Informing Ourselves to Death

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The Nature of Technology

Abstract

The great English playwright and social philosopher George Bernard Shaw once remarked that all professions are conspiracies against the common folk. He meant that those who belong to elite trades – physicians, lawyers, teachers, and scientists – protect their special status by creating vocabularies that are incomprehensible to the general public. This process prevents outsiders from understanding what the profession is doing and why – and protects the insiders from close examination and criticism.

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© 2013 Sense Publishers

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Postman, N. (2013). Informing Ourselves to Death. In: Clough, M.P., Olson, J.K., Niederhauser, D.S. (eds) The Nature of Technology. SensePublishers, Rotterdam. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-269-3_2

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