“As Congress returns from summer recess to a plate heaped with work — President Trump added a gooey serving of immigration reform Tuesday on top of the debt ceiling, the budget, hurricane relief and tax reform — another of America’s key institutions is marking 10 years that shook the world,” David Von Drehle writes for The Washington Post. “When Apple unveiled its first smartphone in 2007, the company sparked a communications revolution likely to be as transformative as Gutenberg’s. It’s the nature of such seismic change to shake the institutions of culture and society to the ground.”
“The explosive essence of the printing press was its ability to transmit information widely across space and time. Laypeople could own and read their own Bibles, and the result was the Reformation. Scientists could record their observations to share with other scientists, and inventors their innovations with other inventors, and the results were the Scientific and Industrial revolutions,” Von Drehle writes. “If all of those changes could flow from oily ink on slugs of alloy, what earthquakes will follow from a technology that gives to nearly every human being the tools of worldwide mass communication? I find the question frankly mind-boggling.”
“We saw last year that the power of the smartphone is vaporizing these functions. Donald Trump captured the Republican ballot line even though he had no appreciable connection to the Republican Party. Nothing like it had ever happened to an American political party,” Von Drehle writes. “Moreover, it’s highly uncertain how much compromise is possible in this new age of direct connectivity. Any Democrat who votes for legislation that frees McConnell from a jam and gives the president an occasion to brag is likely to face a storm of Internet opposition.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Certainly, with the Mac, iPhone, and iPad and the myriad shiteous clones they spawned (Windows PCs, Android phones and tablets), Steve Jobs did more than anybody to deliver the power of personal computing to the masses and therefore enable the free exchange of information by taking the near-total control out of the hands of the traditional gatekeepers – who, by the way, have long been biased and partisan, if not downright corrupt – and into the hands of individuals. So, yes, Steve Jobs helped give rise to modern tools that allow some political candidates to go over the top of the usual controllers (newspapers, television, etc.) and directly to the people.
Today, as Americans assemble to protest our economic plight and the politicians’ fealty to powerful corporate interests, they access unfiltered information and communicate freely with each other through the internet and social networks that could not exist but for the democratization of computer technology pioneered by Steve Jobs. — Harvey Rosenfield, October 5, 2011
We agree that, in the absence of a supermajority in Congress, U.S. politicians will need to stiffen their backbones – or resign themselves to being short-term citizen representatives instead of career politicians – in order to get anything accomplished in a bipartisan manner in today’s climate with Twitter, instant snap polls, astroturfing firms, etc. immediately jumping to congratulate or castigate them for their votes.
“We live in an information economy, but I don’t believe we live in an information society. People are thinking less than they used to. It’s primarily because of television. When you’re young, you look at television and think, “Why is the television programming so bad? Why are television shows so demeaning, so poor?” The first thought that occurs to you is: Well, there is a conspiracy: the networks that are controlling this are feeding us this slop because its cheap to produce, and to try and dumb us down, because of this because of that. I thought it was a giant conspiracy to rob the American populace of their mind if not their soul. But then I found out the truth, which is far more depressing, which is the networks give people precisely what they want. The truth of the matter, if you study it in any depth, is that networks absolutely want to give people what they want so that they will watch the shows. If people wanted something different, they would get it.
The reason people want this stuff is, they come home from a long day, they have dinner with their kids and they’re fighting, and they get them to bed, and they just wanna turn on the television and turn off their brain for half an hour, and that’s what they get. I must admit I don’t watch much TV, but I do that every once in a while, after a long hard day I will turn on the TV for half an hour, and it really does turn your brain off.
That’s far more depressing than a conspiracy. Conspiracies are much more fun! Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth. The vast majority of the public are pretty mindless most of the time. People are reading less and they’re certainly thinking less.”
Excerpt from: “Steve Jobs: The Unauthorized Autobiography”
“…People are reading less and they’re certainly thinking less.”
and that, in a nutshell, is how The Muslim Usurper was elected.
Fake news!
Did a Muslim bitch slap ya once?
They took his jaaab!
Actually botvinnik is angry that America is fast becoming no longer white. He suffers from “Fear of a Black Planet”
Got rid of my TV long ago.
Hmm.. Do you think that part of the “I cracked TV” was to create more ‘intelligent’ programming? If so, someone give a hint to the guys that thought Planet of the Apps and Carpool Karaoke were good ideas for exclusive content.
Thank you very much, Steve!
#MAGA
Define how you measure greatness.
That’s also like how IBM’s technology helped facilitate Nazi genocide through generation and tabulation of punch cards based upon national census data.
Tools to empower, and any tool can be used for good and evil.
Total. Frigging. Click. Bait.
It’s all “click bait” on one level or another, genius.
The reason Trump won was because the Hilderbeast was the most dishonest and corrupt candidate to ever run for the Presidency. He could not have won without the support of Democrats that couldn’t stomach her BS.
Similar to Reagan/Carter in ’80.
Exactly …
of course, CIA George promptly screwed-up that voting bloc.
Hillary was a poor candidate and likely her own worst enemy in the 2016 election. But the “…most dishonest and corrupt candidate to ever run for the Presidency”?? Have you studied history? Don’t weaken your mind and your arguments with unfounded hyperbole.
Most corrupt, at least in my lifetime, was Lyndon Baines Johnson.
monster extraordinaire.
Fake news!
Nope. Racism pure and simple combined with Russian propaganda to sway the weak minded.
Correct.
Hillary indeed is the most corrupt politician ever to run for president. Something she learned from her husband the second most corrupt politician to run for president.
All in the family …
IF anyone is to blame, then the blame falls on the politicians in Washington that spend more energy making life better for themselves than for the people of the country.
So no blame goes to assholes like first whatever and his russian buddy botfück who keep voting the corruption into office time after time?
There dorks keep pasting lies & tell everyone that only they and their hero cheeto will MAGA, whatever the fuck they think that is supposed to mean. And they wrap themselves in the constitution and the flag. But these fucking idiots in the usa are too stupid to push for a fiscally responsible party, term limits, a balanced budget amendment, or ungerrymandered districting. The problem with the swamp is that idiots in america keep filling it with corrupt officials. And now an incompetent executive who wouldn’t know a thing about FEMA if his fucking golf course wasn’t in line to be underwater this weekend.
Exactly right …
This is the stretchiest article ever written.
Stupid article. It doesn’t bother to justify its own headline. The article contains NO further mention of Steve Jobs.
Try again!