[lbo-talk] the London looting is anti-politics for the Internet Age.

[// ravi]

On Aug 16, 2011, at 9:44 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
> 
> Terrible book. Carr  can't make a convincing argument. He rolls out some stats and studies but completely fails to make any connection between the findings and his argument. He then tries to use some sort of "literary" style argument, where he keeps quoting well-known authors such as Emerson, Thoreau, etc. as if this is supposed to convince anyone.
> 
> About the only thing he has to offer is the argument that he, himself, is no longer capable of sustained reading, unable to go to a cabin in the mountains and unplug without having withdrawal symptoms.
> 
> He never managed to convince me, as a reader perfectly capable of long sustained reading and also someone who's spends most of the day riding the Intertubes, of anything other than that Nicholas Carr, as an individual, suffers the problem he says an entire society suffers.
> 

The Thomas Friedman theorem:

The plural of anecdote is not data, but the universalisation of introspection will always make the NYT BestSeller list.

Thomas Friedman First lemma:

Introspection is the process of drawing unwarranted connections between disparate events, data, and observations based on pre-existing personal sentiments.

Proof left as an exercise to the reader,

	—ravi