Comment Computers are tools, not oracles. (Score 1) 85
Putting intelligence into the net is a misguided idea. We don't need smarter computers, we need smarter people.
We, as a society, need skills for coping with the defining malaise of our time - "information overload." Naturally enough, hackers are some of the best equipped people for dealing with this. We know how to filter and parse information, how to find that one piece of documentation buried in an obsure man page or source file that will answer our question and perhaps lead us to some new bit of knowledge we didn't even know we were looking for. This skill applies directly to finding information on the net. The fact that people who are not hackers by disposition also require these skills is worth some attention.
People with the ability to find what they are looking for (and what they didn't know they were looking for) without resorting to puerile advertisement-saturated portal sites are the people who are truly taking advantage of this amazing technology. These information filtering skills are valuable today, and will only become more valuable with time.
It seems obvious that life on this planet is going to become more and more intensely information-saturated, and people lacking the ability to constructively deal with this flood of information will be left behind, shaking their fists at high technology and pining for the day when everyone else was equally ignorant.
We, as a society, need skills for coping with the defining malaise of our time - "information overload." Naturally enough, hackers are some of the best equipped people for dealing with this. We know how to filter and parse information, how to find that one piece of documentation buried in an obsure man page or source file that will answer our question and perhaps lead us to some new bit of knowledge we didn't even know we were looking for. This skill applies directly to finding information on the net. The fact that people who are not hackers by disposition also require these skills is worth some attention.
People with the ability to find what they are looking for (and what they didn't know they were looking for) without resorting to puerile advertisement-saturated portal sites are the people who are truly taking advantage of this amazing technology. These information filtering skills are valuable today, and will only become more valuable with time.
It seems obvious that life on this planet is going to become more and more intensely information-saturated, and people lacking the ability to constructively deal with this flood of information will be left behind, shaking their fists at high technology and pining for the day when everyone else was equally ignorant.
