-- By JustinColannino - 14 Jan 2010

Despite John Henry's best efforts, we now depend on mechanization to produce our railroads. Since then, mass production has poured into our culture - from railroads to automobiles, household goods, clothing, music, and books. [This essay will examine how this mass production has shaped us, and how the internet presents a way for us to reassert our autonomy.]

Human beings are made of culture

In many ways, each of us is a product of what we are exposed to. What we believe varies depending on where we are born and who our parents are. Holmes loves granite rocks and barberry bushes, while I prefer dusty soccer fields and side streets with cracks filled with tar that bubbles in the sun and sticks to your bike wheels. The implication of this is that what we choose to do effects the choices that others make. We react to what we experience - manners, gestures, clothing, and goods. What others wear influences our idea of fashion, what we make influences how others make things, and when you read my last sentience it interacts with your mental picture producing some new state, and probably not the one I intended.

Push production puts the power to shape culture more strongly in the hands of the people who control the pushing (or 'I'm gonna bring that steam drill 'round')

The internet gives us the power to shape the culture around us, giving us the power to shape ourselves (or 'listen to my cold steel ring')