Jour­nal­ism? Our news on tele­vi­sion and in print pan­der to the worst instincts in our cul­ture, favor­ing sound bites over sub­stance and crit­i­cal analy­sis. Movies and books? So much pan­der­ing to sim­plis­tic char­ac­ter arcs and block­buster plots that one has to won­der if we’ll see more last­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the cul­ture from this past century.

Med­i­cine? Peo­ple can now live through incred­i­ble dis­eases, extend­ing life well past what would be expected in the past. In fact, it’s got­ten to the point where we expect med­i­cine to save us or cure us when in fact it might be most nat­ural to move on from this Earth.

We make things so easy to use, do, digest and process these days that we’re fak­ing out Dar­win and cheat­ing Mother Nature, get­ting what we want regard­less of the cost to our­selves or the planet. Most likely, though, it’s prob­a­bly just a facade. We only think we’re cheat­ing death and have advanced past clever mon­keys with key­boards and a few choice words beyond a sim­ple grunt. The ques­tion is when will it all come to roost?

Sourced from Design by Fire: Please make me think! Poten­tial dan­gers in usabil­ity cul­ture.

Link dump:

My life as a Berkper­son — the cen­tre looks interesting.

The Clue­train Man­i­festo — looks star­tlingly rel­e­vant to the work, and over­whelm­ingly intel­li­gent in its dis­course and analysis.

The Future of Ideas — by Lawrence Lessig. Seen his name and this work before, but haven’t read. Adding to “to-do” list.

Tags: Darwin, Lawrence Lessig