Having access to information and actually having assimilated it are two entirely different things. Hainv Wikipedia wired into your brain will allow you to check cursory definitions and article-introductions near instantly, but your interlocutor must wait a couple of minutes for you to read and understand. That time will vary depending on how enhanced your intelligence is and how much you are already acquainted with the topic at hand. It might grow enormously if, say, upon meeting a lesswrongian for the first time, you’re forced to make a wiki walk through their archives just to be up-to-date with them (seriously, this habit of peppering articles with links to other articles when they aren’t strictly necessary for the understanding of the texts should stop, it creates an unhealthy in-house feeling and forces new users into month-long ermitatges trying to close the exponentially exploding army of tabs!).
Given the fact that History is in constant acceleration and that things are more and more inter-connected, I assume there’d be a state-sponsored effort (if not an entire industry) of developing digest history books and other introductory material, not for Dummies, but for Thawees (we should get a better name than that for the Resurrected… we should also get a derogatory one, because racism and priviledge: “The Walking Dead”? “They’re History”? “Time-Skippers”? “Dinosaurs”? (Cue jokes about blood in amber and the prophesized Dinoday),
Having access to information and actually having assimilated it are two entirely different things.
Indeed, this is what I was talking about with the Cyc project, just having the information isn’t enough, it needs to be integrated, to have meaning.
Still, it seems many of my pub conversations are already changing with wireless mobile internet access as what would have been a large discussion about whether or not something was real, or what it did, or when it was, can be quickly checked by a source both people would agree is better than anyone physically present.
Which also points to ways conversation in general changes. Just coz you aren’t there, doesn’t mean you can’t be consulted immediately. In Farscape, the characters would be conversing with each other even when remote, without having to have an obvious comms device or think to turn it on or all. Just shout at ’em and they hear, wherever they are, whatever they’re doing.
You’re talking to some resurrected dude about his grandson, and suddenly grandson is there in the conversation saying hello from the beach where he’s lazing with a cocktail.
I always thought that looked fun, but given the rants I get from people wondering why I’d bother to log into a website to show ’em pictures of a beach holiday while I “should be off having fun” perhaps there’d be social pressure to keep conversation local.
Dunno. Look forward to finding out how it’ll all pan out anyway :)
Having access to information and actually having assimilated it are two entirely different things. Hainv Wikipedia wired into your brain will allow you to check cursory definitions and article-introductions near instantly, but your interlocutor must wait a couple of minutes for you to read and understand. That time will vary depending on how enhanced your intelligence is and how much you are already acquainted with the topic at hand. It might grow enormously if, say, upon meeting a lesswrongian for the first time, you’re forced to make a wiki walk through their archives just to be up-to-date with them (seriously, this habit of peppering articles with links to other articles when they aren’t strictly necessary for the understanding of the texts should stop, it creates an unhealthy in-house feeling and forces new users into month-long ermitatges trying to close the exponentially exploding army of tabs!).
Given the fact that History is in constant acceleration and that things are more and more inter-connected, I assume there’d be a state-sponsored effort (if not an entire industry) of developing digest history books and other introductory material, not for Dummies, but for Thawees (we should get a better name than that for the Resurrected… we should also get a derogatory one, because racism and priviledge: “The Walking Dead”? “They’re History”? “Time-Skippers”? “Dinosaurs”? (Cue jokes about blood in amber and the prophesized Dinoday),
Indeed, this is what I was talking about with the Cyc project, just having the information isn’t enough, it needs to be integrated, to have meaning.
Still, it seems many of my pub conversations are already changing with wireless mobile internet access as what would have been a large discussion about whether or not something was real, or what it did, or when it was, can be quickly checked by a source both people would agree is better than anyone physically present.
Which also points to ways conversation in general changes. Just coz you aren’t there, doesn’t mean you can’t be consulted immediately. In Farscape, the characters would be conversing with each other even when remote, without having to have an obvious comms device or think to turn it on or all. Just shout at ’em and they hear, wherever they are, whatever they’re doing.
You’re talking to some resurrected dude about his grandson, and suddenly grandson is there in the conversation saying hello from the beach where he’s lazing with a cocktail.
I always thought that looked fun, but given the rants I get from people wondering why I’d bother to log into a website to show ’em pictures of a beach holiday while I “should be off having fun” perhaps there’d be social pressure to keep conversation local.
Dunno. Look forward to finding out how it’ll all pan out anyway :)