For people who are already open minded, it's a valuable tool. On the flip-side it can be an amplifier for tightly-held beliefs. Stoll joked in self-deprication

For people who are already open minded, it's a valuable tool. On the flip-side it can be an amplifier for tightly-held beliefs. Stoll joked in self-deprication that his criticism was coming from a guy who owned five computers and no car -- so, he wasn't anti-technology. Nor do I think he didn't see the positive potential of the internet. There was a lot of hype going around in the late 90's, and his essays were responding to that.