I found an interesting intersection between the old, dead tree media and the echo chambers that so many “knowledge workers” live in.  The lead article in a recent New York Times magazine (April 20th, the “Green” Issue) is from author Michael Pollan.  He’s published several books on growing what you eat.

Something about the article really ticked me off, but I couldn’t really put my finger on it.  The article — a well-written and enjoyable read — is, after all, by a UC Berkeley professor of journalism.  Once taking it all in, including the magazine where it appeared, I realized what it really was: worthless.

Michael’s position is that true environmental change has to come from life style changes, starting from growing the food you eat in your backyard.  That’s ok, simple and harmless.  But it gets much worse.  Michael twists this argument into a diatribe on how society’s biggest ill is that we are all a bunch of specialists.  That is, most of us are only good at a couple of things, and not at all capable of living on our own skill base alone.  He thinks we should all become farmers, for example.

The rise of the specialist is as a result of predominantly cheap social networking — and that’s a good thing.

By networking not only do I mean telecommunications, but also roadways and the cars that drive on them.  And the postal system.  And broadcast media.  Oh, and dead tree publishing too.  This is the stuff of modern civilizations, and yes this is way better than when everyone hunted down for their food.  Where would the Prius that Michael drives come from other than supreme specialization on the part of Toyota’s engineers?  Innovation is driven by specialization, and I’m sorry but innovation is the planet’s best bet to minimize environmental effects.  And society is so tightly woven around the specialist that harping about eating radishes won’t have nearly as much effect on the world as good sound science.

Old media reinforces the echo chamber.

Michael is caught in the echo chamber, and old media — namely book and newspaper publishing — only reinforces the behavior.  And this is what bugged me the most: as much as his arguments are wrong (see above), no one would know about it.  In fact the last person to find out about the bubbly thought process is the author.  Even worse, with a badge like New York Times, its got to be right, right?

Now, echo chambers exist in lots of new fangled things too — Silicon Valley is notorious for being overly hype-stimulated.  But at least the thinking is out in the open, and the crowd course corrects rather quickly.  5-10 years between bubbles isn’t bad when old media takes (literally) generations.

Old Advertising hangs out with the same crew

Ok, maybe my last example is a bit self-indulgent, but it is hard to read Michael’s article about eco-friendly living when the print edition places this ad right next door:

Why bother? My point exactly.