Human inventions that change the way we think
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/googleNeat article about how having instant access to the entirety of human thought is turning our brains into mush, or supercharging us, or probably both.
ALSO -ancient greeks said the same thing about WRITING. Writing, as a technology that will ruin humanity.
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CocktailsMalIntent said, (206 days ago)
What the internet has done, for the most part, is that it's changed what we need to know. the rote memorization of facts isn't nearly as important as it used to be, because you can look anything up. we've moved to needing to know how to find the information, whether or not we can trust the source, and how to put together the information.
Stereotest said, (206 days ago)
When I was studying at UMass, we were always talking about the concept of "global village" - the idea that all world at some point will be connected and even people in ancient villages will understand what people from developed countries are talking about.
Well, some say that so far it only led to problems, with global brands occupying every corner of the earth and destroying old cultures and whatnot.
Yet, it is true that Internet and mass communication sources allowed us to connect to one another, even while being in different parts of the world. So the question is - how to minimize the damage brought on by clever marketing schemes and maximize the potential of that whole ability to connect with people from different parts of the world.
Sounds kinda like the old depth v. breadth problem. I'd hazard a guess that we know more things about many more topics these days - or at least feel that such breadth is desirable, good, and easy to come by - but that we're lost on depth because we don't need to know things in detail. We just need to know where to look for them.