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It's very interesting to see H. G. Wells being so optimistic about the future, merely a decade after WWI and the atrocities therein (does anyone know if he foug

by dvt 6y ago

It's very interesting to see H. G. Wells being so optimistic about the future, merely a decade after WWI and the atrocities therein (does anyone know if he fought in the Great War?): > And what this film anticipates is not unemployment, but drudge employment, which is precisely what is passing away. Its fabricators have not even realized that the machine ousts the drudge. [...] 'Efficiency' means large-scale productions, machinery as fully developed as possible, and high wages. Of course, he ended up being wrong and Metropolis (along with Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times) ended up being eerily right. Modern life is a drudge. People don't toil in the fields, but they waste away in office buildings. The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> Modern life is a drudge. People don't toil in the fields, but they waste away in office buildings. The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance. As Monty Python says, “Always look on the bright side of life!”
coldtea 6y ago
>And what this film anticipates is not unemployment, but drudge employment, which is precisely what is passing away That didn't age well... https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp/0141983477 https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp...
shakna 6y ago
> does anyone know if he fought in the Great War? I don't believe he did, though he certainly saw it up close and personal. Wells wrote extensively during WWI, publishing many articles and pieces about what he called a necessary evil, as well as writing condolence letters to soldiers. To write "War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War", he was invited to tour the French and Italian fronts, but initially resisted the idea (before finally relenting): > For my own part I did not want to go. I evaded a suggestion that I should go in 1915. I travel badly, I spread French and Italian with incredible atrocity, and am extreme Pacifist. I hate soldiering. And also I did not want to write anything "under instruction"
ekianjo 6y ago
> The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance. And yet we have the highest rates of literacy ever, and Wikipedia is one the most visited sites ever: Amusing how someone can make blanket claims without checking the data. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/literate-and-illiterate-world-population https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/literate-and-illiterate-w... Let's not proliferate ignorance further.
- dvt 6y ago
  How you make the leap from "ignorance" to "illiteracy" -- especially when I mention the internet (where literacy would be a prerequisite) seems disingenuous. There's a lot of evidence showing that internet "siloing" exacerbates phenomena like the Dunning–Kruger effect[1][2]. I know this is a controversial opinion (especially here on HN), but I don't think Wikipedia is a net positive for society. It democratizes knowledge in the worst possible way and its bias (which ranges from the far left, to the far right -- although more often the former -- depending on the article) is obvious to anyone with a discerning eye. There's a reason you can't cite Wikipedia in college (or heck, even high school) papers. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-age-of-ignorance_b_11666646 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-age-of-ignorance_b_116666... [2] https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/the-internet-isnt-making-us-dumber-its-making-us-more-meta-ignorant.html https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/the-internet-isnt-making-us-d...
  - disconcision 6y ago
    there's a reason, but bias isn't it, afaict
    - caf 6y ago
      Yes, for those old enough to remember a time when research for a school project required hitting the library stacks, encyclopedias were never acceptable sources after about grade 6.
Veen 6y ago
> does anyone know if he fought in the Great War He was too old to fight in WW1. He was born in 1866, so he was 48 when the war started. He did work at Wellington House (the War Propaganda Bureau) towards the end of the war, though.

by dvt 6y ago

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

> Modern life is a drudge. People don't toil in the fields, but they waste away in office buildings. The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance. As Monty Python says, “Always look on the bright side of life!”

coldtea 6y ago

>And what this film anticipates is not unemployment, but drudge employment, which is precisely what is passing away That didn't age well... https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp/0141983477 https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp...

shakna 6y ago

> does anyone know if he fought in the Great War? I don't believe he did, though he certainly saw it up close and personal. Wells wrote extensively during WWI, publishing many articles and pieces about what he called a necessary evil, as well as writing condolence letters to soldiers. To write "War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War", he was invited to tour the French and Italian fronts, but initially resisted the idea (before finally relenting): > For my own part I did not want to go. I evaded a suggestion that I should go in 1915. I travel badly, I spread French and Italian with incredible atrocity, and am extreme Pacifist. I hate soldiering. And also I did not want to write anything "under instruction"

ekianjo 6y ago

> The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance. And yet we have the highest rates of literacy ever, and Wikipedia is one the most visited sites ever: Amusing how someone can make blanket claims without checking the data. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/literate-and-illiterate-world-population https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/literate-and-illiterate-w... Let's not proliferate ignorance further.

dvt 6y ago
How you make the leap from "ignorance" to "illiteracy" -- especially when I mention the internet (where literacy would be a prerequisite) seems disingenuous. There's a lot of evidence showing that internet "siloing" exacerbates phenomena like the Dunning–Kruger effect[1][2]. I know this is a controversial opinion (especially here on HN), but I don't think Wikipedia is a net positive for society. It democratizes knowledge in the worst possible way and its bias (which ranges from the far left, to the far right -- although more often the former -- depending on the article) is obvious to anyone with a discerning eye. There's a reason you can't cite Wikipedia in college (or heck, even high school) papers. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-age-of-ignorance_b_11666646 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-age-of-ignorance_b_116666... [2] https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/the-internet-isnt-making-us-dumber-its-making-us-more-meta-ignorant.html https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/the-internet-isnt-making-us-d...
- disconcision 6y ago
  there's a reason, but bias isn't it, afaict
  - caf 6y ago
    Yes, for those old enough to remember a time when research for a school project required hitting the library stacks, encyclopedias were never acceptable sources after about grade 6.

Veen 6y ago

> does anyone know if he fought in the Great War He was too old to fight in WW1. He was born in 1866, so he was 48 when the war started. He did work at Wellington House (the War Propaganda Bureau) towards the end of the war, though.