Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Perspective

So after letting it languish for quite a while Google's finally announced that Reader is going away. Then I read this passage in Robert Anton Wilson's The New Inquisition (1986):
For instance, most of us are annoyed frequently by the daily newspaper. "News" or alleged news that we don't want to read gets printed; heathenish and heretical opinions appear on the letters page, and sometimes in the columnists; politicians (of the opposite camp, of course) tell the most outrageous lies, which also get printed. With modern computer technology, all of this can soon be avoided. Just fill out a simple questionnaire and mail it in. The computer will print a slightly different version of that day's paper for each reader, and your Personalized copy will come to you in the morning containing absolutely nothing but what you want to know. After a year, or maybe five years, you will have forgotten entirely all the "alien" and uncomfortable signals that once got through to you and caused you distress.
A lot to think about.