Yes, cynicism is the stuff of skeptics, and skeptics tend not to write articles associating the physics community being "afire" - on fire; aflame; ablaze; eager and excited - about anything. Not to say they are not...
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| Wireddotcom |
OK, I'll give you "eager and excited." But trust me: your eager and excited is not the typical labs' "eager and excited." I assume "keenly interesting data" would not sell good copy, nor take public interests off the NBA finals or the latest singing/dance off.
Kevin Durant needs about 10 - 20 lbs to contest LeBron, or any other man mountain's 60 lb advantage. That's just physics...
Postman's commentary (link to book follows) is described as a "21st century description in the 20th century." Published in 1985 - post the Orwell demarcation - cable news with CNN was just five years old. The Internet (not mentioned) was Zenith computer screens - big and bulky - sending the equivalent of what a teen can do with their thumbs and text messaging. There was no Facebook, Twitter, and blogging would have been the equivalent of exposing your diary to the world, of telling a freezing caveman about fire - Prometheus.
And: if there was such a thing as "reality TV," its impact was not as great as a book.
“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
From ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Wired: Physics Community Afire With Rumors of Higgs Boson Discovery
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