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Tuesday, December 23, 2008 12:00 AM

Is the Web helping us evolve?

The truth lies somewhere between "Google is making us stupid" and "the Internet will liberate humanity."

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  • Tuesday, December 23, 2008 06:16 PM

    Hey Dave

    I already do go to your sites. And comment there, from time to time. (Under a different handle, to be sure.)

    I wrote my upthread post trying to use as many 5 dollar words that I actually understand as I could, to appear as intellectual and deep as you are. But I don't think either of us really are being particularly insightful.

    Me, I just think that there is a ridiculous amount of hype out there. And I hate "futurists" (no, while you are a fair to middling sci-fi author, you aren't part of that particular club). For sure, the intertubes have changed the world, but I don't think we understand how exactly much better now than we did say ten years ago.

    In any case, the world has always been new and different and on the verge of Becoming. And the Apocalypse/Rapture/End of Times is always on the verge of human consciousness. But attempts to play with that, well, they always amount to magical thinking.

    The resemblances between the Singularity prophets, your debates with them, and the whole apocalyptic biblical and theological tradition, seem to me to have vast similarities and coincidences.

    On the intertubes, you can go for a unicorn chaser. For a reality based chaser I recommend Thucydides. For an intellectual and theological one, that has been of great comfort to me over the years, Ecclesiastes: there is nothing new under the sun. No matter how many snake oil salesmen tell you there is.

    And how dare you dis my beloved Plato (all Western philosophy a footnote too etc.)? Your take on him reminds me of the immortal dialogue in A Fish Called Wanda: "Apes don't read Nietzsche!" "No Otto, apes do read Nietzsche, they just don't understand him!"

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