Sound Politics: George Gilder on Blogs and the Media

March 30, 2006

George Gilder on Blogs and the Media

George Gilder is one of the great thinkers of our time. -BIO- He follows and explains the leading edge technology better than anyone I know of. See his Gilder Technology Report.

He was a leader in analyzing the social changes of the 1970s with the book Men and Marriage. Then he had a best seller with Wealth and Poverty explaining the causes of poverty.

Along the way he was one of the leading thinkers on supply-side economics and the prosperity of the 1980s.

In the early 1990s he predicted a revolution to access to information enabled by increased computing and communications power in Life After Television That vision has almost arrived with the internet and especially blogs and cheap making and distribution of videos. Gilder is a senior fellow at Discovery Institute in Seattle. Come and see/hear him in Seattle next month.

Is the Blogosphere the Death of the Mainstream Media?
Featuring
George Gilder, Senior Fellow
&
Hance Haney, Director of Discovery's Technology & Democracy Project

Thursday, April 13
4:30 to 6:00 p.m.

Discovery Institute Downtown Seattle

See the event announcement at Discovery Institute. Or call Annelise at (206) 292-0401 ext. 153.

Cross posted at My still nameless blog

Posted by Ron Hebron at March 30, 2006 10:42 PM | Email This

Comments

1. Is this in any way related to the "Intelligent Design" wing of the Discovery Institute? I sure hope not.

Posted by: Jeff B. on March 30, 2006 11:43 PM

2. The death of the "mainstream" media would be one of the best things that could happen to Washington state and to America. Probably one-third of all voting-eligible people never exercise that privilege, another third are ill-informed, with the final third informed and engaged. The indifferent will probably always be so and the informed unlikely to alter their opinions. The ill-informed, however, offer vast opportunity. I have told dozens of people they should explore alternate means of gathering information, with blogs (SP) offering the greatest opportunity. People need to make INFORMED choices. The mainstream Puget Sound news media offers little in the way of genuine information or diversity of opinion. Which news source offers the greatest threat to Queen Christine and corrupt and incompetent state legislature...Jean Enerson or Stefan Sharkansky?

Posted by: Saltherring on March 31, 2006 06:45 AM

3. "Which news source offers the greatest threat to Queen Christine and corrupt and incompetent state legislature...Jean Enerson or Stefan Sharkansky?"

Good question Saltherring.

I would (cautiously) add the Stranger. As much as I cringe at their simple-minded atrophied sense of politics, they appear hungry to develop stories....you know....like some other forms of media used to do!

Posted by: alphabet soup on March 31, 2006 07:38 AM

4. Soup,

The Stranger did have several pretty decent articles on the Capitol Hill mass murders. The msm avoided discussing, for instance, drugs and alcohol at the party house, whereas the Stranger got right into it.

Posted by: Saltherring on March 31, 2006 09:39 AM

5. I agree with Ron that Mr. Gilder is a great thinker (and a visionary). I have had the privilege of hearing him speak on three different occaisions in the last 15 years. I'm not able to be there (I cant take time out of work that week because I'm hosting customers), but I'd like to urge all that can attend to do so.

You will NOT be disappointed !!!!

~Mike in America's Vancouver

Posted by: Mike in Vancouver on March 31, 2006 10:49 AM

6. I like George, and I agree that he is an inspiring speaker and visionary, but it's worth reminding people to keep the "vision thing" in its place. Take his views of the future as one possible future, despite the strength of his conviction and his strong presentation skills.

July 27, 2005 Boston Globe:
"In the late 1990s, after all, thousands of subscribers to his newsletter lost their shirts when the telecom bubble imploded, plunging Gilder into near bankruptcy and tarnishing his reputation as a tech-sector Yoda. His speaking fees have since plummeted, his ownership stake in The American Spectator is gone, and his newsletter is barely breathing these days."

Posted by: Regret on March 31, 2006 12:31 PM

7. Will be interesting to listen to his opinions on this subject. Will try to make this one.
Although I can say that it’s not technology which is spreading this media “revolution” but rather content.

Posted by: Reporterward on March 31, 2006 12:58 PM

8. > ...tarnishing his reputation as a
> tech-sector Yoda. His speaking fees
> have since plummeted, his ownership
> stake in The American Spectator is
> gone, and his newsletter is barely
> breathing these days."

And now he's hanging with the Discovery Institute. The dude can sure pick winners. I think I'll go, just to ask him what lottery numbers I shouldn't play.

Posted by: John A on March 31, 2006 02:04 PM