June 7th, 2007
It’s Just People Talking
by Joshua Porter | 
8 Comments | shortlink: http://bokardo.com/p/627
Was reading Kevin Marks’ thoughts on the Cult of the Amateur Pundit and found this gem from Hitchiker’s Guide author Douglas Adams in How to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet
“Because the Internet is so new we still don’t really understand what it is. We mistake it for a type of publishing or broadcasting, because that’s what we’re used to. So people complain that there’s a lot of rubbish online, or that it’s dominated by Americans, or that you can’t necessarily trust what you read on the web. Imagine trying to apply any of those criticisms to what you hear on the telephone. Of course you can’t ‘trust’ what people tell you on the web anymore than you can ‘trust’ what people tell you on megaphones, postcards or in restaurants. Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do. For some batty reason we turn off this natural scepticism when we see things in any medium which require a lot of work or resources to work in, or in which we can’t easily answer back – like newspapers, television or granite. Hence ‘carved in stone.’ What should concern us is not that we can’t take what we read on the internet on trust – of course you can’t, it’s just people talking – but that we ever got into the dangerous habit of believing what we read in the newspapers or saw on the TV – a mistake that no one who has met an actual journalist would ever make. One of the most important things you learn from the internet is that there is no ‘them’ out there. It’s just an awful lot of ‘us’.”
Links to this Post
Comments
1. Ben Saunders 8:26am, Thu 7th, 2007
Amazing. I wonder how long it’ll be before Douglas Adams’ stuff is no longer relevant. ‘Decades’ seems like a dead cert, at least – given that he clearly understood Twitter better than I do eight years ago. A century?
2. heri 8:58am, Thu 7th, 2007
This is so true. Although one of my friend, a notorious art blogger, is being sued because he wrote his opinion. apparently, the plaintiff is from the newspaper era and thinks everything on the internet should be true … because it’s written words. so he ordered his lawyers to harass the blogger.
http://montrealtechwatch.com/2007/04/call-to-bloggers-and-everyone-involved.html
this has turned into a permanent injunction since then.
3. Patrick Lee 11:43am, Thu 7th, 2007
Excellent point by Mr. Adams. I really miss that guy but was fortunate enough to meet him about 12 years ago. He would really get a kick out of Web 2.0.
4. Adam Audette 5:46pm, Thu 7th, 2007
I always get a kick out of people who say, “i hate ebay!” or something similar. That’s like saying you hate people buying and selling stuff. The Internet is just people doing what people do, and using a newer medium to do it.
great find!
5. Fahad 4:37am, Wed 13th, 2007
People has always desired to waste time or infact ways of entertainment. Internet is one of those.
6. Jens Tee 9:59am, Thu 14th, 2007
good site, greetings from Germany
Jens Tee