Re: FN-FORUM writing for web - Luddites unite

date posted 15th January 2001 23:22

glad to start a good debate - don't worry this is my last thoughts for you
to ponder - and give Rob Prentice a hand for taking part :)

OK, so when I say a picture is worth a thousand words, i don't mean that
there is never a concept that is too abstract for a literal pictorial
representation. I like Apples, yeah, i like the nice colours, but i still
read the datasheet because you can't draw a picture of 128Mb.
OK so stop picking holes in a valid generalisation.

I believe text is dying (never said it was dead) because soon its benefits
will be obsolete. Of course some people will still read, some people still
make mud brick houses too, you know. But i'd rather have a nice flat.
Because mud bricks just aren't cool anymore.

Apple ads are a good example (specifically iMac), no numbers, no 128Mb, just
Jeff Goldblum saying "internet cruise line" etc in SPEECH not text. And lots
of gorgeous pictures and sound. And they sell and sell and sell.
I decided to get a G4 powerbook when i saw one small photo on Apple's site,
because apple have already bought my trust with their gorgeous pictures and
innovative design. I don't NEED to read the datasheet, except to dribble
over it, because I trust the pictures.


Benefits of text: Low bandwidth, low tech, allows imagination to fill in the
gaps, convinces your parents you're reading something real and important.

These benefits are gold-dust now, but are obsolete in a future of ultra
bandwidth, no parents, and fully interactive movies and games.

Your kids with their text messages are into communication, not text.
Communication will soon be done by PC to brain interfaces (assuming things
carry on in this crazy direction we call "the millennium") and your kids
will moan at their kids: "why can't you stop playing that dreadful in-brain
game and send a nice text message to your auntie?"

And your kids will say "awww mum but just one more go... and besides i can't
even read or write, they stopped teaching that 5 years ago."

And so it goes on.

If you're nostalgic for books and think they're "proper" and "traditional"
then you should read about the history of printing. You'll be surprised. And
I bet you wish you could just absorb the knowledge thru a magnetic hat in
five minutes and get on with your newly enlightened life, instead of
reading. Sure it's nice on the beach or in a hammock in June, but i'd rather
be editing a video on my laptop than reading a book.

The only readers in the future will be historians, throwbacks and those who
have "opted out" of mainstream, (i.e. technological) society.

And who knows, maybe the Luddites will win. And maybe they SHOULD win. I'm
just telling ya whats going to happen, I'm not saying I know it's God's Way
or anything...

:) that's quite enough of that from me.
Mark