Comments on: Comments on 20365

Post number 20365

tbc — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 10:17:25 -0800

Information gods amongst mortals is the first in a series of three blog entries (so far, anyway) by Brad Wardell on the topic of the growing knowledge gap between the net-savvy and the non-wired. I found the link in a newsletter from WinCustomize today. They plugged all three:

He explores the theory that those who are net savvy are quickly leaping ahead of the non-wired among us: "You know the situation. Someone has told you something you want to know more about and within a few minutes you have gotten yourself up to speed on it. You did it through the use of the Internet. A combination of search engines and helpful websites have educated you on that topic."

By: McBain

McBain — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 10:25:57 -0800

I am sure this is really interesting, but the link isn't working.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 10:27:48 -0800

We killed it.

By: wanderingmind

wanderingmind — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 10:45:15 -0800

Cached on Google. Gods can raise the dead, too.

By: andrew cooke

andrew cooke — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 18:18:20 -0800

i'm vastly more efficient because i can use google? hmmm. i think these links show how powerful a snappy phrase (information gods) can be.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 19:20:03 -0800

info-apotheosize me, baby. actually i'm much more the uber librarian just because my range of interests isn't all-encompassing. it's a lot tougher to parse/assimilate data you aren't particularly interested in knowing in the first place.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 19:21:22 -0800

...and if anything, it's less efficient, not more. i waste a ton of time looking up stupid trivia.

By: redshoes3

redshoes3 — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 22:32:09 -0800

Have a friend learning French? An information god can quickly take anything needed and translate to and from French (and even knows how to word it so that it is translated properly). To quote a girl who became a bit of an expert on language herself: Not bloody likely.

By: redshoes3

redshoes3 — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 22:32:45 -0800

Inadvertently snipped from previous post -- An old high school friend exagerrates their success in an email? An information god pulls up where they live and then gets a recent satellite photo of their house down to seeing the exact trailer they're in. Ew. Plus, "exagerrates"? "gets a photo....down"? "seeing the exact trailer they're in"? Apparently those information gods can't afford the OED CD-ROM. (I know, it's a nit, and it's bad form nowadays to call bloggers out about spelling let alone grammar, but....if you're going to discuss divinity in an article, you ought to at least run said article through the baby jesus crying spell-checker.)

By: dhartung

dhartung — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 23:52:05 -0800

I considered using my Information God m4d skillz to resurrect it from Google myself, but then I decided to just wait a while and see if it was back up later. There are some reasonable truisms present in the articles like the mix of socializing and isolation that online activities present, but the conclusions are quite overstated. I know full well from bloody experience that being a Mensa-level IQ grants you nothing in the wider world. Information may be power, but the type that is freely available is pretty much there because it has been deemed nearly worthless. Savvy use of the internet could enhance your career or other climbing activities, but isn't in itself any longer unique or that much differentiated from other means of information processing and retrieval. We're amusing ourselves to death, more than pumping ourselves full of useful knowledge. The NSA has rooms full of computers listening to overseas phone calls -- but that's useless if you can't interpret the language spoken or get what you glean to the right people with time to spare. Information availability is subservient to information processing, to the ability to make use of that information in the real world.

By: inpHilltr8r

inpHilltr8r — Sat, 28 Sep 2002 12:51:19 -0800

We killed it. Fear the wrath of God(s).

By: Winterfell

Winterfell — Sat, 28 Sep 2002 20:04:37 -0800

I can't help but notice that the titles of these pieces is a perfect example of how nomenclature affects perception. Why "information gods"? Why not "information junkie" or "information geek" or even "information ignoramus", in the sense of course of being a vain pretender to knowledge.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Sat, 28 Sep 2002 21:37:08 -0800

Sometimes, I also get these feelings of godlike omnipotence. But then, later, I realize that something has been missing from my life - like human contact, exercise, sunlight, or B-vitamins.