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oceanlistener's review against another edition
1.0
There are probably interesting things to say about how technology is empowering people to do things only previously available to the rich and mega-corporations. Unfortunately, this book is not really about those things. Reynolds takes what he sees day-to-day, which is the upper-middle class bloggers and other similar groups, and combines that with what he apparently really wants to be true, and extrapolates from there. Years after this book was written, and we've seen corporations co-opt this technology rather than being seriously challenged by it.
Also, a book about science-fiction meets reality at some point in the future, and what that'll look like, would be an interesting book. But this book explores some of those concepts in a completely uncritical way, and it seems way off-topic from the first half of the book. It starts with giving video cameras to every soldier in Iraq to prevent war crimes, and ends with people living to 200 and terraforming Mars. I'm a little unclear what this book was actually supposed to be about, despite the extremely descriptive title.
Some specific comments:
The problem with everybody producing their own music/books/art etc is that it makes it impossible to sort through it all to find the wheat in the huge piles of chaff. Reynolds apparently hangs out a B&N all day on his computer, so maybe he's got more time for it than I do. The fact is that almost all self-published books are total shit, and now there's less pressure for publishers to publish quality, because all that shit is selling for so cheap already. I have yet to see the benefit of this in a serious way.
The reason most people go to major media outlets is that we don't have time to research every aspect of the news ourselves. Reynolds mentions visiting 10 or so blogs for different kinds of news. Bully for him, but I've got an actual job that doesn't give me that kind of freedom. There's significant evidence that people are unable to separate crackpots from actually informed bloggers, and just find stuff that reinforces what they think should be true (this book may be a great example of this...) so I don't know that people are actually better informed. Also, the demise of major media outlets may have some very real benefits, but for me it always comes back to the Woodward and Bernstein example. No blogger has the kind of backing from a major outlet that can protect them while giving them the resources to conduct this kind of critical investigation. We're already losing this through the dilution of media. Not that mass media is the answer, but we need to seriously look at what we're losing with bloggers as well.
I'm pretty confused about how children playing war games will decrease our susceptibility to terrorist attacks and loan shooters. There's pretty clear evidence that more people having guns doesn't actually reduce gun violence, and I'm not sure that preparing teenagers to go to war is something we should be especially proud of. And I'm also not sure why having very war-smart geeks playing more complicated versions of Risk makes our military better, since those people tend not to be in the military. And knowing about chariot battles in ancient Rome may be interesting, but I'm skeptical about how applicable it is to modern warfare in Afghanistan. I do agree with him that it's stupid to talk about video games and violence in children when there are so many other violent aspects to our culture, though.
One last gripe: Me-dia to We-dia? You have got to be shitting me. Even if there's a valid point in this chapter, this kind of cutie-pie titling has just got to stop.
Also, a book about science-fiction meets reality at some point in the future, and what that'll look like, would be an interesting book. But this book explores some of those concepts in a completely uncritical way, and it seems way off-topic from the first half of the book. It starts with giving video cameras to every soldier in Iraq to prevent war crimes, and ends with people living to 200 and terraforming Mars. I'm a little unclear what this book was actually supposed to be about, despite the extremely descriptive title.
Some specific comments:
The problem with everybody producing their own music/books/art etc is that it makes it impossible to sort through it all to find the wheat in the huge piles of chaff. Reynolds apparently hangs out a B&N all day on his computer, so maybe he's got more time for it than I do. The fact is that almost all self-published books are total shit, and now there's less pressure for publishers to publish quality, because all that shit is selling for so cheap already. I have yet to see the benefit of this in a serious way.
The reason most people go to major media outlets is that we don't have time to research every aspect of the news ourselves. Reynolds mentions visiting 10 or so blogs for different kinds of news. Bully for him, but I've got an actual job that doesn't give me that kind of freedom. There's significant evidence that people are unable to separate crackpots from actually informed bloggers, and just find stuff that reinforces what they think should be true (this book may be a great example of this...) so I don't know that people are actually better informed. Also, the demise of major media outlets may have some very real benefits, but for me it always comes back to the Woodward and Bernstein example. No blogger has the kind of backing from a major outlet that can protect them while giving them the resources to conduct this kind of critical investigation. We're already losing this through the dilution of media. Not that mass media is the answer, but we need to seriously look at what we're losing with bloggers as well.
I'm pretty confused about how children playing war games will decrease our susceptibility to terrorist attacks and loan shooters. There's pretty clear evidence that more people having guns doesn't actually reduce gun violence, and I'm not sure that preparing teenagers to go to war is something we should be especially proud of. And I'm also not sure why having very war-smart geeks playing more complicated versions of Risk makes our military better, since those people tend not to be in the military. And knowing about chariot battles in ancient Rome may be interesting, but I'm skeptical about how applicable it is to modern warfare in Afghanistan. I do agree with him that it's stupid to talk about video games and violence in children when there are so many other violent aspects to our culture, though.
One last gripe: Me-dia to We-dia? You have got to be shitting me. Even if there's a valid point in this chapter, this kind of cutie-pie titling has just got to stop.
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