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  • Remember the good old days?

  • Instead of isolating ourselves in our newspapers,

  • we used to talk to each other and just make up the news.

  • I happen to understand that fellow.

  • He's simply longing for an era of refinement and culture.

  • People used to read books.

  • No one reads books anymore.

  • That old cliché is completely false.

  • More Americans read books today

  • than did in the 1950s.

  • Huh.

  • And, by the way, when books were invented,

  • snobs like you hated on them too.

  • One intellectual even thought that too many books

  • would harm the mind.

  • Blast this...

  • That's ridiculous.

  • If you don't read books, how will you know

  • how smart and superior you are?

  • Ahh! Ooh!

  • Well, according to Socrates, you aren't.

  • The father of philosophy himself complained about

  • the ultimate corrupting modern invention, the written word.

  • The written word creates forgetfulness

  • in the learners' souls.

  • Back in my day,

  • we memorized and recited our lessons.

  • Reading is for the lazy and the stupid!

  • No! My personal identity!

  • It's okay, he was wrong.

  • Just like you're wrong about the internet.

  • No, no, things are worse now.

  • I can prove it.

  • People used to communicate with each other,

  • not like these solipsists!

  • I'm sorry, what do you think people use these devices for?

  • Literally, all they're doing is communicating.

  • He's keeping in touch with a friend from college.

  • She's writing an email to a fellow researcher in Poland.

  • I'm cyberbullying a child.

  • (Adam) Okay, they're not all winners.

  • But the point is, we're all communicating more now

  • than we ever were before.

  • We weren't better people back before we had smart phones

  • or the internet.

  • We were the same, lazy, curious, social people we've always been.

  • The only difference is now we have instantaneous access to

  • all knowledge and communication.

  • I mean, how is that anything other than a tremendous

  • social good?

  • Instead of pining for an imagined past,

  • we should feel immensely lucky

  • to live in the magnificent present.

Remember the good old days?

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