Progress is bad?

John Dvorak's latest column can be shortened down quite a bit - to summarize his point: Techological progress is bad, and people are too stupid to handle it all. To wit:

On-demand instant replay has changed the viewing patterns of TV watchers in much the same way that the infinite hard drive has changed the maintenance pattern of the computer user. Both have introduced a new philosophy of laziness—and that philosophy is now permeating society. With the hard drive, you don't have to think about all the data piling up. You just don't care. Soon you discover you have five and six copies of a file that you saved over and over.

With the TiVo, you don't have to pay close attention to your TV anymore. If something happens, you can simply go back to watch it in detail, and then fall back into the zombie-like state abetted by this convenient tool. Even reading has become more difficult in our new mindset. Podcasts are taking over the world because you can replay them instantly. If you think about it, the iPod is really a TiVo. These devices are perfect for putting the public in a stupor.

But once you slide down the slope of dull-witted haze, there is not much you can do about it. As you get dumber, you become more oblivious. Intelligence is like good taste. If you don't have it, you don't miss it.

The shorter summary of Dvoark - he used to be an expert, with semi-useful advice. Now he's torqued because the world has passed him by, and no one cares. Why does PC Magazine still employ this gasbag? And media people wonder why they have circulation issues. Here's a tip - don't tell your audience that they are clueless idiots, for starters.