Reflection on News Articles

Use this forum to discuss August 2018 book of the month "World, Incorporated" by Tom Gariffo.
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Re: Reflection on News Articles

Post by jjmainor »

hsimone wrote: 04 Aug 2018, 11:30 While reading the articles that Kelly reads following the events that has occurred the last 50 years, leading to the current state of the world, what struck you? Was there something that surprised you? Was there something that you liked? Something that disturbed you?

Though there are a myriad of disturbing things, I personally liked that the average lifespan of a person is 120 years and that the pollution decreased overtime.
I could see corporations tackling the hard issues our politicians fight over (heck, companies are already adopting green strategies without the government forcing them!), but on the other hand, the articles that detail the "improvements" in society are written with the companies looming in the background. What really should make you think, is society truly as great as people believe, or is all that simply company propaganda? Would the people alive in Sliver's time really know if the environment has improved since today? That's what makes the articles interesting to me - the thought that society could go like that, while wondering if it's all really a lie.
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Post by jjmainor »

Dabuddhababe wrote: 07 Aug 2018, 18:57
The one thing I thought was interesting was that the government tried to keep it going in D.C., stubborn people.
Those at the top...

You see the same thing going on all over the place. Take Sears Holdings. Customers have been telling them for years and years that their stores are dirty and out-dated. A simple facelift would probably do wonders for their lagging sales, but the management just ignores it. The carry on, business-as-usual, hoping things magically turn around on their own. Close stores and sell assets trying to carry the company through to that magical change instead of changing their own views and trying something different, ie., listening to their customers before they all leave for the competition!
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Post by Swat3737 »

I couldn't stop thinking about the real world ramifications of half the population not paying their taxes - I think the author's right, the US would dissolve and thus the world would fall apart. Our tax money runs everything, which I think is easy to take for granted or forget. But I could see it happening especially in the current state of things.
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Post by Kgaelsdottir »

Dabuddhababe wrote: 07 Aug 2018, 18:57 The chapter with all the news reports could have been laid out differently. The background info they were giving was great, but did we have to trudge through each article? Franklin could have summed up a lot of the boring stuff. I felt like Kelly did, when she got done reading them, staring off in space.

The one thing I thought was interesting was that the government tried to keep it going in D.C., stubborn people.
It seems that this could have been done in a vignette, with just the headlines, and some "meat" of one or two articles if further exposition might have been needed??
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Post by enerharvey1 »

I found the newspaper section of this book to be a realistic representation of what could happen in the real world. Take for instance the section about the government shutdown. That has really happened, but on a much smaller scale than in the book.

That being said, I did not enjoy reading the 50 years worth of newspaper and inter office emails. I found it dull with only small snippets that made me go "Ah ha!"
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Post by enerharvey1 »

jcoad wrote: 08 Aug 2018, 06:45 I thought the Newspaper Articles section was the most painful thing I have ever tried to read. The time jumped around and was hard to follow. Way too much detail and rambling. I really with Sliver would have just sat down with Kelly and said "here is what happened" and spent a page giving her a background. If I wasn't reading the book for this forum I would have put it down and picked up something else.
I completely agree with you. I think the book would have been easier to read if Sliver had updated Kelly instead of the onboard computer system.
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Post by AmySmiles »

JHuschle519 wrote: 04 Aug 2018, 18:48
jay_2 wrote: 04 Aug 2018, 17:38 That’s a good point, for sure. ^ I didn’t think too much about that but you’ve got my mind moving now haha. It is quite the thought exercise. I do believe it could happen though.
Oh, I agree that it could happen ... I guess I just kind of hope it never does. I have a feeling it would be complete chaos. I hate paying taxes, but I would hate to see the state of the country if everyone suddenly stopped paying them.
I agree that would be chaos.
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Post by Harley-Panda »

I did find the news articles a little tedious. I do find the whole idea of the supercorporations very interesting, and I can understand why it was portrayed to Kelly in this way, but I wanted to hear more from the 'everyday' people who were affected by it all, not just reporters and the corporations themselves.
Maybe some more blog entries (like those which were thrown in before the supercorporations stepped in), or interviews by the reporters. I understood the concepts of how the supercorporations came about and what they did, but I didn't understand how all the people just decided it was fine to have a company know everything about you, and just carry on with their lives. I feel like people would be more angry about having everything about themselves on file, and speak out about this.

I guess the people who do so are the ones Sliver is sent to... so maybe some blog entries from the people who didn't want the supercorporations anymore?
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Post by somersas13 »

One thing that struck me was the evolution of news and information after the reclamation. Media went from the forum that we see now to one where all sources of information were coming from one entity owned by the super-corporations. Which made me wonder, how can we trust any of the information and the history as we're reading it since it's all coming from the lens of the super-corporations? They can filter it and change or leave out whatever they want. Of course it looks as if they're the hero in this scenario, rescuing society from a fallout and making everyone's lives better but is that really the case? Apart from Sliver and Kelly who both have awful experiences or were left completely in the dark altogether during the reclamation we don't hear from any other average citizens about what life is really like.
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Post by Natalie_Taylor »

I thought the contracting phase was really interesting. We already do a lot of contracting work out to private companies. It's how the prison system got to the place it has. You can argue it's not a great system, but it is happening.
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Post by Vickie Noel »

I've once read somewhere that without government regulations, though imperfect humans like ourselves, there would be anarchy. It really would be terrible if everyone stopped paying taxes, even though sometimes it can really be a pain in the heinie.
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Post by Ashley Cremer »

I felt that the articles were somewhat hard to follow. I was able to get a gist of what had happened over the last 50 years, however, I felt that I was lost at times while reading them. Maybe this was the point though, to feel as lost as Kelly was when reading them. If so, he did a very good job in that aspect.
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