This is an interesting lecture with Terence McKenna talking about Marshall McLuhan. McKenna shows a keen intelligence, but gets several facts wrong, such as what decade McLulan died, how much longer the Chinese had printing presses than the West, and the like. But in spite of this lack of fact-checking, I highly recommend the video.
This rapid fire Q and A also shows McLulan at his most entertaining. I also watched this documentary, the worst parts of which are when it extrapolates on McLuhan's ideas, often quite awkwardly. One key quote, from McLulan: "the future of the future is the present, and this is something that people are terrified of."
I was also surprised to see a NerdWriter1 video I hadn't seen before on the subject of "the media is the message."
Also, here's an article on what smartphones have done the current cohort of kids going through school. Teaser quote:
“We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”I've taught this cohort. This really is no joke or one of those "darn kids nowadays" sorts of things. Anytime I start thinking that maybe civilization is not in terminal decline, I really do eventually think about this cohort and am right back on the doom train. (And, Reddit thread).
I've decided to hole up a bit and get away from so-called social media. It had been brewing for a while as evidenced by this reply to this cutesy "OMG, I can't get off social media" article.
The first thing I am giving up is twitter. When I post to Medium it can automatically put a post on twitter, so I will continue to do that, but I will post my aphorisms and anything I would have made into a tweet-storm here in these round-ups.
Major Memory System
This article on the history of the major memory system has the bonus of claiming to know the secret etymology of finagle.
I found a google doc with a peg list up to 999.
I made some changes, and will start slowly putting the list in Anki to learn. Here is my changed list, because open source is cool.
Speaking of major memory system, my answer to someone as to whether it is worth learning.
Discussion on the nature of conservatism -- my interlocutor wanted it to be a concept (while pinning the left to historical realities). I wanted to show it as a historical reality because I am more interested in reality than one-upping people on the internet.
Your moment of doom.
Aphorisms and Shorts
One of my biggest financial tips: don’t pay the seem-like-a-normal-person tax.
As productive as it can be to ask "why are things bad," it is worthwhile to also ponder "why aren't things much, much worse already?"
A reminder: "If you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember. " -- Joshua Foer
One day, when I have finished going through the dictionary, if someone asks me the meaning of a word and I don’t know it, they’ll say “but you’ve read the dictionary.” This is why it is very important to avoid people.
