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"Saucy, Ignorant Contrarianism."
I meant to make fun of Wired's cover story telling you to "rethink everything you ever learned about being green," but forgot. Magazine stories of the "everything you know about X is wrong" variety are, in general, almost always wrong. Big, well-covered issues populated by lots of expert voices do not trundle along in ignorance until some editor somewhere decides to assign a contrarian story on the subject, thus finally uncovering the truth. Same goes for this Wired story, for all the reasons Paulina Borsook lays out and links to.
COMMENTS (9)
I think you might have an open tag somewhere? All the text in your main column is bold.
Posted by: Kevin W. Baker | June 8, 2008 12:26 PM
I wrote a little bit about this myself the other day, making much the same points.
But mostly the Wired issue stands as a noteworthy testament to what happens when you allow an unholy trinity of technopositivity, kneejerk know-it-all contrarianism, and fierce resentment of hippies to drive your coverage: even your good insights get drowned in smarm.
Posted by: G C | June 8, 2008 1:17 PM
That all sounds eerily familiar.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/5/20/15537/7410
Posted by: David Roberts | June 8, 2008 2:41 PM
Thanks for mentioning this, Ezra. I've been seething about Wired's idiocy on this topic for a week now.
Posted by: StuporMundi | June 8, 2008 6:47 PM
Take way their computers and watch them cry like li'l girls.
Posted by: christian | June 8, 2008 8:47 PM
Yeah, this is what finally convinced that I need to cancel my subscription to them, not because I was especially offended, but because it confirmed that they really are a shallow and hype driven magazine that can't see past its own image. Their cover story on ethanol a few months ago was both lame and extremely belated, and I don't think they know how to push any envelopes worth pushing.
All of which is quite odd because their website is really good.
Posted by: ACLS | June 8, 2008 9:05 PM
worse than that issue's questionable environment article was Louis Rosetto's rant against Soros and Daily Kos for having kicked off the hyper-partisanship of the mid-90s, 10 years before either of them showed up.
Posted by: Cody | June 9, 2008 11:27 AM
Anybody remember their "Push technology" issue, where they declared the web dead - Marimba, PointCast and push technology would take over everything. I gave up on them then, and that was about 10 years ago.
Posted by: M. Peachbush | June 9, 2008 11:56 AM
You could put together a large section of WIRED cover stories that turned out to be bullshit.
Of course, it was the hippies that gave us the computers WIRED uses to escape actual reality.
Posted by: christian | June 9, 2008 4:21 PM