http://www.bigthink.com/adobe/Logo_250X250.jpg http://www.bigthink.com/adobe/Background_1024X576.jpg http://www.bigthink.com/adobe/Banner_686X60.jpg http://www.bigthink.com/adobe/Half-Banner_234X60.jpg http://www.bigthink.com/adobe/Logo_250X250 http://www.bigthink.com/adobe/Logo-Watermark_250X250.jpg http://www.bigthink.com/adobe/Background_1024X576.jpg http://www.bigthink.com/adobe/Half-Banner-ALT_234X60.jpg Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed Bigthink http://www.bigthink.com/feed/rss/comment/idea/8633 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:40:22 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 Comment on: If Thoreau were alive today, would Walden be a blog? http://www.bigthink.com/science-technology/the-internet/8633 That's just along the lines I was thinking, Hugh. What WOULD Thoreau blog about? Hermeticism or "I saw a brown bug today and it made me think of God"? Who would even read it? It would probably just get buried and have a tiny following among, oh, say, a tiny hipster subset in a tiny subset of liberal arts colleges. Well, Thoreau's mom would probably read it, too. Bigthink Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:12:00 +0100 http://www.bigthink.com/science-technology/the-internet/8633/#11270 Comment on: If Thoreau were alive today, would Walden be a blog? http://www.bigthink.com/science-technology/the-internet/8633 I think Thoreau would be blogging from Walden Pond...although I worry that no one would read his posts today. And he probably couldn't get away with posting "Civil Disobedience" from jail, although being in the klink would generate great press for the publication after his release. I also wonder whether provocative voices like Thomas Paine or Ben Franklin would have made a splash on the internet unless HBO was doing a mini series about them. Bloggers today report on the hopelessly mundane and compartmentalized aspects of life, they rarely get us to think for ourselves or beyond our own interests, and this seems to me a sad comment on the internet as a public forum. Thank goodness for Big Think! Bigthink Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:07:54 +0100 http://www.bigthink.com/science-technology/the-internet/8633/#11269 Comment on: If Thoreau were alive today, would Walden be a blog? http://www.bigthink.com/science-technology/the-internet/8633 This is one of the coolest questions posed on this site so far, first of all. My hope is that he would not. Then again, the guy wasn't exactly living 'out in the woods.' If I remember correctly it was a twenty minute walk to town, and he took it every once in awhile. Bigthink Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:06:38 +0100 http://www.bigthink.com/science-technology/the-internet/8633/#11268