The Futurism of McLuhan

[Michael Hardner]

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/marshall-mcluhan-global-village

Short read about McLuhan's "prediction" of the internet.  While I disagree that he predicted it, I do agree that he had a sense of the appetite for some kind of global information system.  Therein was his genius, that he could sense what people wanted from technology, and therefore product what would eventually come without describing it exactly.

 

Quote

“The next medium, whatever it is — it may be the extension of consciousness — will include television as its content, not as its environment, and will transform television into an art form,” he said.

“A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization, retrieve the individual’s encyclopedic function and flip into a private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind.”