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Why is it either/or? Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 depicts a dystopian future full of both bookburning and constant information. I think Huxley and Orwell both

by jdmitch 14y ago

Why is it either/or? Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 depicts a dystopian future full of both bookburning and constant information. I think Huxley and Orwell both had it right (though the authoritarian disinformation and suppression of information may be more subtle at the moment than Orwell imagined). When we become overwhelmed by trivial information, we start to hate substantial/meaningful information, and both what we hate and what we love conspire to bring our ruin. (Not that I am that I'm a cynic or anything ;)

hp50g 14y ago
Yes they were all right, unfortunately. Thanks for an insightful comment.
BorgHunter 14y ago
"When we become overwhelmed by trivial information, we start to hate substantial/meaningful information, and both what we hate and what we love conspire to bring our ruin." Is it hatred, or simply a desire to get the "cheaper" information? It seems like human brains are wired to assume a kind of information parity, in which "Kim Kardashian buys a soda" is equal in value to "Germany annexes the Sudetenland". Understanding the latter has a lot of prerequisites, each of which is also a piece of information that has to be acquired, and so the latter is rightly seen as requiring more work than the former. And so, if you have a greedy information-gathering algorithm, you'll prefer the Kardashian data to the WWII data. This is why I admire people like Carl Sagan, David Attenborough, and all the other great popularizers of complex subjects, because instilling that passion and showing why some data are more important than others is a really hard job.
illuminate 14y ago
"When we become overwhelmed by trivial information, we start to hate substantial/meaningful information" Doubtful. When the media can overwhelm us with trivial information, ~they~ start to hate substantial/meaningful information that requires investment of time and quality journalists.

by jdmitch 14y ago

hp50g 14y ago

Yes they were all right, unfortunately. Thanks for an insightful comment.

BorgHunter 14y ago

"When we become overwhelmed by trivial information, we start to hate substantial/meaningful information, and both what we hate and what we love conspire to bring our ruin." Is it hatred, or simply a desire to get the "cheaper" information? It seems like human brains are wired to assume a kind of information parity, in which "Kim Kardashian buys a soda" is equal in value to "Germany annexes the Sudetenland". Understanding the latter has a lot of prerequisites, each of which is also a piece of information that has to be acquired, and so the latter is rightly seen as requiring more work than the former. And so, if you have a greedy information-gathering algorithm, you'll prefer the Kardashian data to the WWII data. This is why I admire people like Carl Sagan, David Attenborough, and all the other great popularizers of complex subjects, because instilling that passion and showing why some data are more important than others is a really hard job.

illuminate 14y ago

"When we become overwhelmed by trivial information, we start to hate substantial/meaningful information" Doubtful. When the media can overwhelm us with trivial information, ~they~ start to hate substantial/meaningful information that requires investment of time and quality journalists.