Sorry, but you're wrong.
on
The Regulon
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· Score: 1
Sorry Jon, but you can't just make these sweeping statements with no backup. I know they're opinion pieces, but they taught me in high school and college to back up even my own words with some kind of logical following.
Information can't be killed or curbed
...and why should it have to be? I think the fundamental flaw in your essay is the assumption that this proliferation of information means we all have to be aware of it at all times. Certainly, without a unabomber-esque retreat, we are bombarded with information at all times, but could you explain why this is fundamentally different than television, radio, and printed material decades ago? The Internet and Web allow more caching of information, but no one is holding your screen to your eyes forcing you to look at every piece of it. There is more information on the Web than on television, but with the Web, you can SEARCH SELECTIVELY for what you need.
In the absence of natural selection, information spreads. And spreads.
Not really. Stored information is passive; you seem to assume some sort of active spreading, threatening to cover the globe in copies of "The National Enquirer" and episodes of "Survivor." The truth, as usual, lies somewhere rather distant from the brink of catastrophe from which most of your essays are written. The glut of information AVAILABLE doesn't indicate that our days are all spent subjugated to absorbing it.
[D]ead links are everywhere in cyberspace. Still, they aren't technically dead, just dormant.
Um, excuse me? Could someone please explain this to me?
[I]nformation is creating its own [...] self-replicating technology that won't quit and can't be killed.
I disagree completely. The natural predators to information spread are 1) apathy and 2) awareness. If no one cares that, say, my great-aunt's cat had seven toes on one foot, that information won't spread. And if people are aware, they can avoid information they don't want. I, personally, never watched the OJ trial or a single episode of "Survivor." Not to pass value judgements on those who did, but they held no appeal for me. That information stopped spreading at me.
Perhaps the ultimate "Regulon[s] in the Semiosphere" will be human qualities like taste and nostalgia. The carousel will survive alongside video games BECAUSE it is solid and fixed; sometimes we are willing and able to ignore the pernicious spread of information and simplify.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry Jon, but you can't just make these sweeping statements with no backup. I know they're opinion pieces, but they taught me in high school and college to back up even my own words with some kind of logical following.
Information can't be killed or curbed
...and why should it have to be? I think the fundamental flaw in your essay is the assumption that this proliferation of information means we all have to be aware of it at all times. Certainly, without a unabomber-esque retreat, we are bombarded with information at all times, but could you explain why this is fundamentally different than television, radio, and printed material decades ago? The Internet and Web allow more caching of information, but no one is holding your screen to your eyes forcing you to look at every piece of it. There is more information on the Web than on television, but with the Web, you can SEARCH SELECTIVELY for what you need.
In the absence of natural selection, information spreads. And spreads.
Not really. Stored information is passive; you seem to assume some sort of active spreading, threatening to cover the globe in copies of "The National Enquirer" and episodes of "Survivor." The truth, as usual, lies somewhere rather distant from the brink of catastrophe from which most of your essays are written. The glut of information AVAILABLE doesn't indicate that our days are all spent subjugated to absorbing it.
[D]ead links are everywhere in cyberspace. Still, they aren't technically dead, just dormant.
Um, excuse me? Could someone please explain this to me?
[I]nformation is creating its own [...] self-replicating technology that won't quit and can't be killed.
I disagree completely. The natural predators to information spread are 1) apathy and 2) awareness. If no one cares that, say, my great-aunt's cat had seven toes on one foot, that information won't spread. And if people are aware, they can avoid information they don't want. I, personally, never watched the OJ trial or a single episode of "Survivor." Not to pass value judgements on those who did, but they held no appeal for me. That information stopped spreading at me.
Perhaps the ultimate "Regulon[s] in the Semiosphere" will be human qualities like taste and nostalgia. The carousel will survive alongside video games BECAUSE it is solid and fixed; sometimes we are willing and able to ignore the pernicious spread of information and simplify.