An Army of Davids

[Beefy Hits]

I was @ the library purusing their new non-fiction and noticed this book. Read it for a couple of hours last night when I couldn't sleep.

The full title is: "An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government and Other Goliaths" by Glenn Reynolds.

The gist of it is that modern technologies like Cell Phones, Text Messaging, PDA, and The Internet are putting power in the hands of the people and allowing individuals and small groups to do things that normally took specialists in big institutions with expensive equipment to do. Examples it gives are amatur film makers posting their videos cheaply and easily online; Iraq war reporting from the front lines with the soliders (20 years ago it took $100,000 worth of equipment to film war footage, today it takes a fraction of that). He also cites how it was 24 hour news coverage and cell phones that fought terrorism and flight 93. He goes into how garageband.com is taking power away from the labels.

One of the sections of the book talked about how video games play a role. Games like the Sims teach players the values of thrift and planning and the consequences of narcissm and impulsiveness. War strategy games like Warhammer 40k, D&D, "Tactics" games and FPS make gamers as knowledgeable about logistics and battle as much as soliders (some games are even used in training in the military). If anything, it allows us to be critical consumers of war reports by big media. If there would be a national catastrophe/doomsday scenario, we'd know more ready than we'd think. The section on gaming reminds me of what the books "Freakonomics" and "Everything Bad is Good for You" were getting at.

Has anybody else read this book?

[Diff-chan]

Glenn Reynolds is a chode.

[Tenchimo Dos]

^^

Confirmed. OMFG, the interweb empowers me! Who knew?

[Bojack]

All this electronic empowerment and we still just sit around beating off to porn.

Essentially, WTF is the point of this book?

[Tracer]

The internet embiggins us all.

[Bacon McShig]

That's a cromulent observation.

[Diff-chan]

If anything, it allows us to be critical consumers of war reports by big media.

LOL does it? Could've fooled me.

What about critical consumers of war reports by the government? Oh yea, because Glenn Reynolds is a Bush Cult POS that sucks on Cheney's shriveled tool while he gives the "MSM" the finger.

[Yoshi]

Have you actually spoken to anyone who has been to Iraq? The soldiers I know that have come back say the media is completely misrepresenting what is going on over there. Often times positives aren't even reported amongst the "X MORE soldiers were killed today..." You mean... people die in a war!?! OMFG!

[kingoffighters]

Have you actually spoken to anyone who has been to Iraq? The soldiers I know that have come back say the media is completely misrepresenting what is going on over there. Often times positives aren't even reported amongst the "X MORE soldiers were killed today..." You mean... people die in a war!?! OMFG!

People do not die in a war, they go to heaven and have orgies with virgins.

[Nick]

I haven't read the book, but the title reminded me of this.