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There was a time that men of learning were truly that. These men either owned or had access to a large (and rare) library of hand crafted manuscripts that contained all the great literary works of their time. Because of this knowledge they were considered wise and consulted for their educated advice.
Then the Gutenberg press entered history, and it made "scholars" of a large number of people. Still, there were certain areas that still remained the provenance of experts. Doctors, lawyers, and especially scientists were still trusted for their specialised learning.
The modern day equivalent of the Gutenberg Press (Google) has made "experts" of us all. And so we now have to listen to the tired musings of people like the Climate Change doubters...you know these blowhards who pull all kinds of stats out of their selectively biased Google searches.
By doing so, the entire landscape of intelligent and constructive dialogue has evaporated. Anyone sitting in a trailer park with a keyboard and his two friends "copy" and "paste" by his side can now sound like an expert. A stranger in a neighboring trailerpark reads what expert 1 writes, thinks it sounds authoritative, and so adopts this amateurish conclusion as his own and becomes expert 2 on the subject. His "teaching" of others then commences and we have an epidemic of misinformed stupidity.
Viral ignorance at its best.
Doubt this? Just take at look at the whole science behind climate change. Why is the incredibly complicated science of Climatology now considered to be a debateable topic by non-scientists? Because of the Internet and Google.
The Internet is just a transmission vehicle for this new mental disease afflicting mankind. Sadly, the results of this illness are affecting the planet in ways that may not be reversible.
