortune.

But one does not follow from the other. Inheriting a business is not the only way to have a leg up. If you’re well off you have the opportunity to risk going into some venture on your own and fail, because you have a safety net. Furthermore, your affluent family can and probably will make a difference in your business. I’m reminded of a piece of news a while back where a couple of rich kids were bragging they made their company successful “from scratch” but upon further inspection into it was revealed their customers were rich friends of their parents.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#183

Post by alexashka »

bux93 wrote: post #4

It's not what you know, but who you know. Any type of mass-media is fodder for the have-nots, while the haves get their information from trustworthy sources through their in-group. The more addictive facebook, tiktok and twitter are, the bigger the premium is of being part of the right group. Whether the memes you consume are in print is entirely incidental.

> Any type of mass-media is fodder for the have-nots

Tautology.

> The more addictive facebook, tiktok and twitter are, the bigger the premium is of being part of the right group

There is no causal link here.

It's been important to be at the right place (group) at the right time always.

Social media being more or less addictive or existing at all changes this banality not.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#185

Post by vacuity »

nataliste wrote: post #95

Cronus eats his children. In 1494, Johannes Trithemius printed De laude scriptorum , "In Praise of Scribes" assailing the development of the printing press. The same argument was made, but from the perspective of the manual scribe, that a printer doesn't understand a work as well as a scribe does, as the speed of reproduction doesn't have the same intent that a person lovingly copying by hand does. Similarly, Plato m…

It's basically constant that many people will fearmonger and some will embrace new technology. I think this is basically independent of the actual merits and drawbacks of the given technology. Regardless of these strange asymptotes, I would say technology has been advancing from less benefit/risk to more in time, and so we will get closer to the fearmongerers being right. I suppose it could mean that we harness the benefits and waive the risks, but in practice it seems unlikely.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#186

Post by alexashka »

bostonwalker wrote: post #96

Just finished reading Amusing Ourselves to Death on the recommendation of some commenters here. Strange that Neil Postman's work is not once mentioned in the article. His basic argument in 1985 was that the shift from print to TV was already causing epistemological collapse through the transforming of not just education, but also news reporting, political discourse, and the functioning of government into forms of ent…

> Strange that Neil Postman's work is not once mentioned in the article

Strange that religion isn't mentioned in the article.

Religion is the bedrock of epistemological 'collapse'.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#187

Post by magic_smoke_ee »

bostonwalker wrote: post #96

Just finished reading Amusing Ourselves to Death on the recommendation of some commenters here. Strange that Neil Postman's work is not once mentioned in the article. His basic argument in 1985 was that the shift from print to TV was already causing epistemological collapse through the transforming of not just education, but also news reporting, political discourse, and the functioning of government into forms of ent…

> Amusing Ourselves to Death

From 2010-2017, I observed young men in cafes who were housing- and economically-insecure retreat into video games, conspiracy theories, scapegoating groups of people and organizations they knew nothing about, unhealthiness, and sleep deprivation. So much for the utopian delusion of automation "freeing up people for leisure", instead addiction and escaping from reality are becoming more commonplace.

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#188

Post by mandmandam »

alexashka wrote: post #177
mandmandam wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the haves get their information from trustworthy sources through their in-group Then why are their actions more harmful than any other class? I see them: * Starting proxy wars, fueling climate doubt, lobbying/destroying governments to allow every kind of degradation of every commons. * Paying people 6 or 7 figures to confuse and divide the people earning 5 or 6 figures. * Apparently utterly ignorant of their legacy…

Maybe what's most important to them isn't what's most important to you. Have you contemplated such possibility?

Yes, the ultra wealthy have different priorities to what I would call important. The yachts, deregulation, tacit (or not) support for torture, illegal wars, pollution, private jets, ostentatious displays of conspicuous and pointless wealth, etc, leave that in no doubt.

Were you trying to say that maybe all that destruction in the pursuit of insatiable greed could be 'good' somehow? Like Zorg's little speech [0] about the benefits of destruction (the broken window fallacy)?

0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkFAcFtBD48

Re: In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

#190

Post by FredPret »

cess11 wrote: post #179
FredPret wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds more like a slogan, a belief, than a fact. It’s not true for the extreme top end: [0] Here’s a Yahoo Finance article citing several efforts to investigate inheritance vs self-made wealth in the upper middle class: [1] We keep electing new politicians and buying the latest and greatest thing. Technology keeps revolutionizing everything. This leads to a ton of churn at the top as incumbents are replaced. Wh…

There is no self-made wealth. You can't become wealthy without the labour of other people. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/03/all-billion... The article you linked was a bit fuzzy, seems they counted people like Thiel and Musk as 'entrepreneurs' rather than inheritance because they didn't keep running a family company. But them being wealthy is absolutely connected to their families being privileged and…

You know you’ve gone off the deep end when you call Musk an “entrepreneur” in quotes instead of what he is - a regular, if excellent, entrepreneur.

Having a leg up due to coming from a well-off background invalidates nothing. These top entrepreneurs and politicians typically grew up upper-middle class or as members of the minor rich; they rise to positions of prominence from there.

That’s fundamentally different from inheriting power even if you’re a dunce as kings once did.

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