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Living Room / Re: Internet celebrity, unusual inspiration, unconventional art... win!
« Last post by barney on December 22, 2010, 04:48 PM »Well-l-l ...
Perhaps not the best examples, but consider the rise to power of many of the world's despots. Benito Mussolini in Italy, Adolf Hitler in Germany ... both came into power on a ground-swell of quasi-approval by their respective populaces - is that a word? - although that support dissipated after their ascent. That whole process might have been circumvented had the Internet been active at that time (those times?). The folk that opposed them simply could not be heard.
We have in place today a massive public review system that has already affected the lives of a number of political aspirants, both positively and negatively. Now, that is not necessarily a good thing, in that something very valuable could be lost to us because of that public review when the public does not have the knowledge to effectively judge. That, however, seldom keeps folk from voicing their opinions, whether they are qualified to hold those opinions or not. Humanity tends, on the whole, to be judgmental. The sad truth is that humanity, on that same whole, is frequently unqualified to make the judgments they make.
On the whole, I'm not so certain that this compression is always advantageous. I cannot help but wonder how many great ideas may have been killed by it ... as you'll know if you do any gardening at all, some things just need time to grow.
On the plus side, there's Justin Bieber <shudder />. He has achieved, via the Web, a degree of fame that took earlier artists years to achieve. Not that Justin has not worked hard, but his predecessors had to work much harder, longer, to achieve the same degree of recognition. As an example, I recently heard a review on NPR (National Public Radio) of how Jimmy Hendrix gained his fame. It took years as a sideboy before he achieved recognition. Today, some aspiring artist can publish on YouTube and, as many have, achieve almost overnight recognition.
I have to wonder, though, whether this is a good thing, in large. These overnight successes may often circumvent the amount of work and experience most of us consider necessary to career stability. Along the musical line, Glen Campbell became a major singer, which led to several movie roles. But he spent years as a studio musician before gaining recognition. I question whether that recognition would have lasted as long as it did had he not had those previous years of experience.
Perhaps not the best examples, but consider the rise to power of many of the world's despots. Benito Mussolini in Italy, Adolf Hitler in Germany ... both came into power on a ground-swell of quasi-approval by their respective populaces - is that a word? - although that support dissipated after their ascent. That whole process might have been circumvented had the Internet been active at that time (those times?). The folk that opposed them simply could not be heard.
We have in place today a massive public review system that has already affected the lives of a number of political aspirants, both positively and negatively. Now, that is not necessarily a good thing, in that something very valuable could be lost to us because of that public review when the public does not have the knowledge to effectively judge. That, however, seldom keeps folk from voicing their opinions, whether they are qualified to hold those opinions or not. Humanity tends, on the whole, to be judgmental. The sad truth is that humanity, on that same whole, is frequently unqualified to make the judgments they make.
On the whole, I'm not so certain that this compression is always advantageous. I cannot help but wonder how many great ideas may have been killed by it ... as you'll know if you do any gardening at all, some things just need time to grow.
On the plus side, there's Justin Bieber <shudder />. He has achieved, via the Web, a degree of fame that took earlier artists years to achieve. Not that Justin has not worked hard, but his predecessors had to work much harder, longer, to achieve the same degree of recognition. As an example, I recently heard a review on NPR (National Public Radio) of how Jimmy Hendrix gained his fame. It took years as a sideboy before he achieved recognition. Today, some aspiring artist can publish on YouTube and, as many have, achieve almost overnight recognition.
I have to wonder, though, whether this is a good thing, in large. These overnight successes may often circumvent the amount of work and experience most of us consider necessary to career stability. Along the musical line, Glen Campbell became a major singer, which led to several movie roles. But he spent years as a studio musician before gaining recognition. I question whether that recognition would have lasted as long as it did had he not had those previous years of experience.
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- to have it again.
... it doesn't even come close 
.
is plain, and 
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. I wish Google had a toggle, dumbass/technical 
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. But she's only storing something like a hundred megabytes or so 
- but that seems to be pretty much in line with current practices.
.