QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Sun 28th February 2010, 11:41am)
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QUOTE(MZMcBride @ Sun 28th February 2010, 12:51am)
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QUOTE(The Joy @ Sat 27th February 2010, 3:58pm)
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QUOTE(RMHED @ Sat 27th February 2010, 3:35pm)
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The web isn't making people stupid, people have always been stupid, it's hardwired into humanity (and thus will ensure our timely destruction.)
Indeed. The Internet acts as a megaphone for people, both the stupid and the smart. It doesn't help that the quantity of information has increased with the help of the Internet, but at the expense of good quality information. You have to be a good detective with great information literacy to find the diamonds in the rough.
The issue I have with a good portion of the criticism on this site is that, as you say, it's a symptom of the Internet (or the Information Age, I guess), while many people here blame individual components like Wikipedia. Wikipedia may be an example case, but it's hardly to blame for the giant shift that's been witnessed over the past fifteen to twenty years.
¤ sigh ¤I can't say it any better than this —
George Saunders, The Braindead MegaphoneJon (IMG:
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A few spare ergs in my brain-basket this morning, so maybe I'll try to unscramble the entropy thereof.
There are indeed more general phenomena afoot here — that's the very reason for the existence of this Meta*Discussion Forum.
What led me to open this thread, specifically, was that I had started noticing similar developments taking place at many different fora and e-gora across the web. Nothing new under the sun as far as human nature goes, of course, but it looks like there are specific technical factors on the rise that are blocking the best and catalyzing the worst in the way of critical, reflective, independent thought.
So … what are those stupefying factors, exactly?
Jon Awbrey