
Among the Disrupted - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/books/review/among-the-disrupted.html#
======
mathattack
I am among the disrupted.

\- Books have never been cheaper. \- I can video call around the world. \-
Almost anything can be delivered quickly. \- Email has taken over my life. \-
I have free access to an evergrowing encyclopedia.

There is some loss, but I'll take this life over that of a small-plot farmer
or industrial worker. It's much easier to be an intellectual with access to
all this on-line knowledge. It doesn't kill our humanity, it elevates what our
humanity is capable of.

~~~
smacktoward
For purposes of argument:

 _> Books have never been cheaper._

Thanks to market distortions enforced by a still-growing quasi-monopoly, whose
stock price is only propped up by Wall Street's expectation that they will
jack those prices way, way up once all the competition has been flattened and
customers have nowhere else to go.

 _> I can video call around the world._

If you and the person on the other end both use the same software out of
dozens of options. "Let's see, Jane is on Skype, but Mike uses Google
Hangouts..."

 _> Almost anything can be delivered quickly._

If you live in San Francisco or New York City. If you happen to be among the
very few people who live anywhere else, your mileage may vary.

 _> Email has taken over my life._

As an open platform that can be freely integrated with rather than a closed
corporate silo with a cocktail-straw API, email is a remnant of a more
civilized age rather than a product of our current one.

 _> I have free access to an evergrowing encyclopedia._

Whose quality is determined entirely by which obsessive-compulsive editor has
the most free time on their hands.

~~~
maratd
> propped up by Wall Street's expectation that they will jack those prices
> way, way up once all the competition has been flattened and customers have
> nowhere else to go

Wall Street will be disappointed. Prices for digital goods always have and
will continue to be controlled by piracy.

> If you and the person on the other end both use the same software out of
> dozens of options. "Let's see, Jane is on Skype, but Mike uses Google
> Hangouts..."

In real life, Jane and Mike are both on Skype.

> If you happen to be among the very few people who live anywhere else, your
> mileage may vary.

If you live in the middle of nowhere, chances are you have a PO Box at the
local post office. Not as convenient, but works just as well.

> email is a remnant of a more civilized age rather than a product of our
> current one.

There are plenty of open standards being pumped out. Nobody is using them.

Would it be nice to have everything open and universal? Sure.

But given the choice between sparse and open ... and rich and closed, I'll
take rich and closed. Virtually everything has an API now. How awesome is
that?

> Whose quality is determined entirely by which obsessive-compulsive editor
> has the most free time on their hands.

How was this not true of the old encyclopedias? At least now, you can do your
own digging pretty easily to verify any claims. On top of that, Wikipedia
keeps a history of who wrote what and when, which is specifically useful for
determining if the editor has an axe to grind.

~~~
williamcotton
_Wall Street will be disappointed. Prices for digital goods always have and
will continue to be controlled by piracy._

 _But given the choice between sparse and open ... and rich and closed_

If you've ever wondered why people with no speculative asset interests are so
excited about Bitcoin it is because the technology has the potential to
monetize digital goods.

It also commoditizes identity and creates a rich and singular (yet
decentralized and equal access) stream of digitally signed transactions and
associated data. A public datastore. Rich and open. It spells out the death of
privatized social media over the next decade.

My theory is that once our communication mediums are again as rich and open as
standing on the street corner and selling newsprint that our intellectual
property industries will rebound and thrive yet again.

Right now our dominant forums for discussion are privately owned. Facebook,
Twitter, Reddit and the rest aren't optimized for quality discussions. They
can only quantify and measure in an attempt to subsidize the communication of
the people who use their services.

We need true public venues for a vibrant intellectual community!

~~~
nl
_My theory is that once our communication mediums are again as rich and open
as standing on the street corner and selling newsprint that our intellectual
property industries will rebound and thrive yet again._

It's never been cheaper to self publish, either by a blog (self hosted if you
choose) or in an ebook. How is selling newsprint on a corner _more_ rich and
open that that? You had to own a printing press to have a voice!

~~~
williamcotton
I'm not talking about price. I'm talking about the fact that it was a public
venue. Your self-hosted blog is basically like standing in your own private
living room and selling your newspaper. Facebook is like a private indoor
shopping mall with no guarantees for free speech. The only way to be heard on
the Internet is to go over to someone's private property and hope that they'll
let you inside to talk.

A consensus database that is replicated completely across all nodes acts more
like a public square than anything we've seen before on the Internet.

~~~
maratd
> A consensus database that is replicated completely across all nodes acts
> more like a public square than anything we've seen before on the Internet.

Gnutella. 15 years ago.

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

~~~
williamcotton
But Gnutella, Bittorrent, and Freenet are all ephemeral. Data stored with
these service cannot be reliable retrieved.

~~~
maratd
> But Gnutella, Bittorrent, and Freenet are all ephemeral.

and

> A consensus database ...

Yup. If the database isn't ephemeral, it can't be a consensus database. If
it's the consensus that certain data should disappear, then it should
disappear. If you force retention, it's no longer a consensus database.

~~~
williamcotton
_If you force retention, it 's no longer a consensus database._

Expecting data the has been publicly broadcast to be capable of being erased
from existence is a lost cause. A better solution is to embrace the permanence
of publication. The Way-back Machine watches all.

The solution is much like with git. Append a delete or a subtraction to the
chain. Software in userland can then make it appear as if though edits or
deletions have been made.

------
dctoedt
FTA: _The streets of American cities are haunted by the ghosts of bookstores
and record stores, which have been destroyed by the greatest thugs in the
history of the culture industry._

That's just what one would have expected from Leon Wieseltier. His columns at
The New Republic often likewise came across as self-important, contemptuous,
and entitled. The jury's still out about the recent management "changes" at
TNR, but more than a few readers won't be sorry to see L.W. gone from there.
(Except now he's at The Atlantic.)

~~~
ser_tyrion
That sentence does seem out of place compared to the rest of the essay. If
anything the thugs destroyed the thugs. His biggest contention is that
"technologism" is a cultural infatuation with newness, and both digital music
stores and record stores both used "newness" when advertising. And I guess
that is what makes them "thugs" for reinforcing that view, as well as "nothing
innovative about pandering for the sake of a profit".

------
hammerzeit
If Wieseltier's aim was to provide an _ex post facto_ justification of what
went down at the New Republic, he's certainly nailed it. The strawmen he
constructs without a whit of evidence wouldn't pass freshman comp; that he's
accorded greater privilege demonstrates just how high the shit must have been
piled at The New Republic's stables.

What's interesting is we're starting to see the outlines of the narrative that
will define the intellectual critique of silicon valley, and it's an old
chestnut.

It's the line that silicon valley is all machine and no soul -- a group of
folks interested in success only without any capability for reflection,
intuition, emotion. That in the quest to ask 'does it work,' we fail to ask
'should it work?' Robots and nerds, in essence.

It's a line that can be traced back to Doug Bowman's '41 shades of blue'
post[0] -- itself beginning to define the narrative of Google (and Marissa in
particular) as pencil-necked spreadsheet jockeys who wouldn't know good taste
if it hit them over the head.

This narrative is, frankly, bullshit. Anybody who's worked on any sort of
technology product knows the limits of data in decision-making -- I have yet
to see any place where gut feel didn't radically dictate the shape and vision
of every company. Similarly, to argue that the Internet is anything other than
the most effective device for the production of the same humanistic,
intellectual material that Wieseltier bemoans the loss of is to demonstrate an
utter unfamiliarity with the internet and how it works.

No, what Wieseltier bemoans is one thing and one thing only: That the means of
distribution are no longer so dominated that he automatically, uncritically
earns a right to them. The world doesn't need that any longer and we are the
better for it.

[0] [http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-
google.html](http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html)

~~~
williamcotton
Ah, the old "gatekeeper" argument.

Did you come up with this while reading "The Top 8 Reasons Why Silicon Valley
Should Never Be Criticized" on Buzzfeed?

~~~
hammerzeit
There are many, many critiques of silicon valley that are relevant and
problematic and need to be heard and engaged with more.

This is absolutely not one of them.

~~~
williamcotton
I think he makes some very good points about an obsession with objective
quantities over more subjective analysis of qualities.

Especially when it comes to literary works, art, and discussions of politics
and economics.

I've worked in tech for the last decade so I know from first hand experience
that there is plenty of subjectivity in the decision making and design
processes.

But at the same time there's an attitude that "if it sells, it's good".
Sometimes when I'm in meetings it seems like were selling lowest-common-
denominator products on after hours television. Basically just trying to come
up with scams instead of trying to build real value.

Furthermore, thinking that web pages and software are the best approaches to
"solving the world's problems" definitely lends towards a digital and
quantified solution.

From what I've heard at The New Republic they wanted to start using the same
sort of metrics that a company like Bleacher Report (which I was the first
engineer at) might use.

There's world of a difference between stories about 3rd tier college football
teams and the history of intellectual criticism that made The New Republic
what it was.

~~~
hammerzeit
There are certainly plenty of folks in silicon valley who could care less
about quality as long as it hits the numbers. It may or may not be the case
that the new management at _TNR_ are folks like that -- if it is, that's
depressing to say the least.

But there are also plenty of folks in silicon valley creating and empowering
new forms of content and thought. Even buzzfeed, everyone's favorite target,
has produced some awesome longform work to complement their listicle crap. To
say nothing of the Mediums of the world.

To argue, as Wieseltier does, that this first group is indicative of a silicon
valley _ethos_ , is where he goes off the rails. By what right does he get to
make that claim? Because Google hired Ray Kurzweil?

The most generous interpretation is that he's simply unaware of the humanistic
side of the internet.

What worries me is the more likely claim that this stems from a certain form
of engineer essentialism -- that technologists are inherently unable to
appreciate a work of art or cultural criticism. He himself writes this:

"The processing of information is not the highest aim to which the human
spirit can aspire, and neither is competitiveness in a global economy. The
character of our society cannot be determined by engineers."

Wieseltier seems to really believe that a bunch of pocket-protectored math
geeks have taken over his beloved humanities and are trying to reduce it to a
bunch of equations. To do so is, I still find, extremely shallow and deeply
insulting.

~~~
williamcotton
_The most generous interpretation is that he 's simply unaware of the
humanistic side of the internet._

That humanistic side of the Internet has been drowned out by a sea of dingbats
so obsessed with becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg that it is barely
perceptible.

I'm an engineer as well as an artist and I got in to this industry for the
humanistic side of things. I'm frankly disgusted with how things have been
shaping up over the last decade. Our industry is full of callousness and
arrogance. To make it worse the economic externalities of their successes are
driving out anyone involved with humanities from the cities where this is
taking place. It has created the feedback loops that result in the kind of
ignorance that he's addressing.

------
GabrielF00
>The streets of American cities are haunted by the ghosts of bookstores and
record stores, which have been destroyed by the greatest thugs in the history
of the culture industry.

I suppose this is a dig at Amazon and Apple. Two companies which have made it
much easier than ever for anyone to share their creative work with a global
audience. They've also made it easier than ever for a music lover or a reader
to acquire music and books no matter the obscurity of the work or the
consumer's location in the world.

~~~
sedachv
Downvoting for PR BS. Amazon and Apple are definitely /not/ the "two companies
which have made it much easier than ever for anyone to share their creative
work with a global audience."

Submitting music for sale on iTunes Store is impossible for independent
producers - you have to go through a third party intermediary such as cdbaby
(it's actually more complicated than that: [http://www.audiorecording.me/how-
to-sell-your-music-or-songs...](http://www.audiorecording.me/how-to-sell-your-
music-or-songs-in-itunes.html)). Amazon Music didn't even launch until 2008.

There is a reason why most small bands and producers sell through Bandcamp,
Beatport, or Juno Records.

If you're actually talking about "sharing" and not "selling" specifically,
mp3.com and Soundcloud were the two companies that made the most impact for
music.

~~~
GabrielF00
I'm more familiar with publishing books than I am with publishing music.
Getting a publisher for a book has traditionally been very difficult. Self-
publishing is now a viable option (you have access to a retail channel that
reaches a huge percentage of book-buyers). It may not be the best option for
everyone, but I do think it makes contributing to literary culture possible
for more people than ever before.

I also think that people having the ability to buy books (or music) from
anywhere, and to choose from an effectively unlimited selection is something
that ultimately benefits literary culture.

~~~
williamcotton
_to choose from an effectively unlimited selection is something that
ultimately benefits literary culture_

Prove it.

~~~
GabrielF00
One of the biggest complaints that I hear from literary figures is that people
are not reading. E.g. Philip Roth saying that the number of serious readers in
America is going to drop to almost zero. So I would imagine that readers being
able to find whatever book they want wherever they are located and buy it
instantly would remove some of the barriers to reading. I would also imagine
that having cheaper books would encourage people to buy more. And I think that
all of the other new ways of getting books to people (Audible for example) are
also vehicles to get people reading.

I also think that ebooks open up a lot of possibilities for experimentation.
For instance, in the past it may not have made a lot of financial sense to
write a 60 page novella - you couldn't really put it on a shelf in a bookstore
by itself, it would have to be packaged with other work. But with an ebook
there's no reason you can't write a 60 page novella and charge $3 for it.

I think a good analogy is print journalism and commentary vs web journalism
and commentary. There's a lot more crap on the web, and a lot of the
traditional institutions are hurting, but there are also so many more
opportunities for new voices and for innovation.

~~~
williamcotton
There's a lot of unquantifiable knowledge and experience contained within
these traditional institutions that are being ignorantly cast aside.

You can't just think about the consumption side of things. You have to think
about the production side.

------
anigbrowl
I thought this would be about someone who was put out of work by an app, but
it's actually a challenge to the philosophical underpinnings of digital
culture. Well worth a read.

~~~
astanway
Although it was written by someone put out of work by that culture - Leon
Wieseltier used to be an editor of the New Republic.

------
Niten
Two things in this article stuck out to me:

> Here is a humanist proposition for the age of Google: The processing of
> information is not the highest aim to which the human spirit can aspire

That's an uncharitable paraphrasing of Google's mission statement which, taken
to its logical conclusion, might as well say "To know everything there is to
know in the universe, to grant agency to this knowledge, and to make it
available to everyone." Maybe this just reveals a fundamental rift between my
values and those of the author, but I cannot think of a higher calling for the
human spirit.

> Searches for keywords will not provide contexts for keywords. Patterns that
> are revealed by searches will not identify their own causes and reasons. The
> new order will not relieve us of the old burdens, and the old pleasures, of
> erudition and interpretation.

The author is making an empirical claim here, and it is wrong. AI is _already_
advanced enough that such absolutes as "searches for keywords will not provide
contexts for keywords" are demonstrably false. To a limited but growing
extent, software is already capable of erudition and interpretation; these are
not uniquely human endeavors.

The biggest problem with this article (and so many others like it) is tying an
argument for the value of the humanities with unscientific denial of
materialism. That the human mind is ultimately an emergent property of matter
does not make art and literature any less worthy of study.

------
malvosenior
It's interesting to read this after the article earlier today about how teens
use technology. This proverbial buggy whip manufacture laments his lack of
brick and mortar book stores, while the teen already sees Facebook as being
passé.

It must be tough to fight progress. It's a battle you're never going to win.

~~~
williamcotton
What you see as progress is subjective. The effect of blindly assuming that
technologic and economic progress are the only objective truths worth worrying
about is incredibly problematic. That's basically the whole point of this
article.

~~~
malvosenior
Technological progress is most certainly objective. Computers are much faster
today than they were 20 years ago. That is objective.

I strongly disagree with this article (and I guess your argument). Technology
is part of society. Technological progress IS societal progress. There's
nothing "problematic" about that.

~~~
williamcotton
_Technological progress is most certainly objective._

Yes, of course, I never said it wasn't.

I never said technological progress was problematic. I said that favoring
quantifiable progress at the expense of qualitative progress is problematic.

Because you work in technology you are benefiting from it's progress. People
who work in industries who are being disrupted by technology are not. This is
what makes progress subjective. Assuming that the people who are NOT
immediately benefitting from technological progress are somehow involved with
things that we don't need to worry about is problematic.

Art and culture cannot be quantified. Communities that promote quantification
and deride qualification are problematic. These things do not need to be at
ends with each other.

We don't need to look at the existing qualified members as "evil gatekeepers"
who deserve their fate in the soup lines. We should be figuring out how their
experience and skills are useful and how to integrate them these new
technological and economic changes. There is wisdom in age and experience.
That our industry is known as "agist" should be a further indicator on how it
views the world.

If you strongly disagree with the article, by all means, please write a
counter-argument. You're gonna have to make it more than a single sentence as
it addresses a number of issues. You might even need to research some of the
topics the author was referring to. The onus is on you.

~~~
malvosenior
Actually the onus is on him to find his place in today's world. The eggs of
technological progress have been broken. I'm making omelettes. He seems to
want to get them back in the chicken. I wish him luck on his quixotic quest.

------
applecore
The most important and significant challenge faced by intellectuals in the
twenty-first century, according to this essay, is to fully comprehend the
individual and societal implications of technology.

------
oconnore
The article comes off as overinflated shit, but Wieseltier's beehive-kicking
is sure working here. Perhaps his boot isn't entirely without substance.

------
robmccoll
I honestly believe that a better essay could have been written algorithmically
by machine.

~~~
williamcotton
Really. That's your rebuttal to an argument that complains about the lack of
intellectualism?

What irony!

Please, keep it going everyone, this is just amazing!

~~~
robmccoll
Absolutely. His brand of intellectualism is a blend of self-pity and
"intellectual" condescension wrapped in a litany of the same grievances and
arguments against the modern culture that technology hath wrought. Where is
the originality? Where is the real emotion? If you are so perturbed, write
something truly moving and relatable on a human level.

~~~
williamcotton
_His brand of intellectualism is a blend of self-pity and "intellectual"
condescension wrapped in a litany of the same grievances and arguments against
the modern culture that technology hath wrought._

Can you make some citations? I frankly don't see see any self-pity.

Why are you putting "intellectual" in quotes? Because he's talking about the
humanities?

Personally, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel because of what I see
related to the future of decentralized monetization of digital media, so I can
see how we can rebuild industry around intellectual property.

Still, he makes a lot of great points about posthumanist tendencies. We in
this industry, an industry that is shaping the world with very little in the
way of a conversation, are incredibly obsessed with quantifying things and we
seem to think that "improving what we can measure" and economics are going to
be the only things we need to think about.

I mean, come on, your first response was about how a machine generated essay
would be better than his well argued piece! Unbelievable levels of irony!
Fantastic! Haha!

Where is YOUR originality and emotion? Somehow a single snarky paragraph is
enough? A quantum of downvote is enough? Open YOUR mind!

------
williamcotton
Philistines, the lot of you!

