I felt the same - I’d never heard of Phil Agre and he might have good writing, but either this presentation was a terrible attempt to shoehorn an otherwise solid academic into a political agenda, or he’s somebody worth ignoring.

> The article reads as if the WSJ just needs a pretense to push their social justice viewpoints.

Yes.

Since they used this author I would have assumed he was not worth the time but this article is solid - "How to help someone use a computer" https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/how-to-help.html

Perhaps this is why he disappeared, the people he railed against were using his work against his principals?

Phil Agre's Wired articles - https://www.wired.com/author/phil-agre/

The 1995 "While the Left Sleeps" about the Left underestimating the Republicans is interesting.

> The 1995 "While the Left Sleeps" about the Left underestimating the Republicans is interesting.

Good grief. Thanks for pointing that out - it gave me goosebumps. I can't get my head around how clearly he could see what was happening, and why/how it was happening, and what the end game would be. Brilliant, if chilling.

My favorite part, “Business coalitions are already forming to eviscerate the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Food and Drug Administration, which regulate perhaps the country's most morally hazardous industries.”

Prescient if not somewhat ironic. We can’t even find someone who wants to be the FDA commissioner now. It’s become an organ of our government-media industrial complex.

WSJ?

They’re confusing their SJes.

Sorry, WaPo.