Re: NASA on 2012 crap - excellent

[chris () blask org]

--- On Tue, 11/17/09, Dan White <dwhite () olp net> wrote:

> I think there exists now, more than ever, bubble environments 
> online for people to re-enforce their instinct and belief systems.
.d.

> The same is true for someone who wants to believe any political 
> or disaster conspiracy under, and including, the moon.

I have been pondering that a lot recently.  Like most (well, all) topics, I have tended to brush this one away with a 
broom of optimism, but I am secretly a bit more concerned than I normally let on (I'll deny I wrote this if pressed).

Does the self-ghettoization possible on the Internet lead to more negativity than are balanced by the positives?  Were 
we a better people when we had access to little information but 78% shared the experience of watching Lucy become a 
Mom?  Are we somehow less today with endless information but no more than 10% of us sharing a single TV show?  Where we 
can surround ourselves with a ditto-heading micro-minority that is still so large it fills our horizons?

I don't know.  The answer, I believe, is further down the path and much more complexly derived than we can visualize 
from here. 

> My hope is that it's just the result of new groups of people 
> coming online and finding more efficient means of spreading 
> their messages, and not a widespread change in our collective 
> ability to be skeptical of stupid ideas.

I agree strongly with this.  However, the critical-massing of the new groupings has its own perhaps troublesome effect.

-chris


      
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