An inspiration for Ehrlich's 'The Population Bomb'?
He visited India one "stinking hot night" & was grossed out by a "hellish" scene of "defecating & urinating" "beggers."
Can you say neo-colonialist white saviour complex?
“Persons who listen to the radio from dawn to dusk suffer from the disease 'radio perpetuum', a slow but sure softening of the brain” - The Cincinnati Enquirer, 1943
"Wireless waves are making men more feminine and women more masculine, according to Miss Mary Strachan, a reputable psychologist, who thinks wireless induced etheric disturbances are responsible for some of the vagaries of modern youth" - El Paso Herald, September 15, 1925
Happy international women’s day
"Wireless waves are making men more feminine and women more masculine, according to Miss Mary Strachan, a reputable psychologist, who thinks wireless induced etheric disturbances are responsible for some of the vagaries of modern youth" - El Paso Herald, September 15, 1925
What next? NYC tries to ban legal advice by radio?
Turns out… newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/nyc-once-b...
An article about how awesome Candystand dot com is, written contemporaneously
Ahh, I love everything about this article from November 1999...Real journalism, folks!
100 years ago a Baltimore college banned radio sets due to impact on sleep and loss of ‘pep’ among students (SF Examiner, 1926)
1926: motors, bands and radio blamed for low church attendance
100 years ago a Baltimore college banned radio sets due to impact on sleep and loss of ‘pep’ among students (SF Examiner, 1926)
“Should the flapper, with her elaborate make-up, her daring clothes, her bold and confident carriage, be suppressed as a menace to the nation's morals, or celebrated as its chief claim to art and beauty?” - 1921
“HAVE you an automobile? If so, you probably have an automobile eye. This is the opinion of Dr. William S. White” - Chicago Tribune, 1910
1899: Minister writes to police re female cyclists, Capt. responds they "wear shorter dresses than the laws of morality and decency permit"
Woman retorts he “must be very hard up for subjects. Perhaps he considers that he has conquered the devil in his own dominions.”
This won’t work and it’s not the right solution. Regulate social media, not kids.
Hello Bluesky! Let me reintroduce myself!
My name is Kirby Ferguson and I'm best known for making the OG video essay series Everything is a Remix (2012-ish.) A new version of that series was completed last year and I'm very proud of it. You can watch that below.
Come say hi!
Everything competes for attention, so everything is in competition with everything else.
1896 @nytimes.com article reports on book sellers blaming the bicycle boom on falling book sales
1900: Librarian says free libraries = too much reading
“Great care must be exercised by parents to see that their children do not read too much”
“When visiting a school recently 3 pupils in one room were noticed reading books under their desks"
1926: less radio, less reading in bed
2026: MORE please
The downsides of new things are an indictment.
The downsides of old things are endearing.
In 1913 the creator of Kellogg’s corn flakes predicted what babies would look like in the 21st century…
You either die a disruptor, or live long enough to see yourself become an incumbent
You either die a disruptor, or live long enough to see yourself become an incumbent
2026 new year resolutions : cycle, read, play chess MORE
1926 new year resolutions: cycle, read, play chess LESS
Virtues of today were vices in the past. Did people have opposite New Year’s resolutions? (Via our newsletter newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/new-years-...)
2024: Read more
1924: Read less
2024: Cycle more
1924: Cycle less
2024: Play more chess
1858: Play less chess
193 years ago Henry Colburn observed:
“objects of the highest importance to mankind, on their first appearance, are slighted and condemned. Posterity smile at the ineptitude of the preceding age, while it becomes familiar with those objects, which that age so eagerly rejected”
Virtues of today were vices in the past. Did people have opposite New Year’s resolutions? (Via our newsletter newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/new-years-...)
2024: Read more
1924: Read less
2024: Cycle more
1924: Cycle less
2024: Play more chess
1858: Play less chess
