Al Gore’s Digital Utopia
Al Gore was apparently the hot ticket at SXSW (South by Southwest) over the weekend, attendees “turned away in hordes” for his discussion with AllThingsD editor Walter Mossberg, according to TechHive.
The website’s report on the colloquy concludes with a portentous statement from the former veep, which is getting a fair amount of play: “We need to move everything to the Internet as quickly as we possibly can. If we do that, the future will belong to a well-informed citizenry.”
Let’s leave aside for a moment all our preconceptions about Gore and examine this Internet millennialism. Of all people, as co-founder of PJ Media and a relatively early adopter blogger (2003), I should applaud this optimistic view of our digital future.
And yet I have qualms. To begin with, the sentence about moving “everything to the Internet as quickly as we possibly can” seems bizarre. Isn’t just about everything already there? Or have I missed something? Within months, it seems, we’re all going to be walking around with the Internet in our eyeglasses. There will be no escape.
But whatever the case, the nub of Gore’s argument is in his second sentence: “If we do that, the future will belong to a well-informed citizenry.”
This is something I fervently believed in the early part of this century. Now I am not so sure.
Indeed it’s true that the access to information is exponentially greater, but the selectivity and bias with which we inform ourselves, at least on political matters, which I suspect is what Gore had in mind, has probably increased. A strong argument could be made that the Internet is further dividing an already divided country. We have been digitally Balkanized. Or, more precisely, we digitally Balkanize ourselves.
I’m certainly guilty of it. I will sneak a peek at the other side, but I won’t stay long. (I might get a headache.) While there are exceptions, my Twitter feed is made up mainly of libertarians and conservatives (and a few sports stars I enjoy following). The same is true of my Facebook friend list.
"This of course is the night for the Washington press corps and the President to kick back, share a few laughs, not take things seriously and just generally enjoy each other’s company.
Kind of like the President’s interview on 60 Minutes.
The Gridiron Dinner used to be known as the night the media and the administration set aside their differences — back in the days when they had some.
Great to see the new Senator from Massachusetts – Elizabeth Warren. My staff tells me we’ve got a lot in common.
Well from one Indian politician to another, I want to wish you all the best in your new job.
I see Eric Holder is with us tonight. I actually heard a rumor that due to sequestration, the attorney general can only afford to ship a couple hundred illegal guns across the border this year.
I saw a bumper sticker on the way over here that said, “Honk if you’ve been released by Janet Napolitano.”
I understand that to save money – the President’s Secret Service detail is being replaced by Joe Biden with a shotgun.
You know, a lot of people warned me that if I voted for Mitt Romney, a Wall Street robber baron who hid his money in secretive Grand Cayman bank accounts would end up running the U.S. Treasury.
I see Jack Lew is here tonight. Good thing that job went to you instead, Jack."
Some information is better in searchable, hyper-linked HTML format. Contrast trying to follow federal regulations in text on paper vs. the same information rewritten in HTML. This aspect of the internet makes it much easier to dig for more information, but few people make the effort. Simply doing a Google search before forwarding a message helps avoid the embarrassment of spreading false information, but lots of blindly repeat what they hear without even seconds worth of checking.
My girlfriend knows all things Kardashian, but lacks all but a basic understanding of civics. She has a masters in Computer Science and is generally smart, but she's completely uninterested in politics and public policy. She has vague positive feelings for Obama the celebrity, but doesn't put much thought into what a President should do in his day job. Our votes count the same.
What,... the noobs at SXSW in Austin,... Ann Arbor with lots more heat, sand and a slogan ?? {"Keep Austin Weird"}
The ninny has been shown deficient more times than anyone has the time or caring ability to tally, but yet he just keeps it up in yet another venue , blathering on for yet more of those just like him. [or pale, even-less intelligent replicants, as the case may be]
There's a lesson here , close to the surface , and you're sure to see it if you got a little minute.........
The biggest thing I can say about peering into the ether-world is that I discovered I wasn't alone in how I thought or believed. I had felt VERY isolated before that with what I was seeing around me and nobody being allowed to talk about it out loud.
This thing that I felt is also the biggest problem with the internet. Perverts/child molesters also found this outlet. Where once they felt shame and were inhibited in their behaviour they found like minded people who NORMALIZED it for them and many acted upon their impulses when shame would have halted their actions.
That being said, I've noticed how people all stare at their phones and can't put them down. I've been slowly backing away from the technology since.
I have the same fear as you when reading his sentence- a future of dis-informed fully indoctrinated utopian Obots.
"All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and re-inscribed exactly as often as was necessary."
George Orwell; Nineteen Eighty-Four; 1949.
Not true here. I'm active in music, and most of my Facebook friends are far left - strikingly more so than in their everyday conversation. Perhaps even more so than in their daily deeds and activities. They exceed the mainstream media in their extreme comment positions, and from my own observations of their words vs their deeds, I'd conclude that they're testifying or signifying, much as 'holier than thou' sorts do in church meetings, as a competitive exercise. So what benefit do they think they're accruing, with this 'extremer than thou' talk? Something tangible for the future like a Commissar appointment, or just cheering each other on as members of a lynch-mob-to-be would do in front of the jailhouse? The comments do not at all resemble statements of folks who take responsibility for the government of all of us, despite that their preferred party now owns the White House and Senate.
"This of course is the night for the Washington press corps and the President to kick back, share a few laughs, not take things seriously and just generally enjoy each other’s company.
Kind of like the President’s interview on 60 Minutes.
The Gridiron Dinner used to be known as the night the media and the administration set aside their differences — back in the days when they had some.
Great to see the new Senator from Massachusetts – Elizabeth Warren. My staff tells me we’ve got a lot in common.
Well from one Indian politician to another, I want to wish you all the best in your new job.
I see Eric Holder is with us tonight. I actually heard a rumor that due to sequestration, the attorney general can only afford to ship a couple hundred illegal guns across the border this year.
I saw a bumper sticker on the way over here that said, “Honk if you’ve been released by Janet Napolitano.”
I understand that to save money – the President’s Secret Service detail is being replaced by Joe Biden with a shotgun.
You know, a lot of people warned me that if I voted for Mitt Romney, a Wall Street robber baron who hid his money in secretive Grand Cayman bank accounts would end up running the U.S. Treasury.
I see Jack Lew is here tonight. Good thing that job went to you instead, Jack."