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You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. This is mostly an archive of over a decade of blogging and other writing. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is at my BrXnd marketing x AI newsletter and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.

February, 2012

Accepting the Uncomfortable

Marshall McLuhan's approach to accepting uncomfortable technological trends.
Was just reading through some old Instapaper stuff and ran across this post celebrating what would have been Marshall McLuhan's 100th birthday. It includes an excerpt of an interview McLuhan did with Playboy and this excellent explanation of McLuhan's approach:
I’m not advocating anything; I’m merely probing and predicting trends. Even if I opposed them or thought them disastrous, I couldn’t stop them, so why waste my time lamenting? As Carlyle said of author Margaret Fuller after she remarked, “I accept the Universe”: “She’d better.” I see no possibility of a worldwide Luddite rebellion that will smash all machinery to bits, so we might as well sit back and see what is happening and what will happen to us in a cybernetic world. Resenting a new technology will not halt its progress.
I've written about this in the past, but I think one of the things that amazes me most about McLuhan was his ability to separate himself so well. The things he said that people struggle with most (like content doesn't matter as much as the medium) they struggle with because it makes them uncomfortable as content creators (I'm speaking from personal experience here). Even reading what he said above makes me feel a bit uncomfortable as it feels like one shouldn't just accept things ... But who am I to say?
February 29, 2012
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Noah Brier | Thanks for reading. | Don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk.