

Obama bemoans 'diversions' of IPod, Xbox era - resdirector
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hcoyG-Ck3-VwZB7fqpUFXbffoObg

======
tel
It seems his argument is that information inundation lets stupid ideas live
longer than they might otherwise, which is actually pretty wise. It's not
necessary to pin it on iPods and XBoxes, but the idea that we need to learn
healthy ways to survive information bombardment is neither new nor unwieldy.

The historical comparisons are interesting, but I suppose it's one of those
questions where technology is available but human nature and morality are
lagging.

~~~
hugh3
_It seems his argument is that information inundation lets stupid ideas live
longer than they might otherwise, which is actually pretty wise_

I'm not convinced that Obama can distinguish between "stupid ideas" and "ideas
which are contrary to the Obama agenda" though. Of course he's hardly unique
among politicians for this, but I do think he's less likely than, say,
President Bush, to acknowledge the existence of informed and principled
opposition to his policies.

It's interesting that the internet has allowed the political right to get
organised in a way that it never really has before. The left-wing political
protests of the 1960s had universities as their organizational focus, whereas
the right never really had any similar way of getting a protest movement off
the ground until the internet.

There's only a few quotes from the actual speech given but bits like this:

"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all
kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't
always rank all that high on the truth meter"

sound a little to me like a man bitter that the internet is being used to
spread arguments disagreeing with his own.

~~~
sachinag
The birther stuff, in particular, is a great example of nonsense that
perpetuates. On a policy level, we were hijacked by the death panel nonsense.
Debate the public option and minimum coverage requirements and subsidies -
sure - but the death panel stuff is just nonsense designed purely to distort
the debate.

If you don't get how having to deal with stuff like that at the expense of
substantive debate harms our nation, I don't know what to tell you.

Why their communications team (and remember his chief speechwriter since 2007
is a guy born in 1981[1]) keeps linking this with video games and iPods (which
he certainly does know how to use; it's a bizarre line) has to be some sort of
polling data. Cause, on its face, it's asinine.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau_(speechwriter)>

~~~
hugh3
Actually I kinda think stupid ideas like birtherism are deliberately given air
by the Obama operation. I don't mean that in a "conspiracy theory" sense, I
just mean that politicians would rather engage loudly with the silliest of
their opponents rather than the most sensible. By focusing attention on the
few loonies who oppose Obama, Obama attempts to associate opposition to Obama
with looniness. If birthers didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent
them.

As evidence, witness how quickly and reflexively this thread jumped into a
discussion of birtherism.

Anyway, I guess my point is that would be hypocritical for Obama (or, in all
fairness, pretty much any politician out there) to complain about the
infantilization of political rhetoric. This, after all, is the man whose
favourite rhetorical device is the "There are those who say [something that
nobody actually says]" strawman.

~~~
ebiester
The birthers are only the easiest example. Look at the health care debate. I
am sympathetic to a capitalist-based reform, but the fundamental problem is
that even the moderately informed had difficulties following the real issues
because the media failed to actually tell people what the public option was!

I've heard multiple anecdotes (I know, not a representative sample) where
someone "came up with" the public option but didn't explain it with those
words, and their friends thought it was a good idea, but the "public option"
was "government intervention and death panels."

The problem isn't the competing ideas -- the problem is the level of the
debate.

~~~
hugh3
On the other hand it's not like the Democrats were going out of their way to
explain what was in the bill either. Instead, they spent most of their time
talking about how "reform" is "necessary" (without acknowledging that many
types of reform are possible) and even more time demonizing any opposition as
either ignorant hicks or shills paid by the insurance industry.

You won't find any disagreement from me if you say that the level of political
discourse is too low. You will find disagreement if you try to claim that
Barack Obama has a genuine desire for it to be higher.

~~~
tokipin
well, the president had what i think was at least a couple dozen speeches on
why it was important, and in many of them he was quite detailed. and the kind
of reform that republicans were proposing was in the opposite direction...
towards deregulation

but as i said elsewhere, when you have one side poisoning the well and
otherwise completely pulling shit out of their ass, the other side doesn't
have many easy options. the negativity drowned out the actual info

also keep in mind Fox is a propaganda network that many people take seriously

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thaumaturgy
Here is the text of his speech:
[http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2010/05/ob...](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2010/05/obama_at_hampton_education_is.html)

Let's read that before spending a bunch of effort debating only a single
sentence of it.

(It didn't take me long to find. It is the speech he planned to give, not a
transcript, so there may be some minor differences in the actual address.)

~~~
brandonkm
I'm especially surprised at where the discussion of this speech is focused. It
seems that people aren't focusing on the context or the core message.

He's speaking at a HBCU to a largely if not all black graduating class. This
isn't Stanford or MIT. I know theres a blind spot to the inequality African
American students face and that this is a sensitive issue, but I don't think
telling African American students who are graduating college to be wary of a
lot of the distractions these days such as xbox and twitter is a bad thing.

I could go on for a bit about why, but Obama lays out the statistics for
you...

 _American students are ranked about 10th overall compared to top-performing
countries. African Americans, however, are ranked behind more than twenty
nations, lower than nearly every other developed country._

I would say that Obama is inspiring a generation of African Americans to work
harder and strive for more because inequality is still pervasive throughout
American society and education is the key to overcoming this. Why is it so
hard to miss this message?

------
marilyn
Obama's arguments here remind me of Noam Chomsky's thoughts on sports:

 _Sports keeps people from worrying about things that matter to their lives
that they might have some idea of doing something about. And in fact it’s
striking to see the intelligence that’s used by ordinary people in sports [as
opposed to political and social issues]._

So much chatter to distract us from the important issues of the day.

~~~
hugh3
For Noam Chomsky, like other radical leftists, the idea that the working class
is deceived and distracted is part of an anti-cognitive-dissonance package to
explain why the supposedly-oppressed masses fail to share his political
opinions.

Obama isn't nearly as extreme as Chomsky politically, but come from the same
sort of intellectual heritage.

~~~
patio11
Thus the corollary: when the Revolution comes, the workers will need to be
lead by those who are intellectually capable of leading them, and academic
Marxists will take their rightful place in the cosmos as rulers of all they
surv... first among equals.

This has basically been the totalitarian promise for a couple of centuries
now.

~~~
hga
Except that the promise is also a lie, for the academic Marxists get
slaughtered when a real gangster like Stalin uses the instrumentality they've
created against them.

A fitting end, too bad so many innocents have to die or suffer in the process.

------
hammerdr
This makes me sad.

Despite my political opposition to Obama, I thought that he understood the
culture of the "IPod, XBox era." In fact, he leveraged these tools of
'diversion' in his campaign (and did so very effectively).

This seems to be the knee-jerk technophobic speech that politicians would have
given in the latter half of the 20th Century. Instead of being afraid and
resistant to technology (which, as we have seen, is unstoppable anyway),
politicians should be encouraging the public to put these technological
advances to good use. See: David Cameron's TED talk
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ELnyoso6vI>).

He highlights a significant point in his speech, as tel says. Being able to
deal with all of the information is something that we need to cope with.
However, placing the blame on the tools is not the way to go.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I'm unsurprised that the readers here latched right on to the tools mentioned
in the article, and entirely missed the point of his statements:

> _...politicians should be encouraging the public to put these technological
> advances to good use._

This is _exactly_ his point. He used a few devices to hi-lite the difference
between information-as-entertainment, and information-as-a-tool. This in no
way makes him hypocritical for being constantly connected to a Blackberry;
he's using the device in exactly the way that he's urging young graduates to
use going forward. (It may make him a little hypocritical for his campaign
machine, though.)

I think he's right. I think he's being proven right all the time by sites like
Reddit, which were supposed to democratize the news, except that instead they
repeatedly become a megaphone for internet tough guy squads and get hyped over
issues where they don't have all the facts. Or like HackerNews, where daring
to mention some high-tech devices causes everyone to completely miss the
actual point of an argument.

------
alexqgb
This speech should not be taken seriously - not because Obama (a) has no idea
how to play X Box, or (b) spends all day on his Blackberry, but because his
administration has thrown its full weight behind the most toxic aspects of
ACTA. Even the name of the treaty is a fraud. So why is he supporting it so
aggressively?

In this speech, Obama says the world is experiencing a moment of "breathtaking
change", and goes on to say "we can't stop these changes... but we can adapt
to them."

How? By exporting laws that call for $1.92 million fines in response to 24
privately downloaded .mp3s? By allowing the USTA to bully Canada over 'laxity'
when the IP laws in question are stricter than our own?
(<http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4997/125/>). By threatening
Indonesia with the same kind of psychotic economic violence in 'retaliation'
for their government's formal support of Open Source?
([http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/feb/23/openso...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/feb/23/opensource-
intellectual-property)).

If this is "adaptation", what was the Opium War? A humanitarian relief
mission?

I promise you, iPads and X-Boxes are not the problem.

------
ErrantX
Excellent; that's some of the most intelligent argument in this area I've seen
for a while.

And it is so true. Look st how much time people spend propogating meme's on
facebook. Ok so there is always room for us to enjoy banal stuff - but I feel
like it is starting to enroach on our lives.

It's like the sivers post from the other day; if only we shared an interesting
wikipedia rather than one of those chain emails, conspiracy theories or
"questionaires"...

------
MWinther
I'm not sure I agree with the implication that said devices are to blame for
this sort of thing. A lot of this problem is just as, or if not even more
prevalent in old media. One could argue that more convenient Internet access
helps solving the problem by allowing people to do fact-checking for
themselves. I know I look up points of contention on wikipedia via my phone in
a way that just wasn't possible a couple of years ago.

------
JCThoughtscream
While I support most of the man's political stances, Obama's take on the iPad
and console culture is perhaps a smidge hypocritical, given that he is, after
all, a known Blackberry addict.

~~~
pohl
Wait...you're saying that it's not possible to believe that "information
becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a
tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," while still using
such devices?

If I warn that hammers can smash thumbs, may I still use one without being
assailed by charges of hypocrisy?

~~~
JCThoughtscream
No, but decrying the harms of cigarettes whilst puffing a mouthful's worth at
once would certainly garner grounds for such an accusation.

------
jsz0
The reaction thus far to the President's comments seem to prove his point.
Instead of focusing on any of the more challenging assertions many people
latch onto the one easily consumable statement about iPads and Xboxs and
ignore the bigger points. Imagine if people devoted the mental resources they
use on debating minor details of technology, sports, entertainment, etc to
real world issues? Imagine if they ran for office? It would change the world.

------
metamemetics
Quite Huxleyan of him. This paragraph by Neil Postman is worth cross-
referencing:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World#Comparisons_wit...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World#Comparisons_with_George_Orwell.27s_Nineteen_Eighty-
Four)

------
Maascamp
That is a pretty dishonest headline you're using to summarize this article.

~~~
tel
It's the headline the article uses as well.

~~~
Dilpil
Indeed. I wonder if the title is intentionally misleading, or if the writers
had a different idea in mind when they wrote it?

Indeed, the strong controversy this articles headline will stir up proves
Obama's (actual) point quite well.

------
indrax
>"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know
how to work..."

What the hell? This sounds like Bush.

What happened to the guy who was in love with his blackberry?

~~~
d3vvnull
A blackberry isn't a toy. I have at least three of the items mentioned on the
list (which are toys), and I use none of them for actual productive work.
Though I do have a telnet terminal app on the iPod. Still all of the devices
he mentions were not designed for productive enterprises, but for diversions.
And diversions have a way of being big time wasters if you're not balanced.
Not today Halo 3!

~~~
kevbin
What's the distinction between productive work and play? between a toy and a
tool? Even if you think the distinction isn't purely subjective, you have to
consider that every tool starts out as a toy, that a lot of tools are way more
fun to play with than (what gets marketed as) toys, that playing can be
extremely productive and that being productive can be really entertaining.

~~~
gloob
_you have to consider that every tool starts out as a toy_

Band saw. Pesticide. Tractor. Hunting rifle. Jackhammer.

By any meaningful definition of "toy" and "starts out", not every tool starts
out as a toy. Alternatively, if you are using definitions of "toy" and "starts
out" that are ridiculously overbroad: at a high enough level of abstraction,
_everything_ looks exactly the same as everything else. A worldview that is
useful is preferable to one that is elegant.

~~~
kevbin
I don't know the histories of the items you mention, but I imagine at some
point in time somebody was screwing around (i.e., playing) with a predecessor
technology when they "should" have been doing "productive work". I remember
the days when microprocessors and personal computers were derided as toys.
UNIX and Linux were once "toy" operating systems. RC planes and flight sims
were the toys of hyper-nerdy outcasts in my high school; but nobody laughs at
a predator drone strike.

Pesticides might not be toys, but I bet the chemists and biologists who
develop them have spent a good deal of time screwing around with the
underlying constituents. I recently rented a rotary hammer to perform a
particular task, but spent a good amount of time afterward playing with it to
see what I could jackhammer into oblivion. At what point did it stop being a
tool and become a toy? I learned a good deal about the operation of the hammer
and improved my technique, does that mean I wasn't playing but was getting
educated? Maybe our preconceptions about work, play, and education aren't
really clear or useful?

What's the useful distinction between "toy" and "tool"? Is there a bright line
between toolness and toyness? Or a continuum that depends on attitude,
context, and use? I'd argue the latter is a more useful and meaningful
perspective for those of us who do not directly depend on our "tools" for day-
to-day survival. I'd guess that most hunters are not subsistence hunters and
employ their hunting rifles recreationally, during leisure time, doesn't this
make them more "toy-like" than "tool-like"? Recreational ornamental
horticulturalists produce nothing of "value" (in the narrow sense of receiving
remuneration); does this make their use of pesticides toy-like? Is a
Schrebergarten a toy garden in the same way a Tonka is a toy truck? If you eat
vegetables from the Schrebergarten or use the Tonka to dolly a load, are they
still toys?

The original commenter distinguished between toys (e.g., iPad) and non-toys
(e.g., Blackberry). I don't see that as a useful distinction: one man's tool
is another man's toy (even tractors:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhKfTFdtmCk>). The President claims a
distinction between information as distraction, diversion, or entertainment
vs. empowerment. I don't see that clear line: one man's marathon Tecmo Super
Bowl session is another's all nighter studying B.F. Skinner. Who is to say
which is a distraction which is a better use of that time? Were people who
watched hundreds of hours of Buffy the Vampire Slayer distracted, diverted or
empowered? If they got tenure from it does that change the answer?

------
icey
HN would be so much more enjoyable without all of the politics. At least on
reddit it can be filtered out.

