It is an adaptation of one part of Create Your Own economy; excerpt:
It's a common complaint that the Web makes us more impatient, but most
of us use it to track (or create) long-running stories and debates.
I've been following the career of folk-rock star Roger McGuinn for more
than 30 years, and now I use the Web for that. If anything, the essence
of Web life is that we are impatient to discover the next installment
in our planned programs of very patient long-term interest. That's a
kind of impatience we can be proud of, just as a mother might be
impatient to receive a call from her teenage daughter away at college.
It's a sign of caring and commitment, not superficiality.
Here is the link and full article.
I’ve checked six times since 8:25 and still no new MR posts!
“Someday we’ll gain the tools to measure these new benefits.” Let’s hope not; once there is a number attached someone will harness leviathan to change that number.
I look forward to your book Tyler.
We always wondered what we’d do when ‘we’, collectively or as individuals had enough materially.
I think that the absence of a clear answer to that question kept many people engaged in consumption beyond the point that it became redundant.
Well, now we know.
Agree with AndrewUK. Google offers easy access to “information”. Beyond utility or convenience, information will not drive us forward.
Younger adults celebrate having a command of information, but they seem to have far less interest in attaining true “knowledge” – a real command and mastery of a subject.
When I give younger coworkers intellectual challenges, the kind ripe for creativity and new insight, they are quick to spit back what they have “found” on the web. They seem surprised when I ask them for their own, well-reasoned take.
Why bother to really learn something when they can simply Google it?
I agree with Tyler that Google is not making us dumber – but it is giving us an oportunity to delay (perhaps permenantly) becoming smarter. Like any tool, it’s open to use & abuse.
Bravo, kebko. MNels and AndrewUK, did you read the link Tyler posted in the entry after this, about why teenagers read better than “you” do?
The piece reminded me a little of Schelling’s The Mind as a Consuming Organ. I wonder how much he influenced these ideas. I know TC is a fan.
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