I’ve been going on a news blackout from a bunch of my favorite political commentators lately, even though reading their views is usually a part of my daily routine. The reason is that a lot of them haven’t embraced the happy warrior style that has made them so endearing in the past. Reading their stuff now is like a constant contest to see who can win the Bitching and Moaning Grand Prize.
And the most common focus of this complaining is those darned newfangled machines we youngins are so fond of.
Everybody from the Reuters staff to Thomas Sowell to Bill O’Reilly to the Economist to the National Review staff has at least one piece freaking out about how technology is ruining our lives, young people especially, because we all know what a bunch of prissy, entitled, self-important technophobes we all are. Never mind all of the benefits, opportunities and jobs that come with our gadgets and the Internet, new stuff growing on a daily basis. All this is just brushed aside with variations of, “Yes, but…we’re still clearly screwed.”
“We are connected, but we’re not connecting,” one of them writes in terror.
“When was the last time you took a walk without your earbuds?” another laments.
A close friend with whom I hardly ever disagree said, “You can’t have civil discourse when someone can’t even understand your argument, and it’s not because they’re stupid, but because it’s so easy to block you out with technology and only stick with stuff that fits your myopic worldview. The Internet enables that. There’s something to be said for having a common culture that can speak everyone’s language. Yeah, there were only 3 news channels years ago and they were all the government’s pocket, but at least everyone heard the same news and just interpreted it differently. Now, if you don’t want to hear it, you don’t have to.”
Well, what if we don’t want to hear it? Do you blame us?
Imagine if, for the sake of “common culture,” there were no alternatives to TV except for the Real Housewives shows and Jersey Shore. There are no alternatives to music except for Bruno Mars, Rihanna, and Lady Gaga. There are no alternatives to news except fawning reporters who never ask our “leaders” anything more challenging than, “How did you become so amazing?”
Thank God for the ability to filter this stuff out. It’s crap. It really is crap.
Look, we’ve had this debate for a long time about whether technology actually makes us better, smarter people. And the answer as usual, is that it depends on the person.
Like money, technology is not a creator of character but a revealer of it. The good, smart kids will keep these things in their proper place; you use the technology, not the other way around. They will use it to help others and yes, connect with others in a meaningful way. The dumb, selfish, jaded people will use it to shut themselves off and ignore everything and everyone.
A girl to whom I no longer speak once wrote me a note (she couldn’t possibly have done it in person) telling me I was myopic and uninterested in the world. You don’t need an iphone5 to be a coward and a hypocrite.
So, stop blaming the machines. It’s the people, stupid.
Bill O'Reilly is an idiot. Most people in the media are idiots. If you need a perfect example just look at how Russell Brand completely owned the entire crew on Morning Joe. There isn't any point in tuning in to media / news networks expecting diligenced journalism anymore (with maybe one or two exceptions here or there). Journalism as a field is largely pathetic and has become more a race to get something out than to get the right thing out because at the end of the day they don't care about credibility, they care about ratings.
I might care about the opinions of Bill O'Reilly and random anchors on MSNBC or CNN if I felt they were even remotely close to meeting the minimum intelligence threshold to be doing the job they currently are (which is admittedly very freaking low). You should be embarrassed if as a "journalist" whose job it is to provide facts and information, you are getting owned at your job by fake journalists like Colbert and Jon Stewart.
The fact that they feel qualified to say anything about anything and to do so in such a smug manner is hilarious.
"What's that you say? The entitlement generation is ruining your America with their drugs and technology and complete and utter lack of attention span for your pseudo intellectual bullshit?"
Sorry... I was too busy re-tweeting Anna Kendrick on the interwebs and imagining our future together to give a shit about your negativity and failure to succeed in your chosen career.
sorryyourjobisajokeandyoufeeltheneedtoblameeveryoneelseforyourinadequacies
TBH, Daily and Colbert are pretty funny and while their journalism may be comedial, it is pretty unbias in my opinion. Certainly better than Maher on the left and Fox on the right.
Are you kidding? Colbert is soooo anti-Republican; his entire purpose is to be a PARODY of the Republican party.
When did Thomas Sowell come out against technology?
With so many different forms of media available, the only way media forms can get traction is by generating hype (and then cutting costs to increase profits). To do this, they rely on sensationalized crap to bring in people (stories about what color socks Obama wears, incessant coverage of the gay marriage "debate," etc) and then cut costs by relying on high revenue, low costs delivery formats like talk shows where the Bill O'Reillys and Rachel Maddows of the world bitch about whatever news item is big in their world.
Colbert's entire purpose is to be a parody of Bill O'Reilly, not the Republican party per se.
I'm aware of that and am not quite sure what you're saying? While a lot of his Republican rhetoric is supposed to be satirical, some of it actually has a good deal of merit and thought (in my mind anyways).
Meaning he's not unbiased, he's anti-Republican. By definition that means there's an inherent bias if your purpose is to parody a side.
Colbert is strongly democratic leaning, but he uses a lot of logic (albeit he simplifies too much) so I can appreciate him.
Yes, you are right, I used the work incorrectly. But what I'm saying (regardless of the satirical purpose), is that the shows present the facts in a typically unbiased manner, i.e using legitimate reports and documents though sometimes very out of context. Regardless of the dialogue that the hosts use, which aside from being entertaining, is usually pretty thoughtful (maybe a little less so with Colbert Report).
IMO, Bill Maher offers 1000x better commentary than any garbage on Fox. I don't agree with 90% of what he says, but he does at least know what he's talking about, and he's funny in a douchey liberal kind of way. The intelligence level of the conversations on his show completely blows the O'Reilly factor or Fox & Friends out of the water.
love maher
And I just had a Popsicle. But let you all know via an iPad. If only I had friends in the real world to send letters to.
Have to laugh when boomers blame the young for everything. They know they are still in charge, right? And that they raised us?
I agree. Thank goodness I can tune out the noise and live.
I can withstand Bill Maher even though he is annoying, but O'Reilly is just insane. I can't even get mad at that guy, he is just completely delusional. And he called Maher a "libertarian", so he must be crazy.
What about Squawkbox? Sure it has it's shortcomings like every other program out there but on the whole I think it's a decent program to have on in the background in the morning before work if you're interested in the topic/guest that day.
Can't say I agree with you here Andy... In fact you are making my point for me. Mika said afterward in her apology that she "didn't really know who he was..." It's not like it's very difficult to Google this guy and find out everything you need to know about him to prep for what should have been a cordial fluff and puff where you plug his tour and get some laughs.
Instead, these idiots figured they could just talk shit on him while he was presently in their company and that he wouldn't pick up on their blatant condescension.
Their sole role there was to plug his tour (that's the reason he was appearing on the show). I would be pissed off too if I was going on a show to get air time for a tour which is in part how I make my living, and instead of people taking my segment seriously, they acted as if they were above me.
Well he showed pretty clearly that he is much more intelligent, witty, and adept at thinking on his feet than they all were collectively. He has a show where he interviews people and discusses current affairs (albeit with a ludicrous bias for the sake of humor), but just assuming that you know more than him and that you can dismiss everything he does because of a character he portrays was a major oversight on their part and quite unprofessional.
He put them all in their place and mocked them right back by doing exactly what they do, which is just circle jerk and ask fluff questions designed to make everyone sound smart.
It was a brilliant indictment of everything that is wrong with financial news journalism and the majority of media journalists in general. The fact that it came from a comedian, who by the way did it in a very endearing and aloof way, without losing his cool as he would have been well within reason to do, shows how rare of a skill he possesses.
Additionally - you could totally tell how turned on Mika was during the entire segment. He put her in her place and you could tell that she was completely hanging on his every word... Charisma overload...
Sometimes I find Russell Brand to be a bit over the top and self aggrandizing (if even through the perpetuation of a character) but he definitely won me over in a major way through that bit.
I get what you're saying and it was certainly entertaining... My only point is that it's their job to be prepared for these segments and to know what they are getting into.
The fact that they were so smug and then proceeded to get owned was priceless. If you watch the segment all the way through you can tell that he was annoyed at their lack of professionalism for a while but delayed addressing it out of politeness until he couldn't take it anymore...
Haha, this.
This is spot on. Too many people have used technology as a way to escape reality. Brian from M&I once said 'don't spend your free time consuming non-actionable information', which I think can be a general rule of thumb to avoid technology abuse.
A dinner event I attended a few days ago was so awkwardly quiet. Most attendees were busy with their smartphones - they'd rather tweet pics of the menu/dishes on the internet than socializing with the actual people sitting next to them. This definitely was not 'meaningful connection' in my book.
That sounds like a good idea OP. I was reading the Forbes Celebrity 100 the other day and It made me think, "MEH!" I usually like Forbes, but where the hell did they come up with those rankings. I can't believe that they ranked Spielberg (#3) ahead of Woods, Brady, and LeBron James. Limbaugh (MEH!) ranks ahead of Kim K. and Emma Stone? Clearly some of these terribly MEH people who Forbes ranks so highly have goo name recognition, but I would rather eat a dead, rotten house raw and forgo a whole month of my beautification routine than spend a whole hour listening to Limbaugh rant and troll.
Yeah, it definitely gives the impression that they'd rather be somewhere else. Always gotta be looking to see if something better is going on...rude doesn't even begin to describe it.
When people focus on politicized issues, rather than economic issues and what media focus for ratings than you know you have a bunch of retards and pseudo intellectuals.
Gay marriage is seem to be top priority on the liberals agenda, as well. A nation of retards. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-great-disc…
How is focusing on liberal rights issues retarded?
Discussing civil rights issues like Gay Marriage isn't retarded, and I don't believe anyone ever said that. It's definitely important and something that will affect a lot of people, not to mention it's a basic issue of human rights.
What IS retarded is how incessantly the media, particularly left-leaning media, obsesses over the issue and the ongoing debate as if it was the ONLY THING HAPPENING in the country. I personally believe this is a result of the fact that discussing gay rights is very easy; it's very easy to push aside a fact-based debate (statistics, historical knowledge, etc) in favor of a completely emotion based one (I believe gay marriage is wrong/right because blah blah blah). When this happens it makes all the room for talking heads on talk shows to get in long-winded, endless, and ultimately pointless arguments where opposing viewpoints take the moral high ground of their own ideology and each side goes away feeling their right and the other is immoral. This kind of debate sells big with today's fast food generation and truly critical debates (unemployment, entitlement reform, this country's expensive foreign policy) get pushed to the wayside.
I completely agree Silvio; I wasn't asking you so much as the more abrasive commenter above. However important the economic issues are though, I think that in the media they tend to be just as emotional charged and skewed as any other topic.
I have to disagree with both of you because I'm against all marriage. Anyone who has time for it clearly is not working hard enough.
Didi you read the link I posted?
"THIS January, as President Obama began his second term, the Pew Research Center asked Americans to list their policy priorities for 2013. Huge majorities cited jobs and the economy; sizable majorities cited health care costs and entitlement reform; more modest majorities cited fighting poverty and reforming the tax code. Down at the bottom of the list, with less than 40 percent support in each case, were gun control, immigration and climate changeYet six months later, the public’s non-priorities look like the entirety of the White House’s second-term agenda. ".
I didn't say marriage should not be priority but got to open the eyes and smell the roses solving social problems before economical problems is retarded just removes responsibility out politicians to focus on the real problems when the economy is in the gutter, the real unemployment rate U6 is around 14%,. What they are focusing is not reality.
Ea aliquid consequatur voluptatum magnam et sunt. Iure dicta voluptates dolores perferendis minima.
Qui labore eos et doloremque quibusdam. Reprehenderit est neque rerum et. Et dolorum mollitia porro earum.
Quae provident velit expedita aliquam aut et. Perferendis expedita modi et sequi. Qui non nihil fugiat eos et autem suscipit. Ut debitis omnis quos blanditiis nemo qui laudantium. Nemo velit aut a.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Qui et consequatur et veniam id rerum. Est sint in atque ut quod. Distinctio quam officiis in ut vero sit est. Est porro repellat optio expedita et. At natus ea atque qui nulla.
Qui error corporis soluta culpa temporibus aut et. Cupiditate et iste minus laborum quos. Iure ad qui voluptatem tempora.
Est dolor sunt excepturi est impedit minima natus. Tempora dignissimos consequatur sapiente qui. Aut eum non ut corrupti. Sit consequatur praesentium distinctio assumenda soluta quia. Vitae rerum aut blanditiis quis id accusantium ut beatae. Consequatur ut est beatae qui. Illo fugiat doloribus quia cupiditate aut minima optio.
Aperiam iste non velit et nulla asperiores quibusdam nesciunt. Similique qui explicabo vero harum qui minima. Eius maxime ipsa pariatur facilis et non alias. Reprehenderit est quaerat ducimus saepe repellat autem ut. Est id quis autem non fuga sunt quisquam provident. Ex molestiae et voluptas eum. Voluptatibus est ut provident tempore.