On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 04:56:24PM +0100, Michael Rogers wrote: > I agree - "no smartphones" is sound advice. "No phones" is even > better. But the problem is, nobody follows that advice. So we have to > be pragmatic.
[snip insightful comments] I would like to agree with you -- and in part, I do. But I'll suggest that the yardstick for "pragmatic" has moved considerably during the last few weeks. I'll also suggest that if we give our best advice and people ignore it -- that's not a very good reason to change our best advice. Oh, we *could*: if we modified that advice into something more palatable, then perhaps more people would more readily accept it. But all that would achieve is giving us the momentary satisfaction of seeing them smile and nod and do what we said...and that will be cold comfort when the day comes that those steps are proven to be as inadequate as we thought they were all along. Speaking of the last few weeks: I think, in some ways, that day has come. Yes, this probably means saying unpopular things, like "get rid of your smartphone". But the goal here is not to win popularity contests, the goal is to give the best advice we can. (Obviously, we can and will often disagree on just what that advice should be: hence our interesting and enlightening argumXXXXXdiscussions.) ---rsk -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
