Aaron Swartz: The Book That Changed My Life

The extent to which Chomsky has remained relevant in both political and scientific arenas never ceases to amaze me.

I think people give too much credit to human stuff. Really, all this Aaron thing kicks the hell out of me. I REALLY believe that if that boy knew about all the blesses that GOD have for us, he would never have take his own life. But american people (i´m Brazilian) specially the rich people are going too far away from God and His lessons. That´s why they are living a crap life and Aaron is a prove of that. Less money, less intelligence and less success. More love, more God in your heart. That´s ALL you really need at the end.

A life changing book in a similar vein is "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman: http://tinyurl.com/a26wscp . I found out about it via Alan Kay's excellent reading list ( http://tinyurl.com/c6fjhj )

Your glasses analogy is interesting but I think is misleading, in that it assumes there's a correct way to view things. This approach is one of the major problems I have with Chomsky and other writers like him, i.e. "you have been duped by the (mostly US) media, the military-industrial complex, by the secret powers that may be; here is the real truth about matters". Rather than being presented as the truth, these opinions be seen to be another viewpoint that enhances your understanding of the situation.

Let me give an analogy that may not be totally appropriate but I find is kind of illuminating: Many people, based on their everyday experience, believe in the existence of the centrifugal force (otherwise how to explain what they are experiencing daily). Then, their physics professor explains to them that in reality there is no such thing. Only if they study physics farther than the freshman year do they learn that that is not true either. Other similar examples of hypercorrection can be given (see this interesting answer: http://physics.stackexchange.com/a/13568/852). The intent of the professor is benign, i.e. not to confuse the students, but it perpetuates a half-truth.

Coming from a non-US country, I have to say that those of you who heavily criticize US media for manipulating opinion should look deeper into the media of other countries (not that I'm saying that the US media is non-manipulative, it's that the breadth of publicly sharable opinion is astonishing).

Uh, didn't he criticise scientific epistemologies in relation to so-called scientism? I read briefly about some of his remarks on the matter, and he just seemed like most of his fellow sociologists: ignorant of the relevance of science to sanity, probably caused by not having been trained in physico-mathematical rigour.