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posted by mrpg on Monday October 30 2017, @03:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the idiot-web dept.

Social networks, though, have since colonized the web for television's values. From Facebook to Instagram, the medium refocuses our attention on videos and images, rewarding emotional appeals—'like' buttons—over rational ones. Instead of a quest for knowledge, it engages us in an endless zest for instant approval from an audience, for which we are constantly but unconsciouly performing. (It's telling that, while Google began life as a PhD thesis, Facebook started as a tool to judge classmates' appearances.) It reduces our curiosity by showing us exactly what we already want and think, based on our profiles and preferences. Enlightenment's motto of 'Dare to know' has become 'Dare not to care to know.'

It is a development that further proves the words of French philosopher Guy Debord, who wrote that, if pre-capitalism was about 'being', and capitalism about 'having', in late-capitalism what matters is only 'appearing'—appearing rich, happy, thoughtful, cool and cosmopolitan. It's hard to open Instagram without being struck by the accuracy of his diagnosis.

Now the challenge is to save Wikipedia and its promise of a free and open collection of all human knowledge amid the conquest of new and old television—how to collect and preserve knowledge when nobody cares to know. Television has even infected Wikipedia itself—today many of the most popular entries tend to revolve around television series or their cast.

This doesn't mean it is time to give up. But we need to understand that the decline of the web and thereby of the Wikipedia is part of a much larger civilizational shift which has just started to unfold.

Wired: How Social Media Endangers Knowledge


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday October 31 2017, @01:12AM (4 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday October 31 2017, @01:12AM (#589811) Journal

    What a coincidence! So was Socrates! And speaking of the persecution of philosophers, who spam-modded me this time?

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 31 2017, @02:24AM (2 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday October 31 2017, @02:24AM (#589830) Homepage Journal

    Nobody unless someone's already dealt with it. No recent posts by you are currently modded Spam.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday October 31 2017, @05:39AM (1 child)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday October 31 2017, @05:39AM (#589872) Journal

      Hmm, still "down by 10" as they say. Are you sure? I had to search, but then got the latest mod message today, which revealed what I suspected: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=22117&cid=584998 [soylentnews.org]

      Modded Spam. I think I know who the culprit is. I recommend that admin go easy on him, since he is obviously quite young, naive, and stupid. And a Nazi sympathizing alt-right hanger-on. And he has very small. . . . Go easy on him.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 31 2017, @10:46AM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday October 31 2017, @10:46AM (#589961) Homepage Journal

        Ahh, so it is. Looks like it somehow got out of order in the listing; shuffled down below a couple older Spam mods. My guess is the SQL query sorts by comment date instead of moderation date and the comment in question was almost too old to moderate anymore. Sneaky. I'll have to fix that.

        Taken care of.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by fyngyrz on Tuesday October 31 2017, @06:49PM

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday October 31 2017, @06:49PM (#590144) Journal

    What a coincidence! So was Socrates!

    So was Maxwell [wikipedia.org]. 👿😊