A brilliant article on Slate recently caught my attention. writes how newspapers gave their readers information to use socially. Kind of like, ‘hey, I know something you don’t'… A sort of social currency.
This role has now been taken over by social media and he points to how social media has allowed more people access to information and to connectivity, thereby alleviating the need for newspapers.
The demise of newspapers it might be, but it reminds me of a great quote…
“The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves-and the better the teacher, the better the student body.”
Warren Buffett
Now just how smart is the mob?
Provocative mr Setzer :)..goes that persistent point of what allows for PRODUCTIVE mass collaboration. It STILL requires leadership:
Facilitation / curatorship by a someone who guides the process is imperative or it all goes into reactive self-reflective static and slowly subsides into lowest common denominator.
(says the opinionated Max)
“The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves-and the better the teacher, the better the student body.”
This quote goes behind my ramblings against google and the collective mind. If you’re searching google for all of its user-generated content, aren’t you only as smart as the next fool? Journalists are employed (hopefully) for being smart and writing down their ideas well. What about the average joe in front of his computer? What about you and I? Who are the new-age gatekeepers of truth and logic, and who’s in charge of moderating it all? Answer : the next fool.
I like the implication of Huxleys infinite monkeys theorem in the picture :) Who’s going to lead the monkeys? If we’re all, for the most part, equal peers on the internet…how can we designate a leader?