

The Knowledge Age – Learn To Appreciate It - sthomps
http://futurephilanthropreneur.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/the-knowledge-age-learn-to-appreciate-it/

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verisimilitude
I do agree with the general sentiment here, that people should try to
historically put their lives in context: our instant access to information is
unrivaled in any history of which we are aware.

However, I've written before on the important difference between information
and facts (<http://tumbledry.org/2009/11/20/when_information_overwhelms>) --
when the filter for publishing and disseminating bits becomes so low, the onus
transfers from the distributors to the consumers for important tasks like
fact-checking, context, and bias-hunting.

Furthermore, "any piece of knowledge, ever created, accessible literally at
our fingertips" is still a stretch -- some of the most valuable information
(untranslated, undiscovered diaries, research, historical texts) those remain
offline. To tell people that "Google can access any piece of information you
can ever think of in 0.15 seconds" is to narrow their understanding of sources
for true knowledge and understanding.

It's a good article, but one that needed a few caveats. I hope I've provided
those.

~~~
sthomps
You bring up some really good points. Thanks for the examples. I will check
out your blog post as well.

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makmanalp
> I recently read a stat that claimed that 80% of college graduates NEVER READ
> A BOOK AFTER FINISHING UNIVERSITY. This sounds like utter bullshit. What
> about the statistics that say people read so and so many books each year?
> Any references?

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sthomps
I looked it up, and found the stat. I remembered the 80% wrong, actually 42%.
The 80% were for book purchases last year. Should be changed on the post.
Thanks for reading

p.s. here's some more stats: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/08...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/08/21/AR2007082101045.html)

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jerf
Question: If everybody has "any piece of knowledge, ever created, accessible
literally at [their] fingertips", how does the author _know_ whether people
are taking advantage of it? Is the author privy to everybody's online habits?
Getting "the" top 10 web sites is tricky because it depends on who you ask,
but Google and Wikipedia are generally on there, among other things that could
be interpreted as at least potentially "searches for knowledge".

And I think that's a pretty good ratio. It's OK that Facebook is up there too;
we're still human, after all.

