Concept Vlog - The Information Bomb & Virilio (Exclusive)

"...it is the machine which possesses skill and strength in place of the worker, is itself the virtuoso, with a soul of its own in the mechanical laws acting through it; and it consumes coal, oil etc.,...just as a worker consumes food, to keep up its perpetual motion. The worker's activity, reduced to a mere abstraction of activity, is determined and regulated on all sides by the movement of the machinery, and not the opposite. The science which compels the inanimate limbs of the machinery, by their construction, to act purposefully, as an automaton, does not exist in the worker's consciousness, but rather acts upon him through the machine as an alien power, as the power of the machine itself." - Marx, Grundrisse

I am reminded of Marshall McLuhan in two ways, 1. The untimely-ness of McLuhan and Virilio. Virilio writing about speed with planes, trains, and automobiles while McLuhan wrote about electric media with only TV, phones, radio, lightbulbs, the etc. And the thinking of both seems well, if not better suited, to our current situation in light of the internet. 2. 15:00 You talk about how therapeutic using our hands in creative ways offline (off the internet and smartphones) can be. I'm reminded of McLuhan's notion of media ecology. In an interview in the 70s, he said using different types of media than electric media can inoculate us to the negative effects of electric media. He said there might be a way of organizing our media, our media ecology, such that media buttress each other instead of detracting and corroding the positive effects. For example, he points out that TV seems to aid in language learning (the development of our linguistic medium/media) and radio seems to aid in reading. So I think it's interesting that you just forming a media ecology with our smartphone through other modes of extending our hands and our eyes. Edit: you mention McLuhan lol. Should have waited to post

Echoes from Elsewhere