December 14, 2008
Was this a bad year for ideas?
The annual "year in ideas" issue of the NYT Magazine seems so much less interesting this year. Is it me? Is it the slideshow format? Or was there something about this past year? Do you think ideas are not the delicious, crisp morsels they once were?
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14 comments:
What? You're not impressed with never ending bubble wrap?
The slide show format was not well done.
I hated clicking through the ideas. I'd like a list of the ideas, like the way they have for the past issues here. Click on the images of the covers for past years.
There's a lot of stuff percolating....Companies developing genetically-tailored drugs to fight cancer, depression, and who knows what based on a person's individual code...rocketship tourism in orbit and ultimately around the moon maybe...computers that see thoughts...netbooks replacing expensive PCs...democracy (or something resembling it) in Iraq...prosperity is just around the corner.
Agreed, it was a way poor way of presenting a list. I want to see the list so that I can pace myself. I stopped at the C's.
The C's is where I started. My big idea is a book: Compassionate Waterboarding Techniques for Dummies. Three pictures, three pages long.
Ideas started fading out around 1987 and have been practically dead since 1995.
Ideas made a brief comeback after 9/11, but have now been irreversibly supplanted by their successor (ie. the groupthink/snark combo).
Ideas require thought which requires effort. Why expend effort when feelings are all you need to produce Hope and Change?
Where's "Bailout" ?
Not all new ideas are good ideas; some are bad and people haven't figured out where they can go wrong. Structured Investment Vehicles and Credit Default Swaps are cases in point.
The Community Re-Investment Act was a new idea that seemed good, but it then morphed into the Subprime Loan. This was a another new idea that was easily seen as bad, but we did it anyway.
I'd say we can't afford many more ideas like these.
OTOH, many old ideas that were proven good (e.g. the book of Proverbs) are repeatedly kicked to the curb because people won't make the sacrifices required.
Good ideas, new or old, hold little promise when there's a shortage of people willing & able to make them work.
Compassionate Waterboarding Techniques for Dummies. Three pictures, three pages long.
No, no, no. It needs to be the size of the Manhattan Yellow Pages.
It was just a bad year for the NYT. Next year will be more innovative.
let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.
Play-doh (360 BC)
Pages truncated with that alphabet thing at the bottom.
Couldn't read the entries completely. It's interesting, but not interesting enough to be robbed by an unknown portion for the sake of some stupid artsy technique of the alphabet displaying. This is on a 15" laptop using Safari and Firefox. I have a PC with windows XP within reach but I can't be arsked to turn it on just to attempt to read this. God, I despise those dumb asses at NYT. Here, let me go give them some feedback.
[Calvera has just captured the Seven]
Calvera: What I don't understand is why a man like you took the job in the first place, hmm? Why, huh?
Chris: I wonder myself.
Calvera: No, come on, come on, tell me why.
Vin: It's like a fellow I once knew in El Paso. One day, he just took all his clothes off and jumped in a mess of cactus. I asked him that same question, "Why?"
Calvera: And?
Vin: He said, "It seemed to be a good idea at the time."
(The Magnificant Seven, 1960)
There must be a better place to look for ideas than NYT.
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