Law in the Internet Society

View   r6  >  r5  ...
BreeThompsonFirstEssay 6 - 10 Dec 2016 - Main.BreeThompson
Line: 1 to 1
 
META TOPICPARENT name="FirstEssay"

Ignorance Will Outlive Us All

Line: 22 to 22
 

Conclusion

Changed:
<
<		The average American internet user as well as those who are more extreme have access to the whole of human knowledge, and yet choose to read, share, and defend posts that confirm their beliefs about what the facts are or choose to avoid dealing with facts altogether and consume “content” instead. Perhaps this is merely a result of taking the awesome capabilities of the internet for granted. However, coming to regard the possession of everything humanity has ever known as mundane and seeing internal knowledge as obsolete seems a natural progression. Therefore, the behavior on display should demonstrate that access does not necessarily yield an ignorance free populace and serve as a cautionary tale against setting our sights to low. It may be the case that access alone is enough to stoke the desire for knowledge in enough people for enough time that ignorance is said to be eradicated, but as combatting ignorance requires constant vigilance and dogged devotion, it seems unlikely that access alone will be enough to destroy it. Access itself is progress neutral.
>
>		The average American internet user as well as those who are more extreme have access to the whole of human knowledge, and yet choose to read, share, and defend posts that confirm their beliefs about what the facts are or choose to avoid dealing with facts altogether and consume “content” instead. These should be accepted as likely results of a populace that has access to the internet. Obviously this is not to argue against access, but merely to suggest a more realistic picture. Even with the outsized influence given to important thinkers, the possibility that ignorance--especially the willful form, will destroy them is not impossible. If fake news can lead a man to shoot up a pizza parlor, it doesn't seem a big jump to think that it could lead a nation to war or to censorship of some ideas either of which would impede or stop progress. Access itself is progress neutral.
 

Revision 6r6 - 10 Dec 2016 - 01:19:15 - BreeThompson
Revision 5r5 - 29 Nov 2016 - 17:14:33 - EbenMoglen
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
Syndicate this site RSSATOM