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Robert Fay's avatar

A very interesting piece. Appreciate it. This POV happens to be a recurring theme among intellectuals and bohemians in the U.S., Brook Farm in the 1840s, the back-to-land movement in the 1960s, etc.

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Peter Clarke's avatar

I'm not as familiar with those movements as I probably should be. I'll have to read more about them... I think the latest iteration of this type of Brook Farm-type of back-to-the-land commune might be the "pop-up city" concept, like Mars College in the California desert.

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Robert Fay's avatar

Mars College is new to me, I’ll have to read up on it. Thank you.

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John Starace's avatar

A word to the wise guy. Burroughs nailed it. The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead.

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Lee Bacon's avatar

It’s interesting and not at all surprising that many of those who work in the upper echelons of tech send their kids to schools that promise a screen free environment. They have had a glimpse behind the curtain. They know what their product does to young people’s brains.

Great post!

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Peter Clarke's avatar

Thanks Lee! I wasn't entirely straightforward with my own views on the New Romanticism movement in this piece, but I agree that less screen time etc. is good. I'm pro-tech but lukewarm on social media. I prefer a vision of tech utopia that ultimately frees us to engage more directly with the natural world.

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Lee Bacon's avatar

Yeah, I’m not anti-tech at all. But I have two young kids and one of my top parenting goals is to keep their childhoods as screen-free as possible. They watch movies and shows on a projector sometimes, which feels ok, and they’ll look at photos and videos (of themselves) on our phones, but that’s it. At least until they’re too old for us to dictate what they do, and don’t do.

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