I think most slide decks are pretty useless but this quote was striking: > "PowerPoint's celebrated ease and efficiency actually mask a profoundly disturbing b

I think most slide decks are pretty useless but this quote was striking: > "PowerPoint's celebrated ease and efficiency actually mask a profoundly disturbing but little-understood transformation in human communication. The slides, bulleted lists, and flashy graphics we all now take for granted [have] promoted a new, slippery 'grammar,' where faulty causality, sloppy logic, decontextualized data, and seductive showmanship have replaced the traditional tools of persuasion and argument [resulting in] the corruption of language [and] the dumbing-down of society." Pulling this quote may not have been a strong choice. It requires the reader to accept the premises that language is being "corrupted" and that society is being "dumb[ed] down" in order to buy into the argument that PowerPoint is bad. Yes, PowerPoint is bad. No, I don't buy into the notion that society's changes today are without precedent - people have always blamed new technologies for corrupting language and making society dumber. > [Writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. - Socrates, arguing against reading and writing