Adam Curtis: All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (3/3)

02011-11-16T08:20:27+00:00

Part 3: The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey Or: The Episode You Shouldn’t Bother Watching I know that quite a few people were disappointed by the first two episodes in Adam Curtis’s series. I rather liked them, but to me the third episode really went off the rails. The Rwanda Watusi vs Bahutu genocide, caused by an imposed myth, is undoubtedly bad. It brought to mind a much longer lasting—yet in many ways similar—deadly myth: that of the Jewish exile to Egypt, their return to the Holy Land, and their racial separateness from the Palestinians.

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (2/3)

02011-11-15T09:44:00+00:00

Part 2: The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts In which I continue to post my thoughts about a documentary everyone else watched six months ago. I thought during this episode that I could see a central point being made in Adam Curtis’s series. He seemed to be attacking the myth that networks are inherently self regulating and stable. I think he’s off-base painting it as a myth promoted by computer scientists or engineers, however.

Adam Curtis: All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (1/3)

02011-11-14T04:45:37+00:00

I realize that I am desperately late to this particular party. Everyone has probably already watched the documentary, read the inevitable backlash, and digested the response to the backlash. Nevertheless, here are my notes on the first episode. Part 1: Love and Power Barbara Branden’s comments about Ayn Rand being disappointed by the reception of “Atlas Shrugged” are hilarious, yet sad. She reports that Rand was desperately upset when the people in her inner circle who had how much they liked the book, failed to stand up and say what genius it was when it was being excoriated in the press.