The internet is only shaping our evolution is web savy traits are being selected for in our sociey. I'm not sure that is happening.

The internet is certainly making us far greater in two respects though: We are far more informed and far more lazy (and fat) because of it.

Socially, the exposure to this many different people (and places) will help breed tolerance for differences and a greater self knowledge. The best thing we could do would be to make sure that the wealthy ones are not the only ones allowed to participate.

News is soon to be forthcoming on Duck Rogers Conquers the Cyberverse, which at present is in post production..hold tight, and keep your rocket in your pocket, this bitch is gonna be so CGI jam packed, it'll blow out your wall socket.

Wow, that was a really pretentious article! Back when I was an editor I would have kicked the shit out of any of my writers that turned in a piece with any of the the following words, expressions or sentences:

“Iteration”

“Monotonic”

“actinically focused”

“massive, pyroclastic flows of opinion”

“nekulturn”

“nuanced Gedanken experiments about speculative change”

“garish calamities that began quenching this naive zeal for progress”

“Or will the Web's centrifugal effects spin us all into little islands of shared conviction -- midget Nuremberg rallies -- where facts become irrelevant and any opinion can be a memic god?”

“One wherein expertise is lost and democracy becomes a tyranny of lobotomized imitation and short-tempered reflex, as viral YouTube moments spread everywhere instantaneously, getting everybody laughing or nodding or seething to the same memes -- an extreme resonance of reciprocal mimicry or hyper-mimesis. And everybody hyper-empowered to react impulsively at almost the speed of thought.”

Ouch!

..AWAY!

Okay let's go-

To the editor - I grew up in the newspaper trade and know how to keep it simple. But these are SALON readers!. Anyway, your belief in dumbing-down is part of the problem. You'll not find a single $5 word that I used, whose meaning could not be guessed from context (that's what good writers do!) Moreover, Salon readers have instant dictionaries available. Words are poetry and your reflex to quash the scope of vivid English simply shows how low an opinion you have of those you edit-for.

To the fan - THANKS! Startide Rising had a script commissioned by Paramount. Same with Kiln People, but in both cases it costed too high. Now, with vivid/cheap animation... well.

Come on by http://www.davidbrin.com for more info about fun fiction etc. (And to see what I thought of what Costner did to The Postman.)

To the rest, thanks for being polite! I did tweak all sides a bit. Glad to be sharing a lively civilization.

Final notes and addenda:

1- Catch me on "The Universe" Tuesday night on the History Channel.

2- If interested, I am running a series of "unconventional suggestions for the new administration" at:

http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/

And/or you can see the series on OpenSalon at:

http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=67948

And see my latest novella about a near future world disrupted by rising seas, on Universe Magazine (online) at:

http://baens-universe.com/articles/Shoresteading__Part_One

(hit me up for an e-coupon.)

Busy week!

May YOUR week be joyous and may the new year bring good things for all of you and for our civilization.

David Brin

http://www.davidbrin.com

I will go see your movie...but only if you get Ed Wood to direct it.

You said: “I grew up in the newspaper trade and know how to keep it simple. But these are SALON readers!”

You don't read much Salon do you?

You said: “Anyway, your belief in dumbing-down is part of the problem.”

I don’t want to dumb anything down. I’m criticizing what I consider to be overblown and pretentious prose. The fact that you think that you’re writing for some sort of elevated audience underscores my point.

You said: “You'll not find a single $5 word that I used, whose meaning could not be guessed from context (that's what good writers do!)…”

I disagree with you but let’s leave that up to the other readers to weight in on.

You said: “Words are poetry and your reflex to quash the scope of vivid English simply shows how low an opinion you have of those you edit-for.”

I actually have a pretty high opinion of my readers and that why I take pains to make sure they get what I mean. Besides that I don’t think I have a “reflex to quash the scope of vivid English.” I just have a very different idea of what makes English vivid.

I appreciate your response but stand by what I said.

Perhaps it is attitudes like yours that are causing "editorialized" content to lose audiences.

You know, you come across as condescending and overly simplistic. Big words bother you? that's how the downward spiral starts. Soon enough, because of editors that "know what's best for all of us", we will all communicate using only one or two syllable words that *everyone* can understand. Soon enough, we will all have to sacrifice nuance and variety for the sake of simplicity.

That's not the type of world where anyone grows... thank you but no, let me keep the old practice of actually using a dictionary if there is a word I cannot understand. Let me actually learn something from what I read, instead of having to see the world through the lens of the big brother practice of numbing content down to keep the masses entertained.

You said: "You know, you come across as condescending and overly simplistic. Big words bother you? that's how the downward spiral starts."

I never said I had a problem with big words or clever, beautiful language. All I said was that Brin's prose in this particular article was pretentious and overblown. Look at the example I gave:

“One wherein expertise is lost and democracy becomes a tyranny of lobotomized imitation and short-tempered reflex, as viral YouTube moments spread everywhere instantaneously, getting everybody laughing or nodding or seething to the same memes -- an extreme resonance of reciprocal mimicry or hyper-mimesis. And everybody hyper-empowered to react impulsively at almost the speed of thought.”

A 55 word sentence of pure purple bullshit. The whole article is like that; like it was written by a meth addict on a three day bender.Why you're getting all persnickety and assuming that I'm attacking intelligent, thoughtful writing is beyond me.