This Internet thing

So it occurred to me today...

That there is far too much in the world to learn, even among what we already know as a whole.

And it is painfully obvious that the unknown, and thus, unlearnable vastly out maginitudes that which can be obtained in the brain.

Plus, it would seem that the rise in availability of such information is directly proportional to the immediacy and accessibility of distractions that so easily pull us away from significant, or meaningful learning and information. (read: YouTube)

"Oh but Nick! You can learn things on YouTube!"

No one ever got a promotion at their job because of something they saw on Oprah.

I wonder if anyone ever got fired for watching Oprah.

Here the issue is a misunderstanding of learning. Passive, sensory-feeding is not learning. Surely you don't believe in intelligence osmosis. Learning is an active, aggressive, and sometimes self-violent procedure. Humans do not learn naturally; they just flee from pain so easily.

Where were we going with this?

Oh yes, the Internet is making people dumb. Just like the have and have-not gap being (supposedly) widening in terms of wealth, the intelligence range is seeing the same effect. One man invents BitTorrent, millions become mindless stupid leechers, who think they are entitled to the latest releases free of charge.

I liked BitTorrent more when it was new. When figuring out how to torrent files was the test itself. If you had to ask how to do it, you had already failed.

In summary, you've missed an opportunity to learn something (more) important by reading this entry. There is too much to learn. I get sick just thinking about organic chemistry and Japanese at the same time. How long would it take to learn them both? And even worse, how quickly would someone else benefit from your effort? Man, it's like a perverted high-scale form of communism.

My apologies. This is what occurs when your work requires you to think (too much).

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