07-23-2004, 05:19 PM
Hi,
Yesterday I was looking for the lyrics of a song that I only half remembered. Used Google and eventually found it. But in the processes, I found many sites that had nothing to do with what I was looking for. And using the find function of the browser, I often could not find even one (non trivial) word of my search string on the page I'd clicked to.
Today I felt like browsing on one of my favorite subjects, arms and armor. I have a folder of favorites/bookmarks on that topic. Of the twenty two items in that folder, five are dead links and four have moved since I linked them. I have hundreds of pointers stored in 28 main folders, many with sub folders. I dread to think how many of those are now dead.
Other than by outright lying, I can think of three good ways to keep a person ignorant: tell them nothing, tell them too much to assimilate, tell them the truth and then change it. Seems that the Internet (and not just the web, consider over thirty seven thousand news groups with bunches added (and abandoned) weekly) is doing a pretty good job on two of the three ways. Not to mention that a lot of the content *is* outright lies.
So, is the net still the "Information Superhighway" that will make us all informed beings, or is it an accident saturated, hopelessly gridlocked, tangle of paths leading to nowhere of interest? I suspect that, without some sort of control, Sturgeon's law (squared) will apply. But with most forms of control, it'll become just another spin factory. The original solution, which happened by happenstance, of only letting people of a certain "class" (often CompSci 101 :) ) onto the net worked pretty well. But there is no way to go back to the days before the September That Never Ended.
So, what do you think. Will technology control the Frankenstein's monster that technology spawned? Or will the Net join broadcast TV as a form without function, a signaless source of noise?
Me? Well, I wouldn't be me if I didn't think it was going to hell on the express. :) The advantage of being a pessimist: I've never been disappointed, often vindicated, and sometimes pleasantly surprised.
--Pete
Yesterday I was looking for the lyrics of a song that I only half remembered. Used Google and eventually found it. But in the processes, I found many sites that had nothing to do with what I was looking for. And using the find function of the browser, I often could not find even one (non trivial) word of my search string on the page I'd clicked to.
Today I felt like browsing on one of my favorite subjects, arms and armor. I have a folder of favorites/bookmarks on that topic. Of the twenty two items in that folder, five are dead links and four have moved since I linked them. I have hundreds of pointers stored in 28 main folders, many with sub folders. I dread to think how many of those are now dead.
Other than by outright lying, I can think of three good ways to keep a person ignorant: tell them nothing, tell them too much to assimilate, tell them the truth and then change it. Seems that the Internet (and not just the web, consider over thirty seven thousand news groups with bunches added (and abandoned) weekly) is doing a pretty good job on two of the three ways. Not to mention that a lot of the content *is* outright lies.
So, is the net still the "Information Superhighway" that will make us all informed beings, or is it an accident saturated, hopelessly gridlocked, tangle of paths leading to nowhere of interest? I suspect that, without some sort of control, Sturgeon's law (squared) will apply. But with most forms of control, it'll become just another spin factory. The original solution, which happened by happenstance, of only letting people of a certain "class" (often CompSci 101 :) ) onto the net worked pretty well. But there is no way to go back to the days before the September That Never Ended.
So, what do you think. Will technology control the Frankenstein's monster that technology spawned? Or will the Net join broadcast TV as a form without function, a signaless source of noise?
Me? Well, I wouldn't be me if I didn't think it was going to hell on the express. :) The advantage of being a pessimist: I've never been disappointed, often vindicated, and sometimes pleasantly surprised.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?