Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Sunday, May 05, 2013

Stewart Brand Twitterrant

Occasioned by my reading of this blown kiss to Brand in the Guardian yesterday. I have excoriated Brand at much greater length in my Hole Earth diatribe, for those who are sensibly annoyed by twitterizing.

3 comments:

jimf said...

> Whole Earth was TED before TED. You do realize nothing
> more damning could be said?

Hm. I wasn't much interested in composting toilets back
in the 70s, but stumbling across Ted Nelson's
_Computer Lib/Dream Machines_, together with a copy
of the _PDP-11/20 Processor Handbook_, nudged me
into a career as a computer programmer.
I coulda done a lot worse!

Dale Carrico said...

Of course, aphorisms rarely bring us to the qualified claims where wisdom resides, they're better at provoking us out of the claims where false wisdom resides. So, yeah, I know and respect what you are saying, believe me, I read plenty in Whole Earth I enjoyed and benefited from, too, especially through high school (the last Viridian issue not least). But as the site of a self-described "technology movement" and a whole futurological techno-transcendental weltanschauung Brand's brand demands the harshest possible interrogation and critique.

Chad Lott said...

I always preferred the Church of the Subgenius's High Weirdness by Mail.

It not only cataloged the weird and the wonderful, it recommended a way of negotiating the world I've always found fulfilling: embrace the unusual, fuck with the unbearable, laugh at the ridiculous, praise the deviant and keep your hand on your wallet when anyone tries to tell you they know what you should do.

The world could use a little slack more than ever.