bs2Feb 20, 2024
> Aristotle thought.. democracy implied that a person standing in the center of a city could, when giving an oration, be heard by all the citizens. Considering.. that there were no amplification devices, one might think this unrealistic. However, #BenjaminFranklin actually tested the idea (although for different reasons) in trying to determine exactly how far and by how many people the voice of the great orator #ReverendWhitefield could be heard.
#NeilPostman #BridgeToEighteenthCentury
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> [Ben Franklin's] conclusion.. [was that a powerful speaker could be heard] from Market Street to a particular part of Front Street in Philadelphia, and by 30,000 people.
> Putting Franklin’s experiment aside, we may say that #EnlightenmentPhilosophes were not unaware of the connections between political life and communication.

With 1050 English words #EP3 lets us ease into the conversation. #EP3 #GDM #EPGDM
#BuildingABridgeToTheEighteenthCentury
#BenFranklin #Aristotle on #HumanVoiceLimits

Feb 20, 2024 at 2:40amWeb
Show threadbs2Feb 20, 2024
The English Through Pictures Book 3 page 47 makes me think of a line from Lewis Mumford:
> Mechanical instruments, potentially a vehicle of rational human purposes, are scarcely a blessing when they enable the gossip of the village idiot and the deeds of the thug to be broadcast to a million people each day.
#LewisMumford in #TechnicsAndCivilization p.301
#VillageIdiot #TownThug
Trump comes to mind...
Show threadbs2Feb 20, 2024
Limits:
> Plato defined the limits of the size of a city as the number of people who could hear the voice of a single orator: today those limits do not define a city but a civilization..
Media:
> As with all instruments of multiplication the.. question is as to the function and quality of the object.. multiplying. There is no satisfactory answer to this..[from] #technics .. nothing to indicate.. [that] #InstantaneousCommunication.. will.. be favorable to the community.
#LewisMumford in 1934