I wrote one post that was long and full of references to things like the Kennedy Assassination1, furries and tattooing the whites of your eyes but it seemed a little too preachy and I’ve done more than enough of that lately.
It was a long way of getting at my point, which is this- the Internet and our society (America in particular) makes it really easy to ingest laser like streams of information that focus solely on subjects you like and are said only by people who agree with you2. The world is full of lasers and echos, it’s up to you to blend them and make something interesting.
So take Dan’s video which says what he means much better than his later post3.
dy/av : 009 : don’t be prez from Dan Meyer on Vimeo
and mix it with one of the TED videos that walks a slightly different but similar theme.
I have another video that is Ed Ayers and Joe Hoyle from UR talking in a similar vein but it’s Real Media and can’t be embedded. Honestly, I’m not even sure it still works as I don’t have RM on this computer anymore. Shame about the format.
1 Amazon has 11,850 results in books alone and Google gives you 856,000
2 I count listening to opposing view points by people who you regard as idiots to be the same thing as listening to your own ideas. If it’s too easy to discount the messenger and the message then you aren’t doing anything but confirming your own thoughts.
3 I’ve got no problem with either but the video makes things much clearer than the posts seems to have done – at least judging by the comments.
I use Media Player Classic for RM files, but VLC may work on Mac.