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Ray Bradbury Loves Libraries, Hates the Internet
Hugh Pickens was one of several readers to let us know that, according to a NY Times story, the 89-year-old Ray Bradbury hates the Internet. But he loves libraries, and is helping raise $280,000 to keep libraries in Ventura County open. "Among Mr. Bradbury's passions, none burn quite as hot as his lifelong enthusiasm for halls of books. ... 'Libraries raised me,' Mr. Bradbury said. 'I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.' ... The Internet? Don't get him started. 'The Internet is a big distraction,' Mr. Bradbury barked... 'Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,' he said, voice rising. 'They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? "To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet." It's distracting. It's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the air somewhere.'"
Technically, the internet is the largest library of information ever known to man. To dismiss it only shows his inability to truly grasp it.
Good-bye
To make an obvious point: You can ban books, you can burn books, but try to remove a literary work from the Internet and see how far you get.
I came here for a good argument
I agree; what an idiot. There's more useful, educational information instantly available on the internet than any library in the world will ever hold. Just because he's too old and blind to find anything other than Yahoo games doesn't mean that the internet is distracting and meaningless. I'm sure Wikipedia alone has orders of magnitude more educational reading material than you could read going to the library three times a week for generations.
Republicans weren't so bad way back when they believed in small gov't and fiscal responsibility. Even if one believed that gov't had a role to play in society beyond simply maintaining the courts and providing for defense, one could still get along with, and even appreciate the perspective of, the old Republicans. A lot of old folk who call themselves Republicans may not be whatever the fuck today's Republicans are.
Loose lips lose spit.
I agree; what an idiot. T
Until you write Fahrenheit 451, I wouldn't be so quick to call Ray Bradbury an idiot, no matter what he says about the internet. Or, are you starting out with the Martian Chronicle instead?
If anything, given the level of thought that the man has historically produced, you might find it instructive to understand what his criticisms are. If anything, it would only serve to improve the internet.
This is my sig.
Certainly not an idiot. Out of his element, yes, but absolutely NOT an idiot. I'm almost two decades younger than Bradbury, but I can sympathize with him. The internet can confuse even the young bright boys - just start a discussion on internet security, and see how many really smart young people get lost real fast.
Books. I find myself reading more and more of my favorites on the LCD screen, but books have something that the computer will never have. Books are solid, and real - the pixels on my screen are fleeting. A solid book and a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter's night, listening to the storm blow outside......
Oh well, either you remember it and love it, or you don't.
But, don't call the old dude an idiot. Bradbury may not rank with Asimov and Clarke, but he a bright enough star in the SciFi and fantasy firmament. Never an idiot.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Just one example, there are many handbooks for the design, estimating, scheduling, and construction of buildings, roads and bridges that are not to be found on the internet. I have a shelf of those, and a good library will have them too. I have references for other fields for which internet resources are very scant except for popular general overview. Sure, CADD/CAE/CAM software can do some things, but not all. Most of man's knowledge is not on the internet, and it's tragic that young people think that because many popular things of the last ten years are there then most things are there.
Laugh if you want, but keeping digital data is hard. Really hard. Once you've printed a book on acid-free paper with good quality ink, you can pretty much assume it'll still be readable in a hundred years. The lifetime of most computer media is measured in years, not decades. And most printouts fade quickly, because they're done on laser paper, which doesn't last very long.
So I wouldn't accuse Mr. Bradbury of being senile just yet. I agree he's a curmudgeon, but we need curmudgeons to keep us honest.
OBTW... Get off my lawn!
Punk. :')
I agree; what an idiot. There's more useful, educational information instantly available on the internet than any library in the world will ever hold. Just because he's too old and blind to find anything other than Yahoo games doesn't mean that the internet is distracting and meaningless
The library organizes information. It attempts to separate the meaningful from the meaningless. It is outward looking - not inward looking.
In following the threads here on the Thomas case -
some things become painfully obvious:
The geek doesn't understand the most basic distinctions between civil and criminal law.
He doesn't understand evidence, the burden of proof.
He doesn't know how a jury is selected.
He doesn't understand the roles played by the plaintiff and defendant, the judge, the jury, the court of appeals.
It is easier for him to find refuge in talk of conspiracies, in talk of corruption.
The geek has access to infinite information - or at least thinks he does.
But mostly he listens to himself. He tunes out dissenting voices. He doesn't ask the right questions - and again and again he makes the same mistakes.
I'm sure Wikipedia alone has orders of magnitude more educational reading material than you could read going to the library three times a week for generations.
But why are you sure?
The geek likes big numbers. The geek trusts big numbers. The number of apps in his distro's repository. The number of pages in his Wiki....
Open wikipedia in a tabbed browser. Go to a topic you're moderately interested in. Open every hyperlink you think you might like in a new tab. After about an hour, count up the tabs you have. If they're fewer than 10, something's very wrong with your sense of curiosity.
Make a list of the topics, then go to the library and lookup appropriate physical books that describe the same subjects. See how much you can learn by reading those while allotting yourself only the same amount of time you give yourself to read wikipedia. Compare how much you learn.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.