Author Archives
Media futurologist
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The mystery of Greece – II: Pirates and horses
Both horses and ships gave their masters opportunistic (“tip-and-run”) superiority over sedentary cultures. A chapter from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet Effect. (Previously in the chapter: The pirates of the Aegean and the opportunistic… Read More ›
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The mystery of Greece – I: The pirates of the Aegean and the opportunistic mentality
Piracy prepared the Greek minds for the effects of the alphabet. This might explain why the alphabet effect in Greece was so instant and so transformative. A chapter from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet… Read More ›
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From orality to literacy: from collective indoctrination to personal inquiring (and now back)
The habit of inquiring, brought by literacy, corrupted oral indoctrination. This all began to reverse with electronic media. Amusement, induced by electronic media, undermined the conditions favourable for inquiry. When people are absorbed into emotional resonance with the tube, less… Read More ›
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The disservices of the alphabet. Environmental withdrawal.
The social trauma of the alphabet involved the dissolution of society based on tribal unity and kinship. Now, digital orality reverses the media effects of the alphabet and retrieves some features of tribal orality. One of the disservices brought by… Read More ›
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The literate bias
As a state of mind, orality preceded literacy, but nothing preceded orality. Humans might have “invented” literacy, but they did not invent orality. It came with the factory settings of Homo sapiens. A section from Chapter “The features of orality”… Read More ›
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Yellowstone wolves and media-determinism
A chapter from Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers’ Axial Age and Logan’s Alphabet. Explaining the incredible complexity of social, political, cultural, and economic life through the clay tablet or papyrus was sometimes labeled as a fallacy of techno-determinism…. Read More ›
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Replaying history backward
We expect that new media will do new tricks to cover our old needs. We always think they will improve something we already have. Sometimes they do, but on their own terms. Eventually, media always condition us to do completely… Read More ›
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Probe: a brief chart of media effects
…With writing, shamans became priests and magic turned into religion. Thus, irrigation is the mother of writing, and the bureaucrat is the second oldest profession.
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Media recapitulation
Individual media development of children should repeat the evolution of the species – step by step, not leapfrogging to the last and most attractive stage, digital media.
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The Medium Is the Menace
The miniscule but instant hormonal reward for a mere click rewires the brain and reshapes society. We’re not just spending time on the Internet. We are investing time in its improvement.
Human as Media 