[PEN-L:9701] Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill McKibben

["W. Kiernan" <WKiernan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

frances bolton wrote:
>
> Lou writes:
>
> > Rod Hay wrote:
> > >
> > > Other than calling each other idiots, I can't figure out what
> > > this debate is about.
> >
> > It is about the relevance of Marxism to precapitalist societies.

Wasn't it about the relevance, not of Marxism, but of technology,
specifically Internet communications, to precapitalist societies?  I
didn't know the U.S. government had invaded Cambodia for three months
after the troops went in.  How long would a twenty-thousand troop ground
invasion remain a secret these days?

> There is also the question of whether, as Langdon Winner put it,
> artifacts have politics. Unfortunately Lou was unwilling to have
> that conversation.  Too bad, it's something we've fruitfully
> discussed in the past. I thought then, and I continue to think,
> that Lou would benefit from reading some critics of technology who
> are more sophisticated than the poppish Mr. Mander.

Who do you suggest is a good critic of technology I should read, rather
than Manders?  You're right about him, by the time I got through reading
his diatribe against TV, bad as I hate TV, I was almost ready to plug in
my own TV set again.

Also do either of you subscribe to that "artifacts have politics"
business?  I've got to admit a bullet has got politics.

Yours WDK - WKiernan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx