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I think e-mail petitions are an illusion. It gives people the illusion that they're participating in some meaningful political action.

Howard Rheingold

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Howard Rheingold
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: July 7
Essayist
Literary Critic
Sociologist
Writer
Phoenix
Arizona
People
Meaningful
Illusion
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Action
Political
Giving
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More quotes by Howard Rheingold

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It's quintessentially American to transform your family.
Howard Rheingold
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Communicating online goes back to the Defense Department's Arpanet which started in 1969. There was something called Usenet that started in 1980, and this gave people an opportunity to talk about things that people on these more official networks didn't talk about.
Howard Rheingold
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Dinosaurs grew feathers for heat regulation, but the ones that started flying started becoming birds.
Howard Rheingold
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Americans love technology, like jet planes and hot rods and televisions. It's a real conflict between the denial of, gee this is going to break people out of their regular frames, and gee it's a new technology I have got to have it.
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Technological civilization has now dominated the earth to the point where there is a big question what is going to happen next.
Howard Rheingold
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Any virtual community that works, works because people put in some time.
Howard Rheingold
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Like most modern Americans, I assume individuality is not only a fundamental value, but a goal in life, an art form.
Howard Rheingold
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Openness and participation are antidotes to surveillance and control.
Howard Rheingold
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You know back when there were light shows, there was this thing for people to sync into together. And the more people got synced into it, the more sync started happening. I guess it's just the size of the venue, and traveling around and so forth that it doesn't happen anymore. I don't know why.
Howard Rheingold
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Technology is knowledge of how the universe works that enables you to change the world.
Howard Rheingold
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I've spent my life alone in a room with a typewriter.
Howard Rheingold
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Mobile phones amplify human talents for cooperation.
Howard Rheingold
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What the Japanese are, are the Americans of the 21st century. Essentially what is objectionable about them is what was objectionable about Americans when we had the ball. However, they are committed in a way that American technology is not.
Howard Rheingold
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I'm somebody who seems to stumble into things 10 or 20 years before the rest of the world does.
Howard Rheingold
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Of course, with agriculture came the first big civilizations, the first cities built of mud and brick, the first empires. And it was the administers of these empires who began hiring people to keep track of the wheat and sheep and wine that was owed and the taxes that was owed on them by making marks marks on clay in that time.
Howard Rheingold
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Some digital natives are extraordinarily savvy.
Howard Rheingold
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There are always a few people who are hyper-normal.
Howard Rheingold
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Pay attention to what you're paying attention to.
Howard Rheingold
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Humans are language machines, computers are language machines.
Howard Rheingold
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A lot of people use collaborative technologies badly, then abandon them. They aren't 'plug-and-play.' The invisible part is the social skill necessary to use them.
Howard Rheingold