"We have no reason to be grateful" [to technologists for] "haphazard innovation," Marshall McLuhan wrote in a 1965 essay. In this edition of The McLuhan Newsletter: what he meant, why we shouldn't.
The concept of "environment as it relates to anti-environment" has been one of the most useful tools I've gathered from my work on/with the McLuhans. It explained in succinct terms the relationship between my writing and art and what predominates in the rest of the world...
The "ecology" mentioned is one finely tuned that no corporation can ever package and deliver to our senses. It is called the human mind. It is capable of doing the filtering needed to exist in any time or century. Providing a mass consumable safe limit would be yet another medium. The beneficient idea of looking out for the masses is admirable. But in my opinion, not even God would want to design a system where the masses would be catered a regulated dose of electrical information. This is Earth. A type of jungle where survival depends on how quietly you go along. The technological enthusiastics are the front liners. Disturbing their unrelenting patterns would be wasted effort.
"No technology company that I've ever heard of tests the impact of their products on human senses and considers the result of the changes to our senses, which change perception, which form or change preferences and values."
How did the tyranny of the last 4 years, and the 250 years before that, happen?
The concept of "environment as it relates to anti-environment" has been one of the most useful tools I've gathered from my work on/with the McLuhans. It explained in succinct terms the relationship between my writing and art and what predominates in the rest of the world...
I agree with you, Andrew, in regard with the "turning point" when Marshall McLuhan had began to use the "environment" more and more.
The "ecology" mentioned is one finely tuned that no corporation can ever package and deliver to our senses. It is called the human mind. It is capable of doing the filtering needed to exist in any time or century. Providing a mass consumable safe limit would be yet another medium. The beneficient idea of looking out for the masses is admirable. But in my opinion, not even God would want to design a system where the masses would be catered a regulated dose of electrical information. This is Earth. A type of jungle where survival depends on how quietly you go along. The technological enthusiastics are the front liners. Disturbing their unrelenting patterns would be wasted effort.
Nice work.
"No technology company that I've ever heard of tests the impact of their products on human senses and considers the result of the changes to our senses, which change perception, which form or change preferences and values."
How did the tyranny of the last 4 years, and the 250 years before that, happen?
https://archive.org/details/the-social-dilemma-2020