by apodman » Sat Feb 16, 2008 6:49 pm
We are people, not trained monkeys. We express ourselves well and creatively in this Forum to each other. When we see a great APOD, or one of particular interest to a friend, or one of great general interest, we express ourselves directly to our friends and say in our own words, "hey, look at this." We are individuals who create our own rules of expression as we go, and we like it that way.
Now for the "man against the machine" lecture, but it's not the machine I view here with jaundiced eye, it's those who would lead their own kind into subservience to the machine and to (benign?) interests with commercial potential that attach themselves to the machine.
They tell me if I want to express myself I should do it on YouTube. If I am a throwback with no video to share, I must at least express myself on MySpace. Now if I want to recommend an APOD, I should become that trained monkey and click on the easy link with the cool name, reducing my individual expression to one more click on the heap and becoming an unpaid micro-cog in somebody's incipient on-line empire. I guess I'm just not modern, because that strikes me as something other than forward progress. Sure you can click and express too, but this whole pitch is aimed at your lazy bone and it will surely degrade someone to monkey status before long - don't let this tragedy happen to you!
We are people, not trained monkeys. We express ourselves well and creatively in this Forum to each other. When we see a great APOD, or one of particular interest to a friend, or one of great general interest, we express ourselves directly to our friends and say in our own words, "hey, look at this." We are individuals who create our own rules of expression as we go, and we like it that way.
Now for the "man against the machine" lecture, but it's not the machine I view here with jaundiced eye, it's those who would lead their own kind into subservience to the machine and to (benign?) interests with commercial potential that attach themselves to the machine.
They tell me if I want to express myself I should do it on YouTube. If I am a throwback with no video to share, I must at least express myself on MySpace. Now if I want to recommend an APOD, I should become that trained monkey and click on the easy link with the cool name, reducing my individual expression to one more click on the heap and becoming an unpaid micro-cog in somebody's incipient on-line empire. I guess I'm just not modern, because that strikes me as something other than forward progress. Sure you can click and express too, but this whole pitch is aimed at your lazy bone and it will surely degrade someone to monkey status before long - don't let this tragedy happen to you!