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Max Headroom was the first cyberpunk series to run in the United States on one of the main broadcast networks in prime time, although it was not tagged with that label until some time after its cancellation. Like other science fiction, the series introduced the general public to new ideas in the form of cyberpunk themes and social issues. The series portrayed the Blanks, a counter-culture group of people who lived without any official numbers or documentation for the sake of privacy. Various episodes delved into issues like literacy and the lack thereof in a TV-dominated culture (for example, in the episode "Body Banks", Blank Reg says: "It's a book. It's a non-volatile storage medium. It's very rare. You should 'ave one." This statement also anticipates the mid-2000s controversy over the replacement of print by online and e-book sources.)

Of Max Headroom himself, actor Matt Frewer told Rolling Stone magazine that "The cool thing about playing Max is that you can say virtually anything because theoretically the guy's not real, right? Can't sue a computer!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(TV_series)

donstewart wrote:A question posed by Mr. Hill’s graphs is why accumulated oil production and GDP has diverged from the historical relationship.

donstewart wrote: I believe that a newly published book may shed some light on the subject: The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, by Gazzaley and Rosen. Gazzaley is a neuroscientist and Rosen is a psychologist.

GHung wrote:Interesting, Don, and seemingly spot on. My first thoughts go back to the late '80s show "Max Headroom", when it was forbidden to turn the TV off. Virtually all information/noise was controlled by the corporate media, and TV was mandatory. Some aspects of the theme were so prescient that some thought the show was intentionally put up against Miami Vice and Dallas so it would fail in the ratings.

Another commentary on media addiction and the dumbing-down of society is "Idiocracy".

donstewart wrote:If you want evidence of how profoundly the recent explosion of information (signal and noise) is damaging our ability to achieve goals, check out the book.

AdamB wrote:....Indeed. Are you hinting that Don and you joined this club as far back as that, and peak oil was just one of the things you fell for along the way? Because I don't recall Short at any time claiming that the random number generator had anything to do with psychological defects, his or anyone else's, or the idiocracy of the audience. Now, he might have been counting on this effect in you and Don in order to pitch a sale? That makes perfect sense, but others have disagreed with me that the monetary motive was the primary purpose of the random number generator.