Comments on: Andrew Keen, the Web's Darth Vader?

Author of upcoming book The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture and assaulting our Economy, Keen is emerging as the one of the chief critics of new media.

[pbg3445]

And we should listen to him--why?

Is he a professional journalist?

[coryschulz]

I agree.. This guys is an idoit...

And I'm sure the only people that will read his book are his parents and friends. The only people that will benefit from his book is no one. Infact, I think his book will even do more damage to himself than good.

The "American Culture" has always been a growing, changing, and merging culture. It is a mix of a variety of people from different geographical locations. And we are staying consistent with that model by adopting the internet and all of the people on it.

I see 250 Million people broadcasting themselves a good thing. It helps ensure our ability of freedom of speech. Most people will still read the news and get information through more reliable sources. And things like Wikipedia help us educate ourselves.

People like him are just living in fear of these beautiful things. They're trying to cling to something that was comfortable at one point in time, but is slowly disappearing and being replaced by newer technologies. People like him have been around forever and release a book everytime something new happens. They point and say "this is going to ruin us!" and they're always wrong. Uncreative Idoits....

[MadKiwi]

Because he's right

The internet is riff with ill-formed, often uneducated and even out-right willful mis-information and what's more people believe it. It's an extension of the dumbing down that can see on television and in pulp media taken to the nth degree and now self inflicted by the dummies.

[davebenham]

We should listen to him because he has some good points

It is hard to deny Keen has some excellent points.

For example, look at Wikipedia. Most of the time it is great, but every now and then, you get some teenage kid posing as a Phd posting. How many other 'experts' are lurking out there? Call me old school, but I think Encyclopedia Britannica is a bit more credible.

[coryschulz]

But we should not abadon it!

If we look at something like Wikipedia and say "this is unreliable crap" and we stop investing in it, then it will surely fail. If we look at it and say "this thing has potential!" than we will continue investing it in and over time Wikipedia will develop methods to make its information more reliable. That's the beauty of it, it's a living thing. It's always developing and growing and restructuring and we all have the power to influence this.

I agree that I would like to see Wikipedia develop some type of system that confirms the information that gets posted is more accurate. But even Encyclopedia Britannica was rated at 98% accurate. Nothing is perfect. But sometimes you trade quality for quantity. Wikipedia will always have a lot more information on it because there are so many people people writing for it. Private Encyclopedias rely on funding and sales. They are more limited in many ways. Wikipedia is free, and a lot of the more popular articles are probably just as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica.

Overall, I think Encyclopedia Britannica is maybe a little more accurate, but still not as strong as Wikipedia and everything it has to offer our species.

[ghostofitpast]

Making Andrew's point in the title line

In the spirit of Andrew's inclinations for the polemic, let me lead with the assertion that comparing him to Darth Vader reflects a cultural framework that gets more information from the movies than from the bookstore. If Andrew is "the Web's X," then the best value for X is Christopher Lasch. Since Lasch's book was never made into a movie, let me introduce him as the author of THE CULTURE OF NARCISSISM: AMERICAN LIFE IN AN AGE OF DIMINISHING EXPECTATIONS. This book was published in 1978, and it definitely deserves reflection in the world the Internet has made. To drawn on the text of Greg's post, if what Andrew has to say about "MySpace, YouTube, citizen journalism, the wisdom of crowds and the opinions of teenagers" is NOT about "diminishing expectations," I can't imagine what would be!

[mr_kurt]

The best way to look wise

Wiliam Butler Yeats said the same thing in a poem, quite some
time ago.

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

It is always easiest to seem wise by being negative in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Surely, to say such a silly
thing with a straight face, he must have some insight! But of
course that isn't so. He is really just as silly as he sounds.