Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Hmm ...

... The Internet Is Making Us Dumber.

There is much in what he says - especially this about "newspapers ... not acting responsibly and instead cheapening their product" - but the internet just happened to come along at a time when fewer and fewer people were being educated properly. But the movement away from formative to instrumental education - which is the problem - began decades ago.

4 comments:

  1. What do you think of some of the decent fiction being self-published online? I just finished a novel by 'Lasses' which was absolutely brilliant. What do you think some writers are actually choosing to give away their manuscripts for free?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think it's a good idea, simply because it is good to get work before the public. If someone publishes something online and it turns out a lot of people want to read, you can be sure that the commercial publishers won't be far behind. The problem is no one has come up with a viable economic model for this. Off the top of my head, I suppose an author could publish something online for free and if it meets with success, publish his next work but with a modest subscription fee. If it's noticeably cheaper than a hardcover book - after all, there won't be the overhead - I think people would gladly pay.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Jamie, can you post a link please? I'm always interested in good online fiction - for obvious reasons!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Here's the link to the novel mentioned: www.monuments.lassesandnoises.com

    ReplyDelete