Author Archives
Media futurologist
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Time travel and media ecology
A review of Paul Levinson’s “The Plot to Save Socrates” (2006). Time-travel stories are commonly used to explore questions of logic, ethics, philosophy, and social organization. Paul Levinson’s “The Plot to Save Socrates” (2006) adds media ecology to this set…. Read More ›
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The shrinking of media eras: the Singularity countdown
Historical periods have a distinctive temporal characteristic in their progression: each following historical period was shorter than the previous one. History accelerated because the change of media forced it. An excerpt from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age… Read More ›
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Agonistic mentality of oral culture
On social media, everyone seeks affirmation from others on a scale unheard of in human history. Not only is the agonistic mentality making a comeback from the oral era, but it also threatens representative democracy (by amplifying polarization) and people’s… Read More ›
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Ripple effect of writing: how literacy changed thinking and society
Writing – temple bureaucracy – bookkeeping – palace economy – irrigation, management, engineering – archiving – libraries – classification and cataloguing – codes of laws – scribe schools – semiotics and syntax – priests-scholars – abstract thinking. A chapter from Digital… Read More ›
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The mystery of Greece – IV: Piracy and the alphabet
Despite all the similarities between pirates and nomads, there was an aspect that distinguished them. Seafarers had to possess universal skills that could be required for survival when nobody was around. A chapter from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’… Read More ›
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The mystery of Greece – III: Pirates and the tragic spirit
The tragic spirit brought by the nomads found especially fertile soil in Greece. There, the tragic spirit was elevated from a form of frustration to a sense of heroic self-actualization and the noblest dramatic genre. A chapter from Digital Future in… Read More ›