Comments on: McLuhan Fer Ya

By: Robbo

Robbo — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:39:00 +0000

I was always struck by McLuhan's terribly prescient words from his "Understanding Media" back in 1964, where he spoke of our technologies as being extensions of ourselves and how electronic tech was an extension of our nervous systems:

"Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don’t really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth’s atmosphere to a company as a monopoly."

Wise words from over 40 years ago. I hope we're ready to listen.

cheers

By: michele

michele — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 03:08:00 +0000

hi nora – hope you’re well.

hmmm.. i’ve wondered about the extensions of ourselves idea since reading about technologies as interfaces with experience (http://transition.turbulence.org/blog/2007/10/22/prosthetic-technologies-as-interfaces/).
thinking about it this way creates a means to engage, and really engage, with the technology as one part of a greater context, flipping a switch to map the larger ecosystem.

By: Nora

Nora — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:07:00 +0000

Hmm. Thanks! I will look into it….

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:10:00 +0000

Hi Nora... your FeedBurner link has been busted for a few days....

http://crispermachine.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default points to http://feeds.feedburner.com/Crisper which is returning an error.

By: quantum retrocausality

quantum retrocausality — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:48:00 +0000

http://mycanvassesaresurrealist.blogspot.com/