Top all-time · #2806
L.M. Sacasas
Personal blog · thefrailestthing.comphilosophyculture
L.M. Sacasas's personal blog at thefrailestthing.com covers philosophy and culture. Since 2010, 27 different Hacker News readers have linked it 124 times, most often “Stages, Structures, and the Work of Being Yourself”. The last post was in 2019, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link L.M. Sacasas's blog for writing on media and technology philosophy, including McLuhan, Postman, attention and surveillance. The blog has been shuttered; a newsletter continues.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
"There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening." – Marshall McLuhan The blog is now out of commission, but I continue to write The Convivial Society, a regular newsletter on technology and culture. You can subscribe here. I also collected th
Most-linked posts?
- Stages, Structures, and the Work of Being Yourself4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-03-14
- Kranzberg’s Six Laws of Technology, a Metaphor, and a Story (2011)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-11-17
- The Borg Complex: A Primer4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-10-31
- Nine Theses Regarding the Culture of Digital Media2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-11-25
- Do Artifacts Have Ethics? (2014)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-12-16
- Land Lines, Cell Phones, and Their Social Consequences (2011)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-05-02
- Digital Media and the Revenge of Politics2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-02-19
- Memory and Identity Online2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-06-20
- The Wisdom of Neil Postman2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-01-14
- Technology and the Inadequacy of Values Talk2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-04-06
What Hacker News says?
This concept is also known as Borg Complex: https://thefrailestthing.com/2013/03/01/borg-complex-a-prime...
Comment linking /2013/03/01/borg-complex-a-primer/
on “This is not the future”Submitted We’re Reading Fahrenheit 451 Wrong (2018) as a story · 225 points
HN discussionPhilosophize this is great. If you were a fan of McLuhan, you should read L.M. Sarcasas. His blog ( https://thefrailestthing.com/ ) was how I was introduced to McLuhan, Postman, and other philosophers of media and technology. He has unfortunately shuttered that blog, but he has a substack newsletter thing that talks about similar things: https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/people/1810437-l-m-...
Comment linking /
on “Decentralised content moderation”Submitted What Do We Want, Really? as a story · 135 points
HN discussionInteresting and thought provoking article(s). They are a bit involved so I'll post some of my thoughts/notes on them here: -- The background reading article [1] Disciplinary surveillance . . . was simple: the prisoners would stay in line because they had to assume that they were always being watched. No violence was necessary, the internalized gaze of the surveillance apparatus disciplined the behavior of the prison…
Comment linking /2018/06/26/eight-theses-regarding-the-society-of-the-disciplinary-spectacle/
on “Attention and Memory in the Age of the Disciplinary Spectacle”Submitted The World Will Be Our Skinner Box as a story · 98 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Myth of Convenience as a story · 89 points
HN discussionSubmitted Technology After the Great War as a story · 59 points
HN discussionSubmitted Attention and Memory in the Age of the Disciplinary Spectacle as a story · 51 points
HN discussionSubmitted Stages, Structures, and the Work of Being Yourself as a story · 48 points
HN discussionSubmitted Neil Postman, Technopoly, and Technological Theology as a story · 45 points
HN discussionSubmitted Attention and the Moral Life (2016) as a story · 41 points
HN discussionSubmitted Don’t Romanticize the Present as a story · 40 points
HN discussionSubmitted Resisting the Habits of the Algorithmic Mind (2015) as a story · 37 points
HN discussionSubmitted Unsolicited Advice for Technology Writers (2014) as a story · 27 points
HN discussionSubmitted Walter Ong on Romanticism and Technology (2014) as a story · 25 points
HN discussionSubmitted Baseball, Judgment, and Technocracy as a story · 23 points
HN discussionSubmitted Land Lines, Cell Phones, and Their Social Consequences (2011) as a story · 21 points
HN discussionSubmitted Cathedrals, Pyramids, iPhones: Toward a Tentative Theory of Innovation (2014) as a story · 18 points
HN discussionSubmitted Ten Years of Tech Writing as a story · 17 points
HN discussionSubmitted Kranzberg’s Six Laws of Technology, a Metaphor, and a Story (2011) as a story · 17 points
HN discussionSubmitted Technological Enchantments and the End of Modernity as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted Stages, Structures, and the Work of Being Yourself as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Original Sin of Internet Culture as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Cost of Distraction: What Kurt Vonnegut Knew as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted We Can’t Have Humane Technology as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Don’t Offload Your Memory Quite Yet: Cognitive Science, Memory, and Education as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Wisdom of Neil Postman as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Vows of Digital Poverty (2018) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Technology, Speed, and Power (2014) as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
