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The Loving Trap

Ben Woodhams · Youtube · 1 HN points · 38 HN comments
HN Theater has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention Ben Woodhams's video "The Loving Trap".
Youtube Summary
In a landmark new documentary produced for YouTube, Adam Curtis has not examined his career and laid bare his style in the light of some confused academic papers he stumbled across on the internet. Instead, I have plundered various video archives and ripped him off, up, down, left, right and back again.
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this video.
Why do you think its a joke? it seems you agree with me?

Sure brits love to get drunk but their politics always seemed reasonable to me.

I love the different subcultures the UK birthed and its heartbreaking how bad things are and are still going to get in the coming century.

Downvote me if you must, wont change my personal (albeit uninformed) feelings.

As for Adam Curtis i enjoy his work but this parody hits it on the nail: https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg

https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg obligatry response whenever anything by Adam Curtis is offered up. Sorry, I'm largely of the opinion that it is (well made) boomer-aimed catastrophe porn designed to give the viewer a smug sense of having "esoteric knowledge".
bmitc
Nearly anything can be parodied in such a way to apparently diminish thentarget of the parody.
ethbr0
> boomer-aimed catastrophe porn designed to give the viewer a smug sense of having "esoteric knowledge"

I'll just balance it out with some TED optimism porn.

itronitron
opens arms
woleium
https://youtu.be/_ZBKX-6Gz6A
ckw
Adam Curtis likes the parody.
agumonkey
I thought I was the only one feeling this way.
memonkey
Yeah, I tend to agree.

I've watched a couple and they ask pretty good questions if the answers he gives require some additional research/critical thinking/knowledge of history.

The last documentary I watched, Hypernormalization, seemed to give platform to and justify the need for _more_ individualism via Trump-esque critique on Leftist ideologue. That is totally fine, but I can see how people can watch his documentaries accept many of the leaps in logic.

ZeroGravitas
https://arquivo.pt/wayback/20151114022454/http://laurenceten...

Is a much more worrying link that should be obligatory when he comes up.

Curtis is heavily linked to the "Living Marxism" crowd, who started as the journal of the "Revolutionary Communist Party" in the UK which mutated into "Spiked" the extreme right-wing libertarian clique that pop up everywhere in the UK press. And appear to be some kind of personality cult around a guy who co-wites some of the documentaries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Furedi

He appears to be some weird Tony Blair/Jordan Peterson hybrid.

> George Monbiot has elicited an admission from the managing editor of Spiked Online that they have received $300,000 in funding from the Charles Koch Foundation,[11] a fact not declared on their website.[12] He has accused Furedi of overseeing extreme right-wing libertarian campaigns "against gun control, against banning tobacco advertising and child pornography, and in favour of global warming, human cloning and freedom for corporations". Monbiot also accuses him of leading entryism of ex-RCPers into "key roles in the formal infrastructure of public communication used by the science and medical establishment", to pursue an agenda in favour of genetic engineering.[13] The journalist Nick Cohen has described the RCP as a "weird cult"[14] whose Leninist discipline, disruptive behaviour and selfish publicity-seeking have remained unaltered during the various tactical shifts in the face it presents to the wider world.[15]

Someone should make a documentary about them, how do you go politically from actively celebrating the deaths of British soldiers to pushing for Brexit? There's got to be some amazing back story in that, and there's loads of "No way" moments.

colordrops
There is some truth to this parody, but there is also a lot to learn from Century of Self, if you weren't already aware of, say, Edward Bernaise and his role in American society. Now his doc HyperNormalisation, I took nothing away from it, but oh boy was it an amazing way to spend the evening. The music and imagery is fricking amazing.
nyolfen
i think you should watch it again. i feel like it has become significantly more relevant since it was released.
Also see The Loving Trap for explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg
woleium
Haha, came here to post this. it's a short explaier about Curtis, less than favourable. It does make you laugh though:)
You should always acompany this documentary with a watch of this short little video. The Loving Trap (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg).

It mocks adam curtis style while making some very good points.

ycombinete
I watch this whenever someone posts it, which is every time someone posts anything about Adam Curtis.
clydethefrog
Adam Curtis responded to this parody in an interview with The Quietus at the beginning of this year.

Q: Some critics of your work – for example, The Loving Trap parody – argue that what you do is very skilfully create elaborate narratives which make connections and draw parallels that are then presented as objective truth. Do you sometimes worry about being dismissed as part of the ‘conspiracy’ problem?

A: "That parody is very funny and clever, and it made me reflect on myself, which is good. But let’s be clear, I’ve never in any of my films put forward a conspiracy theory. Over the last 20 years, when the mainstream left and right in this country have essentially fused together, out of that has emerged a very strong consensus. In the face of that, the term ‘conspiracy theory’ has transformed itself into a shorthand to describe anyone who challenges that mainstream narrative. My job, which the BBC has tasked me to do, is to provoke people and ask them, “Have you thought about looking at the world this way?” To pull back a bit and look at what is happening in a different way. But that is not a conspiracy theory.

In the New Yorker he also touched upon it:

Boone directed readers instead to a short online spoof of Curtis’s films by Ben Woodhams called “The Loving Trap,” which describes his work as the “televisual equivalent of a drunken late-night Wikipedia binge.” Curtis is conscious of what even his admirers call his “wild leaps.” “As a critique, I’m aware of that, but I’m also aware that that’s what all journalists do,” he said. “But since they’re actually just saying the same old thing, people don’t notice the leaps. . . . I’m making no more bigger leaps than most of my colleagues do, when they tell me that Al Qaeda is about to sail a boat down the Thames with an atomic bomb on it—and that would be accepted in 2005, or whenever it was.”

https://thequietus.com/articles/29558-film-adam-curtis-cant-...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/adam-curti...

ycombinete
I find the parody of his delivery and style amusing in the video, but don’t find the actual content/accusations of The Loving Trap convincing or fair at all.
You'll enjoy this parody then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

It hits the nail on the head (but I still enjoy Curtis' work)

jgalt212
quote from video

> the audience didn't notice the chasm between argument and conclusion.

due to all the crap he throws up on the screen.

AlbertoGP
That’s a great parody, and Adam Curtis himself agrees:

> [Brooker] I’m guessing you’ve seen the parodies, things like the Adam Curtis Bingo Card, where people are – I think affectionately – listing some of your stylistic quirks. How do you feel about those?

> [Curtis] I really like the parodies when they are good. That one called The Loving Trap I loved, because it was so sharp. It spotted that really it was the voice. It was just really well done.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ad8db/adam-curtis-charlie-b...

Sep 04, 2021 · 1 points, 0 comments · submitted by ofou
You may appreciate this parody and deconstruction of his filmmaking style:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

paganel
Really interesting, there's a smart comment in there about capitalism appropriating its critics and their criticisms.

Now the question is: is Curtis the person first doing the appropriation of capitalist criticism and is this guy actually doing an appropriation of the appropriation of capitalist criticism? Again, I find it very interesting nonetheless.

“...and, as a result, Thabo Mbeki was swept to power”

https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg

Love a good Adam Curtis documentary, especially when he throws light on obscure moments in history. Probably best not to hang your understanding of the world on the scaffold he constructs though.

SideburnsOfDoom
And he mispronounces "Thabo". He seems to say more like "Tsabo"
Jan 31, 2021 · twic on Adam Curtis Explains It All
> Boone directed readers instead to a short online spoof of Curtis’s films by Ben Woodhams called “The Loving Trap,” which describes his work as the “televisual equivalent of a drunken late-night Wikipedia binge.”

I'm glad this was mentioned, because i think it's hilarious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg
sn41
I was about to post this. The parody is so brilliant that I never took any Curtis documentary seriously after this.
currymj
this is a little too mean, but still very funny and gets at the point quite clearly.
adolph
Adam Curtis believed that two hundred thousand Guardian readers watching BBC2 could change the world. But this was a fantasy, in fact he had created the televising equivalent of a drunken midnight Wikipedia binge with the <something Brit accented> narrative coherence
https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg
henriquemaia
Thank you for bringing this. When I saw this thread, I immediately thought of this parody. Clicked your link and was not disappointed.
This is my favourite Adam Curtis documentary...

The Loving Trap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

Only 3 mins long.

DonaldFisk
It's a parody.
grey-area
That was rather good and highlights in 3 minutes the significant problems with his stylish yet incoherent films.

They’re convincing on an emotional level in the way that a speech from a politician or a well crafted advert is - by appealing to secret desires, fears and aspirations rather than persuading with the truth.

https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg
nr2x
That comes from a place of love, hilarious.
Melting_Harps
> https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg

LOL!

I had paused Hypernormilzation on the mid point when it got to AI and the picture of the screen was a one of these guys [0] and I just had it that way and kind of wondered why I prefer to just hear his work as as podcast as I do other stuff rather than hyper focus on the screen.

This explains my latent feelings of the absurdity on screen rather well.

His documentaries have so much exposition that you can kind of look up the topics on your own as you go along to try and compare and contrast the facts as they're narrated, his work is probably my first foray with interactive TV.

0: https://youtu.be/MRx2nskdAgY?t=12

It's on YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa1LiBedgAciIiHqBAWEo7Q/vid...

Also if you're a fan of his work watch 'The Loving Trap' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

Enjoy.

The is an excellent 3 min deconstruction of Adam Curtis' work on YouTube [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

"This is a short story about the rise of the Collageumentary, And how the medium swamped the message"

The Loving Trap https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg

dredmorbius
That's the one I had in mind (it's brilliant), though it's become a bit of a genre itself:

https://youtube.com/results?search_query=adam+curtis+parody

Corbett Report offers a good, longish (45m) take, non-parody:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=njJz6zrmy_s

Love Adam Curtis but this video more or less ruined his films for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg
freshhawk
It was an impressive aping of his style, and pretty funny (I really like the bit about the death valley footage: "And so viewers assumed that Death Valley would figure into the argument. But this was a fantasy.")

But as an actual critique it is pitiful. Basically boils down to "The pictures on screen aren't literal!" and "I disagree politically, so Curtis is wrong".

It feels like the creator has trouble following Curtis' arguments and loses the thread, which isn't hard to do with his work I suppose.

petercooper
It sort of feels like "format policing", a la "tone policing". Like the mere way Curtis presents his ideas invalidates them somehow.
dna_polymerase
I don't know how many people recommended HyperNormalisation to me already, yet I've never been able to sit through the whole thing. I absolutely dislike his style, the image so dispatched from the narrative... So thank you for that video, it really fits my feelings about his work.
taliesinb
The problem with Curtis is that he lacks a positive vision of the future.
monocasa
IDK, rarely does Curtis touch on the future. He seems to mainly view the past through a sort of interconnected lens that, sure, makes us look at the players as human and fallible.

IMO, that kind of critical view of the past is necessary for us to do better in the future.

adamson
Funny, that was exactly his criticism of American liberalism in his interview on Chapo: https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-65-no-future...
pizza
This video someone made from that clip is particularly a enthralling audiovisual experience about visions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW_R98EBO7s
digi_owl
Quite interesting.

Many of the topics that Curtis mentions has shown up in his previous documentaries. Like that about Ayn Rand individualism, the mechanistic view of the world, or the fear of grand ideas.

danbruc
I on the other hand like the style for its own sake but enjoyed HyperNormalisation a lot less than Bitter Lake or The Power of Nightmares. But the style really does not help the credibility of the story or allows following the argument and spotting potential holes in it. In the end I am left with the feeling to either forget about it or having to fact check the whole thing. There are certainly interesting points in his films but they are almost impossible to evaluate without consulting other sources.
dpwm
I have this problem too. I have the problem that even though I admire the complexity and the hopping from location to location, to me it's the fact that it's spun into a narrative that makes me feel uncomfortable that some people will treat it like it's more than a hypothetical narrative.

I haven't found any events that were not real or were convincingly disputed in the Adam Curtis films I've seen. Some of the claims of causation and responsibility are a little more disputed -- the bit where it is claimed it was really Syria behind the attacks blamed on Libya ignores the fact that others claim it was Iran stands out for me.

I tend to view it like a history documentary. You can't really trust it because it will be a narrative account and so many of the events in history are dependent on the greater context for a deeper understanding. But it's probably fine for an idea of what you should look into.

In the case of most history documentaries they take the narrative they think is the easiest for the audience to understand as they go through things that happened. The narrative makes it more interesting at the expense of academic rigour.

In the case of Adam Curtis films I often feel that he is trying to find the most mind-bending narrative and choosing events to suit that. Other times I get the impression that he is choosing key bits of archive footage he likes and finding a narrative to fit that. Personally I'm fine with this because I have no expectation for him to cover events across a time span or even chronologically.

The truth is that events happen. Sometimes those events don't even happen for a reason. Other times they happen for a reason. Sometimes the reason that seems most obvious afterwards was never even entertained at the time. The real world isn't a narrative, it's much more complex than that.

djsumdog
I think this goes back philosophically to the theories of Marshall McLuhan, specifically The Medium is the Message.

Take for example, YouTube. And I do me YouTube, not video. YouTube isn't video. Video doesn't allow annotations (although those are thankfully going away), or referencing other videos, or references to the comments or description. Although some of these things exist on other video services, they're pretty much the defacto standard people think about in relation to YouTube. Their format has changed the way we interact with video.

It's almost the ultimate circle come-round from the concepts in Videodrome.

AlexCoventry
> the style really does not help the credibility of the story or allows following the argument

Yeah, I wish there was a supporting text document with citations.

mirimir
Well, there are captions. That's cool, given that I'm using a VM with no audio, to avoid audio info leakage. But damn, almost three hours is quite the time commitment. Especially reading rapid-fire captions.

Edit: ... especially in the context of a HN topic. By the time I get around to watching it, the topic will be effectively dead.

freshhawk
I also like the style. I get why people wouldn't, the argument is in the narrative and the video part is just flavour (and often a little bit of subtextual commentary/comedy).

I don't see how it effects credibility either way though. Do you just mean it would seem more credible with a full audio/video argument? I can buy that, it might feel more convincing while still having the same content.

danbruc
I think he mixes hard facts, like descriptions of events that undeniably happened, a lot with interpretations or connections he draws and that he often presents as causations but then fails to substantiate them. It may be plausible that X did Y because of Z but that is not really supported by any facts and could as well just be a correlation. If you watch carefully enough you can spot those things but if you are watching more casually and enjoy the pictures and the music it becomes easy to miss such things. I think if the story was narrated in a dryer, more classical documentary style it would be more evident whether and where there are holes in the argument, after all the visuals and music certainly consume part of your attention.
freshhawk
> It may be plausible that X did Y because of Z but that is not really supported by any facts and could as well just be a correlation.

Any historical work at the abstract high level of societal forces and societal evolution has the same problems though. How on earth do you prove that X did Y because of Z with facts?

The fact that the format is less familiar seems to just be making it more apparent that history is interpreted.

danbruc
How on earth do you prove that X did Y because of Z with facts?

[Auto]biographies, letters, interviews of friends, family members and companion, diaries, records about the books they lent from the library, intelligence records ... we know quite a lot about the motivations of well-researched important personalities. It would of course still not be a proof of mathematical rigor but such sources would definitely lend a lot of credibility if they are itself reliable.

dpwm
I think you've nailed the problem for me as well: possibilities and opinions are presented in the same style as facts. This is more like what is done by news reporters than history documentarians.

I am not happy when opinions and possibilities are promoted as though they are facts, but I only tend to pay attention when I do not agree with the position. Adam Curtis does this a lot to link things together that seem otherwise unconnected and the position he takes tends to be rather inoffensive to me.

This is made worse by being combined with archive footage: we tend to believe our eyes in a way we don't our ears. I don't feel qualified enough to confirm that the archive footage is even about the events which are being discussed.

Thinking about it some more, I would be outright hostile towards his methods if the narrative were to move into a position that I did find offensive.

monocasa
But ultimately I think that's a component of his overarching mindset. That sort of post modern 'there is no thing as objective fact', but instead a sea of conflicting opinions and intentions that a lot of times diverges from the popular viewpoint the more details you know.
frabbit
This was interesting to read. Especially the fantasy/thought-experiment about how I might feel if the narrative were to move to a position that I found offensive.

But then I switch on 60 Minutes. Or read the NYT. And I realize that they do not even have the courtesy to make it possible to distinguish fact from opinion and possibly (and in the case of the NYT outright fabrications planted by the military).

I do not take Adam Curtis as Truth. But his work has suggested that there are ways to stitch together narratives that suit different mindsets.

pizza
There are many good critiques of Adam Curtis but this one is one of the less important ones to me imo?

Consider for example, the movie Koyaanisqatsi - I feel like you can make a similar critique on the linear/onedimensionality de facto property of an archival-footage-only movie. Though there is a big difference between music only and footage vs footage and narrative, I guess

djsumdog
> "...and thanks to Adam Curtis, Brian Eno never had to work again..."

It is good to be critical of things you like. This is actually pretty funny satire, and will hopefully make me think the next time I watch a Youtube video that's just unrelated stock footage to disguise a talking head.

...I still like Adam Curtis though.

StringyBob
There's always https://www.tomscott.com/infinite-adam-curtis/ too
cornholio
Little did you know, you were part of of an ever growing movement of young people who's experience of Adam Curtis was ruined by that Youtube video, and who would, in the span of only two short decades, come to redefine what humanity knew about Adam Curtis.
nerfhammer
But this was a fantasy. In fact, Adam Curtis simply never existed, and neither did young people. At least, that's what we were led to believe by a series of internet comments while at the same time, the government undertook a series of seemingly unrelated actions.
I think every Adam Curtis documentary link should also have this appended to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg
Obligatory. If you enjoy Adam Curtis, you should have a look at 'The Loving Trap of Pandora's Nightmares' - its only 3 minutes long and rather amusing.

https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg

taway_1212
Hahaha, brilliant.
It's easy to get sucked into thinking it all makes perfect sense but there's a few pretty big implied leaps of logic. This spoof sums it up pretty well I think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg
elcapitan
Lol, this is great. Thanks.
You have to be a little careful though - https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg
omnimus
Adam Curtis does make some generalisations but i am not sure its possible without them. The world is so complex that anyone trying to understand the topic would have to go through same research Curtis had to. Its so hard to make point about global situation in 3 hours.

It is a political commentary and sometimes its subjective but i think his work make lot of people think and investigate. That's whole lot better than something that tries to be objective no matter what - that always ends up saying practicaly nothing.

Feb 06, 2015 · benkant on Adam Curtis: Bitter Lake
Yes. I disagree with most of his points of view. Some of his statements are outright incorrect and a majority are at least questionable or wanting for references. In _The Trap_ he constantly uses the phrase "based on numbers" in a negative fashion, as if it were an inferior method of analysis. I find that particularly strange considering that if you just listen to his narrative without the images, there is no analysis and often no cogent argument.

One argument, if I remember correctly, was that game theory should no longer be used as a tool because it was largely developed during the cold war, which is over now.

And yet I'm utterly I'm fascinated by his movies. I probably (re)watch one every 2 months. Go figure.

edit: You can't miss this parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

dredmorbius
As above, I'd really like to know where specifically you disagree with Curtis or find his view less than credible.
benkant
I've made about as much of an effort as I'm willing elsewhere in the thread, sorry.
chazu
I agree that Curtis' arguments are often articulated in such a way as to make them easy to debunk or dismiss, however I think the germ of his arguments often highlight interesting or compelling ideas. I suspect that many others commenting here, however much they disagree with Curtis' ideas (or his articulations of ideas) feel the same.

From my perspective the common thread of his arguments is that over-reliance on specific models (generally of how the human mind works, but also of how systems work, e.g. ecology) can lead to unintended consequences. For example, the ways in which British hospitals skirted performance targets under New Labor, or the spectacular failure of the approach taken by the Defense Department in Vietnam.

To take another example, Curtis highlights in 'The Century of Self' the damage done by over-reliance on Freudian models of the mind, and then the subsequent follies of those who borrowed from Wilhelm Reich.

Perhaps stated more generally, I think the core idea behind Curtis' work is perhaps simply that ideas can be extremely dangerous or powerful.

benkant
>the core idea behind Curtis' work is perhaps simply that ideas can be extremely dangerous or powerful

That's as good a description as I'm likely to come up with. Aside from the delivery, which is at once engaging and completely lacking the nuisance necessary for a topic like this, my issue is that the core idea is a truism and I'm not sure he actually makes an interesting point, much less offers alternatives (he'd have to make that point first).

He does however touch on interesting topics. He then attempts to find causal relationships between events, but I believe doing this to arrive at a conclusion is intellectually dishonest. He must know that, which makes me more frustrated. That's personal preference. If I was trying to convince someone of something, this is not how I'd go about it.

Re NHS: ask anyone who designs incentive programs and they'll tell you that it's a cat and mouse game. I fail to see how hospital managers gaming the system implies "KPI + autonomy about how to achieve it" is a dud idea entirely, and that proponents of such systems are paranoid RAND Corp game theory psychopaths stuck in the Cold War.

Incentives need to be tweaked just like anything else, and the rational agent model need not be a complete description of human behaviour for it be useful. It need only be sufficiently descriptive of portions of workplace behaviour that designing incentives raises KPIs. If those KPIs aren't working you tweak them, using those dreaded numbers Curtis despises so much.

Models are useful until they aren't. But as someone said- they're all wrong. We modify them or replace them as necessary. Sometimes that takes longer than we'd like. We'd still be bashing each other with clubs without them. I'm not sure what Curtis proposes, which is perhaps why I watch these movies over and over again- trying to get the point. Or maybe it's just soothing to hear vague thoughts about economics and systems theory set to music and stock footage.

As others have said, perhaps it's more useful as a conversation starter than a thesis. Don't get me wrong. I love the damn movies.

Torgo
He seems to have not actually understood game theory, from my watching.
As we're on this, it's worth watching The Loving Trap, a funny Adam Curtis parody.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

Agreed that the Century of the Self is very much worth watching.

This parody is spot on, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

And if you're interested in Adam Curtis, I recommend this parody/critique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

Not saying that Curtis's documentaries are without merit, just lending a little context.

Dec 06, 2013 · JonnieCache on What the Fluck
That's his whole thing. His films typically come in three or four 60 minute sections. He occasionally does stuff like stage live action interactive theatre versions of his documentaries in abandoned warehouses. He once did a show with Massive Attack. So when he writes articles like this, it's him being restrained.

See the following brilliantly observed parody for the reasons to take him with a pinch of salt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

That said, he is one of my intellectual idols, however much he does enjoy gimmickry.

Dec 06, 2013 · jn on What the Fluck
Have you seen "The Loving Trap"? http://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg

(spoiler: it's a parody of Curtis's methods)

hermanhermitage
Thanks for that jn. It really resonates with me after seeing Machines and this latest BBC article.
Adam Curtis is one of the most important documentary film thinkers of this or any other generation. Seminal.

'The Loving Trap' (2011) is a good place to start exploring this visionaries ground breaking work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

Why is this on hacker news?

pav3l
I agree, even if you don't agree with Adam Curtis's politics, his documentaries are very thought provoking and well worth watching. Some of my favourites include "The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream", "The Century of self", "Pandora's Box", "All watched over by Machines Loving Grace". If you enjoyed this particular blog post, check out "The Power of Nightmares".
gadders
He may be important, but that doesn't make him right. He makes interesting programs, but there are plenty of dissenting views.
new299
I'm also not sure why it's on hacker news, but his blog post are always wonderfully detailed and fascinating.

Perhaps this is more appropriate for hacker news though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of...

Oct 12, 2012 · taliesinb on The Century of Self
I love this documentary, but I also love this Adam Curtis parody video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg
These are not good films. These are bad films. Adam Curtis is not a good film maker. Adam Curtis is a bad film maker.

This is better http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

If you're going to watch any Adam Curtis documentary, it's worth watching the parody video "The Loving Trap"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

You may enjoy this exquisitely observed parody, "The Loving Trap"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

This excellent adam curtis parody about sums it up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

I would recommend watching the parody http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg after "All Watched Over" :)
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