Douglas Rushkoff » No Money Down (7)
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Douglas (24)
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Douglas Rushkoff (20)
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from the upcoming Arthur Magazine No. 31, Oct 2008 I poked my head up from writing my book a couple of months ago to engage with Arthur readers about the subject I was working on: the credit crunch and what to do about it [see “Riding Out the Credit Crisis” in Arthur No. 29/May 2008]. I got more email about that piece than anything I have written since a column threatening to defect from the ...
Financial Melt Up (6)
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3 weeks, 2 days
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So much to say about the current financial mess, so little time. I’ll leave investors to fend for themselves this week. I’ve given enough of that CNBC-style advice lately, contrarian though it may be. I’d rather spend these precious minutes explaining why the financial meltdown is not a bad thing for a lot of us. In brief: there’s a real economy, and a speculative economy. While they are usually related to each other - even ...
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Noah J said:
He doesn't know it yet, but Rushkoff just articulated the slow culture manifesto.
Fannie and Freddie (1)
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All sorts of people have been calling my cellphone this weekend, asking for an explanation of what’s “really happening” with the Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae bailout. Really briefly, here’s what’s going on and what I think it means. Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac are essentially mortgage financers. Banks sell mortgages, package them all together, and then sell them as debt to other investors - usually other banks, investment firms, mutual funds or pension funds. These ...
Douglas Rushkoff on the GOP's Message of Hate (21)
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I felt a bit nauseous watching the Republican convention last night. I’m very much a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubt kind of guy, so I try to listen to the arguments people make even when they’re made in over-the-top or patronizing ways. Sometimes it’s good to distinguish between the rhetorical devices and the underlying substance. Even people who use manipulative language sometimes have an important point beneath their persuasion techniques (ads against smoking, for example). I usually don’t feel ...
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Eric said:
Word!
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mrkvm said:
I admit that I couldn't actually sit through any RNC coverage myself, but this is an interesting take nonetheless.
Police Brutality as Media Reframe (1)
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My friend Legba Carrefour has been working with DC Students for a Democratic Society and Students for a Democratic Society for some time, now (he’s 27), and has served as a great window for me into the world of public demonstrations and their regular suppression. A conversation got started on my email list, Media-Squatters, about the protests at the DNC last week, and a number of us were surprised by reports of police brutality - ...
Contrarian Idiocy (2)
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A friend passed on this link to me of a post by a Cato commentator. He’s arguing that buying local food is, counterintuitively, not such a great thing for the environment. Here’s his main logical technique: A tomato raised in a heated greenhouse next door can be more carbon-intensive than one shipped halfway across the globe. Right. By the same logic, trees grown locally that are used to make clubs to kill children are worse ...
Testament is Complete (1)
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1 month, 3 weeks
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The complete Testament series, with annotation, is now available in four trade volumes from Vertigo/DC Comics. They’re in stock at most comics shops, and shipping from Amazon or other regular bookstores before the end of the week. Testament 1: Akedah Testament 2: West of Eden Testament 3: Babel Testament 4: Exodus I’m delighted to see them all available at the same time, so that the whole story can be read and comprehended as a single ...
Real Social (7)
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Just three or four years ago, when I had just published my “business” book Get Back in the Box, most organizations still thought of the Internet as a distraction from their core competency. They saw interactive media as a marketing opportunity, and little more. At the time, I could only conclude that on some level businesspeople understood that engaging with the Internet in any real way would force an openness for which they were still ...
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Paul Roberts said:
takes a long time to change culture...but the pressure is now on to 'cotton on' on the internet culture
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Jeff Schmidt said:
my current favorite "wikkid smart dude".
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Thomas Smith said:
Instead of just buying banner ads or conducting new forms of computerized market research, many of these players are coming to understand that the Internet is a social phenomenon - not a content revolution - and that it offers the opportunity to connect to a real culture and its most competent members in a real way.
Beyond Brand Obama (2)
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Nothing against Barack Obama, but we’d be mistaken to consider his politics a complete break from the past, a renaissance in participatory government, or the realization of an Internet-enabled “open source” democracy. He’s pretty damn good, don’t get me wrong, and he may just represent the closest thing yet to a GenX, post-boomer, anti-sentimental and a-mythic candidate for president. But there are a few ways in which his candidacy also reinforces some of the branded, ...
Obama is not condescending (1)
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The fact is, Americans are smarter than Clinton and McCain suggest. Americans are frustrated that their government supports corporations at the citizens’ expense. People are getting poorer and their educations are getting worse and more expensive. As people get poorer and angrier, they do more readily cling to symbols and superstitions. Under threat or antisemitism, Jews cling more steadfastly to Israel. Just as persecuted gun owners cling to their guns, and fundamentalists cling to their ...
