Kaufman links e-book trend to bookburning, Nazis

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Kaufman's Law (derivatives; Kaufmaned, Kaufmanning) - when an obviously uninformed and technophobic poster to an internet forum continues to post, believing that what they say is the truth and that nobody but they are privvy to that truth (as opposed to a troll, who purposefully posts remarks with no belief in them).

ohhhh excellent! do we see a new urban dictionary entry coming up?

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Alan Kaufman

Hi-tech does not increase your brain capacity: it merely exercizes your thumbs.

No one ever claimed it did.

Originally Posted by Alan Kaufman

In fact, I sense from many of the responses that very few among you have bothered even to read in full or at all either of my essays but simply respond to each other's postings and vent with your thumbs instead of your minds.

Your responses, in fact, are troublingly similar, as though formed from the same pool of 50 or so monosyllabic words. This is, as I understand it, endemic to the level of discourse that occurs in hi-tech: a perpetual public convocation of spewing illiterates.

Welcome to the human condition, where most are small minded regardless of the available education and possibility.

Originally Posted by Alan Kaufman

So, I'd like to extend the following invite to any on this site. Lets thumbwrestle for three shirtless private rounds in an alley of my choice, and see who's left victorious: my 6'2”, 200 pound, tattooed, 57 year old military veteran Bronx-born poetry writing streetfighting ass or your nerdy and ignorant Silicon Folly digitized selves.

If defeated, I'll French with a Kindle but if you go down, you must not only toss your device but read in full classics that I'll list, ranging from Marcus Aurelius, Sophocles, Homer and the Old Testament to Flaubert, Tolstoy, Babel, Stendahl, Proust and George Eliot, to name but a few.

I gladly accept your offer. I'm a 6'3", 260lb corn fed, farm fresh, Missouri mule who will toss you around like a hay bale in a barn. However, I do not believe you have the testicular fortitude to actually back up your statements with action. I do not trust you any further to do any more than run your mouth, than your testes have dropped. Assuming they have at all.

By the way, I tend to stick to, and ultimately prefer the classics.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

[I]I gladly accept your offer. I'm a 6'3", 260lb corn fed, farm fresh, Missouri mule who will toss you around like a hay bale in a barn. However, I do not believe you have the testicular fortitude to actually back up your statements with action. I do not trust you any further to do any more than run your mouth, than your testes have dropped. Assuming they have at all.

hey! I get first dibs on that!

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

hey! I get first dibs on that!

That wasn't me! I'm about half that in both height and weight, and I've never been cornfed in my life

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Alan Kaufman

STATEMENT:

Hi-tech does not increase your brain capacity: it merely exercizes your thumbs. You cannot read without exercising your brain. You cannot learn computer skills without exercising your brain.

Not a few of you walk around with highly developed thumbs jammed deep into your own eye, like overweaned Oedipus Rex's, though lacking the nerve of that tragic king to pluck out your own eyes in order to better see the truth.

For you are merch-juggled children breastfed on marketing strategies hatched before you were born and are so fully inculcated with h-tech propoganda that it is safe to say that with few exceptions virtually your entire generation haven't the capacity to interrogate your own experience vis a vis the addictive, soul-numbing machines that have become mocking substitutes for your human experience. This is where you fail. You paint our entire membership with one brush........the young. Many of us are, shall we say, mature. We remember, thru stories passed down, the Great Depression, WWII,and, God forbid, the Nazi. Our fathers walked thru those camps, and never forgot, and made sure we didn't. We've seen the films, the ovens, the stacked corpses. Thats why your original post is so shameful.

Not a single one of you on Mobile Read, in your responses to my point, demonstrate a capacity to question the Matrix in which you float: a mental and spiritual prison of the most engulfing social conditioning ever foisted by private enterprise upon a peer group of human beings. Excuse me again. Bullcrap.

In this regard, you are no different than the children of any emergent totalitarian society, who cannot imagine a world without Big Brother. And it is chiefly that which I find so heartbreaking about the impact of hi-tech: not the machines per se but what the machines have made of you. My country may be leaning towards that way........but not because of machines. Because of the majority of those who feel the government should redistribute the wealth, and provide for their needs under the guise of "fairness for all"

In fact, I sense from many of the responses that very few among you have bothered even to read in full or at all either of my essays but simply respond to each other's postings and vent with your thumbs instead of your minds. I responded to your postings. You chose to ignore me. Which in no way upset me.

Your responses, in fact, are troublingly similar, as though formed from the same pool of 50 or so monosyllabic words. This is, as I understand it, endemic to the level of discourse that occurs in hi-tech: a perpetual public convocation of spewing illiterates. Really?

It appears that my essay has inspired a generational backlash among many of you, who see this as a face-off between an old fart white book-worshipping Luddite (how you portray me) and mainly young, progressive, enlightened and exciting hi-techers (how many, if not all of you, regard yourselves). Stop coloring all of us as "young!" This puts you in the same camp as those who dismiss you without trying to understand what you write.

So, I'd like to extend the following invite to any on this site. Lets thumbwrestle for three shirtless private rounds in an alley of my choice, and see who's left victorious: my 6'2”, 200 pound, tattooed, 57 year old military veteran Bronx-born poetry writing streetfighting ass or your nerdy and ignorant Silicon Folly digitized selves. Oh, nice. I'm 5'4, female and 61 (no one gets my weight!) Why would I want to engage inany physical contest? How about this........actually sit down with someone who understands ebooks and computers and try to find a common ground. Again......we don't hate books. We don't read just the 'best sellers'. More people are exposed to the classics than ever before because they are out there FREE.

If defeated, I'll French with a Kindle Okay, thats just gross. You still aren't understanding what you are saying. A Kindle is simply a device to have access to just about any book out there. Why would you french a book? but if you go down, you must not only toss your device but read in full classics that I'll list, ranging from Marcus Aurelius, Sophocles, Homer and the Old Testament to Flaubert, Tolstoy, Babel, Stendahl, Proust and George Eliot, to name but a few. Sounds a little lopsided, eh?

And yes, there will be a test.

Why do I feel I've just wasted a whole bunch of my time answering here?

[Kali Yuga]

Y'know, I was thinking the other day about how many different social changes have been branded as Pure Evil that will destroy Life As We Know It during my lifetime. At the risk of dating myself and/or superbly derailing the thread, here goes....

International communism and socialism • Wall Street and unregulated/unfettered capitalism • inflation • tight monetary policies • the deficit • The WTO and IMF • Anti-WTO and anti-WTF protestors • monopolies • monocultures • religious cults • Mormons • Catholics • Islamic extremists • atheists • Hippies • radical Leftists (e.g. Weather Underground) • radical Rightists (e.g. Timothy McVeigh, hate groups, armed militias) • totalitarianism • anarchism • "Big Government" • "Women's Lib" and feminism • gay rights / gay marriage • cancer • "Big Pharma" • genetically modified food • food shortages • "Peak Oil" and other Malthusian nightmares • global warming • economic catastrophe due to environmental regulations • nuclear power plants • weapons of mass destruction • illegal immigrants • the Puerto Ricans (a big "threat" in the 50s) • the Mexicans • the Japanese (in particular Japanese imports) • cheap Chinese goods • WalMart • video games • disco • rock & roll • punk rock • "gangsta" rap • drugs • the War on Drugs • contemporary art • burning the flag

And now, on top of all that, now I have to be afraid of the Internet and ebooks, because Amazon and Barnes & Noble are run by Nazis. That's just swell.




P.S. -- a few *cough* paper books to add to your reading list, Mr Kaufman, if you are so inclined....

Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives

The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn't--and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger

Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur (to remind you that genocide has no logical connection to technology)

And if you want to read theories on how the mechanisms of Control existed and functioned long before the recent technological innovations, go read some Foucault (especially History of Sexuality Vol 1).

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Why do I feel I've just wasted a whole bunch of my time answering here?

You probably have (as have I). Then again, isn't wasting time the whole raison d'être of the Internets?

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Alan Kaufman

So, I'd like to extend the following invite to any on this site. Lets thumbwrestle for three shirtless private rounds in an alley of my choice, and see who's left victorious: my 6'2”, 200 pound, tattooed, 57 year old military veteran Bronx-born poetry writing streetfighting ass or your nerdy and ignorant Silicon Folly digitized selves.

Starting out by casting Nazi aspersions on anyone who chooses a way to read books that you dislike, despite them not seeking to restrict other people's freedom of choice and no moving into internet tough guy mode, its almost like you have been given a script to follow on how to troll people on the internet.

If defeated, I'll French with a Kindle but if you go down, you must not only toss your device but read in full classics that I'll list, ranging from Marcus Aurelius, Sophocles, Homer and the Old Testament to Flaubert, Tolstoy, Babel, Stendahl, Proust and George Eliot, to name but a few.

I wonder if you realise the irony, by far the easiest way for anyone to read your chosen list would be with an ebook reader since such classic works are far more readily available that way than they would be in a local bookstore and indeed some of them are probably already on plenty of the ebook readers of MR forum members.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

You probably have (as have I). Then again, isn't wasting time the whole raison d'être of the Internets?

Perhaps, if used that way.

However, what I've learned from this site and the members thereof..........is priceless.

I've learned about cultural differences, both good and bad, from real people, in real time, things I would have never learned from reading a book based on one persons opinion.

I've learned computer skills, from the most patient of people....(thank you, Leep, and others who have helped)

I"ve learned to use my thinking skills, such as they are, in order to post in threads that interest me.

And........I've improved my typing skills!

[Lirael]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

And........I've improved my typing skills!

*gasp* How could you possibly bow to the technological demands of our evil communazi overlords?! Typing is the work of the devil, and the only true way to express the written word is with tablet and stylus! Clearly the downfall of society is imminent! Run for the hills, everyone! Go go go!

:P

Seriously, though. I use ebooks because carrying a heavy bag of paper books everywhere injures my back, and I have no room in which to store pbooks, anyways. If staying healthy and keeping a reasonable home is wrong, I don't want to be right....

As for Mr. Kaufman, I hadn't heard of him before now, but I gotta say, as first impressions go, this one was a doozy.

[Sparrow]

"Children who use technology are 'better writers'"

"Our research suggests a strong correlation between kids using technology and wider patterns of reading and writing," Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, told BBC News.
"Engagement with online technology drives their enthusiasm for writing short stories, letters, song lyrics or diaries."

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Why do I feel I've just wasted a whole bunch of my time answering here?

The purpose of arguing with trolls (or maybe kaufmans, who are sincere about their insulting and destructive ranting), isn't to educate the trolls. It's to organize your own thoughts about the topic, to find explanations for those who *are* interested in real answers, and occasionally, to entertain the lurkers.

You don't talk to the trolls as much as through them, toward people who are actually paying attention.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

The purpose of arguing with trolls (or maybe kaufmans, who are sincere about their insulting and destructive ranting), isn't to educate the trolls. It's to organize your own thoughts about the topic, to find explanations for those who *are* interested in real answers, and occasionally, to entertain the lurkers.

You don't talk to the trolls as much as through them, toward people who are actually paying attention.

Very well stated.. But I was also truly trying to talk to this particular poster......

[khalleron]

May we please let this thread die? Pretty please with sugar on top?

[meraxes]

Originally Posted by khalleron

May we please let this thread die? Pretty please with sugar on top?

Why do you care one way or the other? Don't read it if you don't like it.