Ralph Steadman joins the cult

I've always been a massive admirer of  Ralph Steadman, so I was thrilled that, in today's Observer, Steadman picked Cult as his most noteworthy book of 2007. It was Steadman, of course, who provided the legendary illustrations for Hunter S. Thompson's  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; a Savage Journey into the American Dream. We still await a Hunter S. Thompson/Ralph Steadman to co-produce a Fear and Loathing in Silicon Valley -- an equally savage journey into the American Dream. I can only hope that there's some young writer or artist embedded in the Googleplex, taking notes on Sergei and Larry's moral excesses and sketching Eric Schmidt's chin. Fear and Loathing in Silicon Valley is too monstrous a fish to miss. Somebody is going to spear it.

In the meantime, here's the legendary Steadman on why he was seduced by Cult:

I took two challenging books to read in a cabin on Lake Huron in Canada in September: The Idiot by Dostoevsky (Penguin Classics) and District and Circle by Seamus Heaney (Faber). But what instead caught my eye was a 'reader's proof' lying on the coffee table of The Cult of the Amateur (Nicholas Brealey) by Andrew Keen. He has had the temerity to point out that our search for instant wisdom through, say, Google and Wikipedia provides not necessarily what is most true or reliable - merely what is most popular. I read it in one sitting then went outside to fish for our supper, firmly believing that the poor fish that swallows my squirming worm on a barbed hook is infinitely smarter than the idiot on the other end holding the rod.

Who is Steadman's fish, who is the worm and who is holding the rod?

Comments

[john richardson]

Like Ralf Steadman, I read you book in one sitting and was compelled to then go out and by The Long Tail.

One of the points that Chris Anderson seems to be making is that doesn't matter that the majority of people are dummer than the fish on the other end of Steadman's line. What does matter is that collectively, through The Wisdom of Crowds, Wikipedia might end up being as accurate and more comprehensive than Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Perhaps one way of putting Anderson's and your argument to the test is to see if the Wiki model could be used to bypass the consultants who are employed to assess supply and demand growth in big commodity industries such as chemicals. This is the suggestion I make on my blog - http://www.icis.com/blogs/asian%2Dchemical%2Dconnections/

If the truth is out there and The Wisdom of Crowds really does work (and provided you get the right methodology - perhaps the the toughest challenge of all), you could end up with numbers as accurate as those drawn up by the experts.

But I doubt it. I think this makes as much sense as Percy's attempts at alchemy in Blackadder II (you probably have to be British to get this).

[Ulicar]

PJ of the Groklaw http://www.groklaw.net/ after media attacks on her, from all "the old school" media outlets said following:
---------
How much corruption there is in the media/analyst world. It's part of why, though, many people now view blogs as more reliable sources of information than the mainstream press. Sad, really, because you need both, and analysts can be very helpful when they are honest and competent, and many are. There is, in the US anyway, a trend to attack people, not ideas, to try to defeat an idea by smearing someone who holds an idea you don't like. I don't see the logic there, but that's probably my geek side. Because I never responded in kind, people were able in the long view to sort out what was going on.
http://www.itpro.co.uk/features/141573/qa-pamela-jones-of-groklaw/page3.html
---------
What is your take on that? She basically explained faults of your book and your standpoint in one paragraph, and it does not look good... But yes, you have a book published, you must be right :)

P.S. Regarding your previous post.
You must be gunning for the record on how many times your opinion was called rubbish/crap by different people :)

[Emilio Alonso]

Dear Mr. Keen, my name is Emilio Alonso and I'm a spanish blogger and monkey. I would really thank you if you could send me your personal scale to measure the monkeyness of my blog, just to be sure I'm in an acceptable level of monkeyness to go on blogging - or not. I would as well like to know if purchasing your book reduces the monkeyness level and how much, or if it gives you any kind of bonus or extra points or something.

As the spaniard I am, I'm sure my monkeyness is naturally high because I belong to a lower race - you know. So, I respectfully beg you if you could send to me the begginers' scale if possible.

Sincerely yours,

Emilio Alonso.

[ianrthorpe]

This wisdom of crowds stuff really has a hold. It is the wisdom of crowds that insists Google is the "best" SE when it is really the worst - except for all the others.
I do hope you get through to Sergi and Larry one day, it would be nice to think they might at last learn what "context" means.

Horrible to see Stephen Fry (wonderful guy but another amateur when it comes to I.T.) burbling on about yet another amateur, Tim Berners Lee.

Inventing the web would have been a piece of cake for us computer networking pros too, had we been able to ignore the seemingly insurmountable security issues.

[Thales]

So how is the internet "culture killer"? I fail to see how something that facilitates the spread of ideas and beliefs could kill a culture, or spread stupidity. I issue you a challenge, in much the same way you did to Stephen Colbert, I bet I know more about the internet than you! Being an amateur and all, you know, not having a Masters degree in, well, anything, I bet I know more about the internet than you.

-fin
Thales

Post Script: You are a pompous idiot, you know nothing about which you speak/write.

[Tracy]

Well, 'our search for instant wisdom through, say, Google and Wikipedia' sums up why for me this book is a waste of my time. Whilst acknowledging that it was not a waste of your time to write it, or anyone else's to read it.

I don't use google or wikipedia for 'wisdom', I use it for information and opinion that I can then try to judge in the same way I would judge information and opinion from any other source - television, radio, magazines, print. For anyone to assume that I need to be protected from potentially incorrect information, or that I need to have it pointed out to me that I can't trust what I read on the internet is patronising and indeed laughable.

The notion that I can believe what I see on television, as told by 'experts' is equally so. I use my critical faculties to look for vested interest behind the messages I'm being given, to look for qualifications and then for proof that these qualifications even count for anything, in an age when they can be bought/when uncredited qualifications are available even for science, but mostly at the vested interests. Being qualified doesn't make you unbiased, or worse, prevent you from outright lying. Nor does it prevent you peddling dubious 'expertise' for commercial gain. For example, 'doctor' Gillian McKeith as seen on tv/published in magazines/books: http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,2011095,00.html.

I also find reprehensible the notion that a select cabal of individuals should select which creative works qualify as 'culture' and which as 'dross'. You say "there is a scarcity of talent, expertise, experience and mastery in any given field. Finding and nurturing true talent in a sea of amateurs may be the real challenge in today's Web 2.0 world". Is the television behemoth that is the X Factor a better judge of what I'll musically enjoy than, well, myself, using MySpace and YouTube to find new music I judge to be of high quality?

As to YouTube featuring a video that 'belittled the seriousness' of Al Gore's message, a video that turned out to be - gasp - by ExxonMobil; how is that worse than messages getting belittled by opposing political or corporate actors on television, on the radio or in magazines? (Billy O'Reilly come to mind at all?) The problem isn't the media used - the clue's in the name. The media is the means by which 'information' is disseminated; the job of discerning fact from fiction, when such is possible (as opposed to ideas and culture, which are subjective) is the duty and the right of the person accessing the information. I don't need any 'editor' or 'critic' to do so for me; they can add their voice to the argument but I'm not going to blindly accept their opinion just because they're published/on my television screen/on the airwaves.

As to 'we have to trust [google/web 2.0] not to spill our secrets' - why would I trust it not to, any more than I'd trust a supermarket not to use a loyalty card programme to analyse my spending habits? We've all been told 'there's no such thing as a free lunch', and if people don't exercise their critical faculties and the obvious aims behind commercial 'business' (as opposed to charity), well then caveat non-emptor.

Blogs and wikis don't 'steal our eyeballs', we choose whether or not to donate them. As we do tv. As we do magazines. And we can choose to give our ears to radio. Are you saying we have no personal responsibility, or are like innocent children who need to be defending from the Web 2.0 wolf? Or are you kindly offering to intervene on my poor credulous behalf?

Web 2.0 IS democratising, because it allows for the sharing of 'opinions'. And just as I could listen to someone voice their opinion in the pub, and tell me how 'qualified' they are to hold said opinion, I prefer to rely on first-hand experience if possible and judge the various opposing sources of information available to choose which 'truth' is most likely if not. And most importantly, to discern if they have a vested interest, and any reason they might have for giving me Web 2.0 allows me enlarge the pub table as much or as little as I like. And I don't need someone to stand over us and claim any more right to prescribe the information than anyone else, or tell me how and where I should be interacting (or rather, it seems, that I shouldn't be interacting) with culture.

Web 2.0 is democratising because it removes (an agent's notion of) commercial viability as a restriction upon bringing artistic creations into the public domain. Whether or not you enjoy J. K. Rowling's Potter books, for example, the millions who do enjoy them were only able to do so because she persevered despite 6 or 7 publishers deciding that people wouldn't enjoy them. Although, if the subsequent publisher hadn't decided to go ahead, perhaps she'd have used www.lulu.com to get published instead and people would have got to read her books anyway.

I think your most telling comment was:

"Can a collaboration of amateur voices create an authorative, coherent fictional narrative? I doubt it".

Your doubt is both patronising and irrelevant. The proof will be in the final result, not your ('expert'?) opinion, and thankfully no-one needs to rely on that.

Is it the declining monopoly of opinion to 'experts' putting your nose out of joint? Or are you just a big stirrer? go on, you can tell me...