[Rhodes22-list] Chaos - and the Internet

[Robert Skinner]

Brad Haslett wrote:
> Bill,
> ...
> The internet is a wonderful development in
> the growth of the human species,
> but it is mostly a shift in speed...

Brad,

I disagree with you re. the Internet's impact.

I see it as a qualitative shift in both communications 
and the organization and dissemination of information.  

Re. Communications:

As Bill pointed out, we are having voluntarily (for our 
convenience) time-shifted conversations that are 
automatically archived, not exchanges that require 
direct and evanescent connections or take days to cycle.  
Writing is no longer a lost art in this second 
post-verbal mode.  There is also, and perhaps more 
importantly, a town-meeting character associated with 
email lists.  Finally, there are world-wide communities 
forming that happily cross national boundaries.  These 
back-channel (as opposed to nationalistic 
propaganda-tainted) communications are bypassing the 
politico-military leaders (dictators?) and defusing 
some of the international tensions as we find common 
ground with those who our leaders would have us hate.

Re. Information:

The ease of sharing information (as distinct from 
knowledge), the huge volume of published data, and the 
manifold pathways by which it travels have combined to 
radically alter the way we do research on both public 
and private matters.  Something like being able to 
instantly view the structure of the L5-S1 spinal disk 
and the possible consequences of its herniation is 
something new in the world, and allows the world's 
population to more effectively learn how to take care 
of itself.

The art and science of converting information into 
knowledge is now an even more important skill to learn 
in the middle grades, as soon as the mind is capable 
of rational thought.  Learning how to think is even 
more important for everyone than it was when knowledge 
was predigested and passed out to be learned by rote.  
Being able to discriminate between the 
relevant/important and the chaff is a survival trait 
when confronted by a deluge of raw and questionable 
data.

Brad, I think we have passed over a tipping point, 
and the world has become kaleidoscopic.

/Robert