

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology - michaelwww
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopoly:_the_Surrender_of_Culture_to_Technology

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michaelwww
Postman claims that tools "attack culture…[and] bid to become culture",
subordinating existing traditions, politics, and religions. Postman cites the
example of the telescope destroying the Judeo-Christian belief that the Earth
is the centre of the solar system, bringing about a "collapse…of the moral
centre of gravity in the West".

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cgore
That is some amazingly sloppy research work on his part, and he just seems to
have an axe to grind, so he is okay with the sloppiness. The geocentric model
is due to Ptolemy and Aristotle, Greek philosopher/scientists pre-dating
Christianity by centuries who were both probably almost completely unaware of
the Jews. Copernicus, author of the heleocentic model, was a Roman Catholic
and Pope Clement VII found the theory interesting [1]. Galileo, creator of the
telescope, was also a Roman Catholic, was also a personal friend of the Pope
Urban VIII, the pope at the time of his trial by the Inquisition [2]. Pope
Urban VIII supported the heliocentric model, the trial was related to other
issues. Galileo's favorite daughter was a cloistered nun, and we have their
letters still [3].

1:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus#Heliocentri...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus#Heliocentrism)

2:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair)

3: [http://www.amazon.com/Galileos-Daughter-Historical-Memoir-
Sc...](http://www.amazon.com/Galileos-Daughter-Historical-Memoir-
Science/dp/B008PHMGHU)

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michaelwww
He writes books for a wider audience and I think he is speaking broadly in
terms of the bigger picture. It was a belief among ordinary people that the
earth was flat and the center of the universe. The telescope probably had the
most to do with changing that world view. I think we have to take what pop-sci
writers say with a grain of salt (Michio Kaku for example.)

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cgore
Except that is the whole primary thesis of his book, and it is based on
trivially falsified premises.

(At the time ordinary people had probably no real conception of the general
order of the universe, being uneducated illiterate peasants. The educated at
the time mostly viewed the Earth as sperical, because of the ancient Greek
philosopher/scientists, and the Earth as the center of the Pysical Universe,
again because of the ancient Greek philosopher/scientists.)

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michaelwww
Ah, I didn't realize that. I haven't read this book, but did read his "Amusing
Ourselves to Death." Thanks.

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cgore
I'm going completely off of the Wikipedia page you posted, I haven't read the
book either, so it could be really misrepresenting the book. But the whole
"theocratic -> technocratic society" step seems to be based on that shallow
argument.

"Amusing Ourselves to Death" seems like a good book, I have a copy but have
yet to read it.

