New at Reason
Don't worry, says Katherine Mangu-Ward: Those internet and cell phone flukes and fads and annoyances are going to save us all.
Comments to "New at Reason":
Warty | March 4, 2008, 8:37am | #
Mypace will save us all by giving us exhibitionist teenage girls' profiles and Streaming Nick Cave albums. God bless technology.Shirt | March 4, 2008, 8:53am | #
Sorry. I don't find anything interesting about this except:Morons who can't choose one bar and stay there on Friday nights...
Nice one.
Warren | March 4, 2008, 9:30am | #
It wasn't because email was a fast way to send a message to someone, or even that it was a fast way to send a message to a lot of people-there were already ways to do both those things pretty efficiently. What really made email take off, says Shirky, was the Reply All button.Uhh no, I really think it was that first thing. I don't know what other methods are cited, but nothing came close to email for speed and convenience of large text messages.
The Wine Commonsewer | March 4, 2008, 10:18am | #
Flashmobs are soooo ooooh yesterday....exhibitionist teenage girls' profiles.... yes, but the voyeuristic old guys who want to see tan lines are somehow prevented from doing so. Where's the upside here?
Bingo | March 4, 2008, 10:28am | #
Another consequence of facebook/myspace etc is what I like to call "trickle-down hotness." Since females are always competing with their friends with regard to looks and fashion, it has resulted in a global increase in the number of gorgeous women.Basically, party photos are taken and posted online. Girl A notices she is looking like a beastly thing next to her rather perky and cute friend Girl B (who also has some dashing gents remarking on her good looks). It gives Girl A some incentive to spruce up a bit in order to compete and woo an equal number of gentlemen to post comments on her photos. If Girl A surpasses B in hotness, then B will need to hit the elliptical and maybe eat some more greens.
The nuclear arms race between the two (and any other females in their circle of friends) results in a rapid increase in the global level of hotness.
Bingo, I like the way you think. Can I join your friends circle at Facebook?
The Wine Commonsewer | March 4, 2008, 10:37am | #
Bingo, you may be on to something. The forerunner of your theory is the California Girls theory. The weather is good, and for most of the year you can't hide under a floor length wool coat designed to keep you from freezing to death as you cross the street to do your banking.That, and the technology is better. I know that's a little harsh, but I'm dead serious. It is cheaper and easier than ever to for chicks to look great. And not just young hotties, dude, you should see those thirty something moms at my kid's elementary school.
Hell, even those with bad genes and premature gray hair can look good.
Shirt | March 4, 2008, 10:48am | #
TWC:Apparently, that theory applies to FL, also. I got here a year ago from NC and thought the state was populated with a whole 'nother species of homo sapiens.
Spend some time in California and then go to, say, Pittsburgh. The contrast is horrifying...you go from having sexy asians and latinas everywhere, to being surrounded by a foul display of flabby, pasty, crackery ugliness. Shudder.
Bingo | March 4, 2008, 11:23am | #
TWC and Warty: No doubt. I moved to Phoenix recently and the scenery is lovely here - especially compared to my previous residence, Detroit ;)I would also hazard a guess that the obesity epidemic is largely confined to lower-income families and people with rigidly "conservative" values and eating habits (50's and 60's Americana). These are the two groups that would be least impacted by the internet's effect on perceived beauty.
Mike Laursens of the World | March 4, 2008, 12:27pm | #
Someone should totally write a song about how hot the girls are in California.R C Dean | March 4, 2008, 12:44pm | #
I would also hazard a guess that the obesity epidemic is largely confined to lower-income families and people with rigidly "conservative" values and eating habits (50's and 60's Americana).I would tend to agree with the low-income bit, but I would be very interested to see if there is any correlation between conservative values and fatness. When I lived in Madison, I know plenty of fat lefties.
The Internet and social media pose an even more fundamental threat to totalitarian governments (and all forcible governments, for that matter) -- if people can coordinate their activities cheaply and peacefully and voluntarily, they don't need a ham-handed bureaucracy with taxing "authority" and prisons to run things like a community-wide pension "plan", schools, and health care for the poor. Without such popular add-ons, support for government taxation would drop significantly.
Zac in Virginia | March 8, 2008, 4:00am | #
Craig -Well, certainly there are all sorts of activities that can now go on without an organizing body like the government to pitch in. So yes, dependency for info-distribution has certainly reduced in that regard.
But if the above article is any indication, the internet is a haphazard, as-it-happens source of power for the individual citizen; true evolution, I suppose.
While texting, flashmobs, and so on might give citizens the equivalent of pinfeathers, a longer tongue, or waterproof hide, these are not at all going to be focused, decidedly anti-bureaucratic/anti-government-force devices. As the market spawns them, freedom-minded citizens will find a use for them.
But what you're outlining here sounds like it would need more of a mass effort against those forces, and the market is too busy breeding and getting hit with the Invisible Hand's bio-radiation to actually cram itself into that anti-coercion design.
Anti-dependency, sure. But anti-reliance? That's a tangential effort at best.
Forgive me if this extended metaphor is a little frothy and scatterbrained; I need sleep, but dare not wait to post my response. Strike while the iron is hot, etc.