Barack Obama's rant against technology: Don't shoot the messenger
economist.com
economist.com
We could all be polymaths, we could all get sound understanding of Philosophy, Math, Physics, Chemistry, Politics and so forth... but largely, we don't.
Learning has never been easier, because you can get information in the format you want (audio, video, text, or interactive content) with a click of the mouse. You can pick between course material from dozens of universities and you can read papers written by academics all over the world. And yet, largely, we don't.
We read blog posts that have near zero information content, and the ever present discussion threads where only the least controversial and inane posts rise to the top. But why? Why do we do this, when we know that we'd get much, much more from the internet if we used it to read well written and thoughtful content instead?
Most likely it's just human nature. We're addicted to small bite-sized chunks of non-information. There are a lot of people who can read the internet all day, ever day, only to take breaks by watching TV shows and playing video games. Without ever getting bored. Day, after day, after day.
I think the power of the internet is not access to long boring and often useless or esoteric academic papers, but rather that the internet is the most powerful reference tool ever invented. It's information on demand. Rather than get a sound understanding of Chemistry, I can just look up the occasional chemical compound I am concerned with at the moment. Similarly, I can review individual historic topics at will, and math equations, and search large text volumes for Philosophical gems. Information a-la-cart is power, freedom, and leisure all rolled into one.
It's a rare person who can "look up the occasional chemical compound" to any effective end who hasn't already immersed themselves in the subject of chemistry to know why they are doing so and what the information they're getting back actually means. Information-at-will is unbelievably powerful and amazing, but it's not a substitute for in-depth study.
Except in the Internet cereal aisle there are 80 thousand different breakfast cereals, unreliably organized. Yes, the healthy stuff is in there, but finding it is a whole other issue. Now I have to rely on a curator, and I need to know how best to find and pick one, which is a different sort of problem.
I read CS papers. If that's what you're interested in, too, CiteSeer's Most Cited will last you years: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/stats/articles
We live in a world where the uneducated and uninformed speak in terms of certainty and absolutes. Liberals have long believed that if only you can debate and reason with your counterparts, you can sway them to your side. Conservatives figured out that this wasn't how human nature worked and I think the Republicans were particularly good throughout the mid 90s and this past decade, at providing a more reassuring world view that is black and white. The more educated we get, the more uncertain we can be about our opinions. I think Obama wanted to point out that the educated might lose control of political power. There is a very real possibility of a reality similar to that of Idiocracy taking hold, and I think Obama wanted to challenge his audience to ward this off. In order to do this, they'll have to learn how to speak to people and be masters of the human psyche. So it's kind of ironic that Obama failed so miserably at delivering his message. I'm sure he's kicking himself because the whole debate is now being framed around "is technology good or bad?".
Personally, I think this is part of what he was getting at.
The comment itself had a kernel of truth but if you expand it to a 4-graf article then yes it turns out not to do the situation full justice. Stop the presses :)
Now... if only Obama had a blog then he would never have made that remark. The irony indeed.
We're a long way from "all the world's information" being available.
What we have is a seemingly endless stream of information, but it is neither complete nor well-vetted.
You spend considerable time wading through or past useless junk, ideally filter for the good stuff, but perhaps not knowing what's missing or what's really accurate.
The demotivation of seeing all the things you aren't learning and how vast the scope of things you could be learning has never been easier, either.
Yes, we have unpreceduented access to information. But that just makes clear the real bottleneck to true learning is not lack of information, but lack of INTEREST.
True progress in any field is made by the tiny group of people with burning passion in that field, clustered together and sharing ideas.
Technology exposes us to more fields and connects us to more people than we would have been able to reach. That is its true value. Information by itself is worse than useless.
Oh wait, he mentioned all media in the actual, in context quote:
And meanwhile, you're coming of age in a 24/7 media
environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and
exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't
always rank that high on the truth meter. And with iPods and
iPads; and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know
how to work -- (laughter) -- information becomes a
distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather
than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of
emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on
you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our
democracy.
(Note: I only read your quote, not the full speech. Please correct me if the full speech elaborates.)
Also, the economist does observe that he dislikes some low tech media. Not TV, but radio: "...with his grumbling about the crazy theories circulated by the combination of blogs and talk radio."
It's a warning to students that with more information comes more responsibility to be skeptical. This has been a theme of a lot of Obama's speeches and it's clearly something that's important to him as a former professor.
Now you can get all victimized and complain about how he's singling out talk radio for criticism -- but before you do that, I'd like you to wholeheartedly endorse/defend the content of said talk radio hosts. You know, the ones who continually talk about Obama's birth certificate or draw ridiculous blackboard conspiracy theories based on word association between various boogeymen ("liberals", immigrants, black helicopter plans for global government).. Obama's not saying they should be muzzled or have their right to speech taken away, he's saying they're full of shit.
The economist said he joined "a long tradition of grumbling about new technologies and new forms of media", not that he wanted to censor anyone. I pointed out that the quote JGC provides suggests the economist is correct: Obama is criticizing a new information delivery system, the "24/7 media environment". No one besides you mentioned censorship.
That's what the quote seemed like it was saying to me.
This is why I particularly dislike The Economist. They are shrewd. Fox News (or, say, The Guardian) poisons the minds of idiots; The Economist poisons my own unless I am extra careful.
Socrates...feared that relying on written texts, rather than the oral tradition, would “create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls…they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.”
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?Story...
To roughly paraphrase what Obama said, quit dicking around on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. and look for good articles. You also might think about writing some, or even reading a good book. That's not in any way technophobic. He was just doing what any public figure should do at a commencement address, which is tell the graduates to use their education to lead meaningful and productive lives.
But sometimes I want to dick around with enjoyable distractions.
Anyone got a pointer to the context of this quote? This piece relies heavily on it and it reads to me like it may well be innocuous.
Obama argues that when you're drinking from the information firehose you may lose track of more important things. A completely obvious and very dangerous trend.
Full transcript here: http://www.wtkr.com/news/wtkr-obama-hampton-address-transcri...
And meanwhile, you're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter.
"Some" of which don't. And "some" of which do, which is the real problem. The fact that he is objecting to "all kinds of arguments" whatever their content might be, is a giveaway.
information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment
Well, if you're old enough to remember when there were 3 channels and 1 local paper, you know that "information", such as it was, was a sedative at best. Sit in front of the TV, believe every sugary bit of crap on the 11 o clock news, go to bed. Nobody, and I mean nobody, was ever "empowered" by the media configuration as it existed through the 20th century. But for a centralized government, it was ideal--very empowering.
No longer centrally controlled? You know we are down to 5 distributors that control an overwhelming amount of the music and films that we listen to or watch. Add the fact that Comcast just bought NBC Universal and you can assume the media is more concentrated by a few more than ever. But as long as we have 1000 blogs carrying the exact same message than it doesn't appear that way.
Which is worse 10 independent newspapers or 1000 blogs, financed and controlled by 10 people.
(Lowering the barriers to wasting your time.)
(And I even like The Economist; it's the only dead-tree periodical I subscribe to.)
But I really, really don't care for the farms people manage, the hearts people get and so on. I don't need a second job managing a farm.
I think that issue is denouncing something, while at the same time admitting that you know nothing about it. It makes you sound as if you are just resistant to change because it's different and new. Granted, the Obama quote is taken out of context, but leaving the quote out of context, this is the issue that people are arguing over. Not necessarily that any criticism of technology makes someone a Luddite.
[EDIT] -- I had another point to go along with this but boss came by and I forgot it. It was a good one though.
I know I remember things waaaay better when someone TELLS me something, versus when I read it in a book or online.
If I am listening to a professor read through a lecture, with little to no interaction from the students, I am not as likely to remember it as if I had read it from a book.
Consider the following statement:
It's a good thing that the Library of Alexandria
was destroyed, because now all of that information
was handed down the *right* way, through oral
tradition...Thus the skilled reader learns to question authority, as a necessary defense.
I too worry for this Facebook generation. I would be happier if they spent their time becoming smarter. We will need lots of smart people in the future.