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thanatos519onMay 13, 2021

Maybe 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' by Neil Postman will help you fathom it; here's the forward:

https://www.tau.ac.il/education/muse/maslool/boidem/170forew...

JtsummersonAug 15, 2021

If this article piqued your interest but you want something a bit more detailed, I'd recommend Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Good book, a bit one-sided at times, but very interesting in its analysis of the implications of TV on culture. Much of what he describes in the latter chapters seems even more applicable in the age of Twitter and Snapchat.

ninjinonJune 13, 2021

The man wrote and recorded an album, “Amused to Death” [1] (inspired by Postman’s book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” [2]), which contains some very pointed criticism of mass media in the 80s and 90s. Is Zuckerberg so out of touch with Waters’ work that he could not see this coming? Not only that, but Waters has been and remains very active politically in the fairly radical left. I mean, with lyrics such as these:

    We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told, bought and sold
It was the greatest show on Earth
But then it was over
We oohed and ahhed
We drove our racing cars
We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen eyed lookout spied a flickering light
(Our last hurrah)
Our last hurrah
And when they found our shadows
Grouped ’round the TV sets
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their list
And then
The alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason for our sad demise
They logged the only explanation left
This species has amused itself to death

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amused_to_Death

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

On the topic of the album, it is in my opinion Waters’ finest non-Floyd album and very much worth a listen this Sunday. In terms of music, lyrical themes, and playfulness when it comes to the soundscape, it truly is an excellent example of great Progressive Rock.

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