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Too Big to Know

Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room
Jul 01, 2013SunKing2 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Facts: "We se them picked up, splatted against a wall, contradicted, torn apart, amplified, and mocked... every fact has an equal and opposite reaction...[this] multi-sided, linked contradition of every fact changes the nature and role of facts in our culture." Expertise in former years was limited to a select group, certainly printed material produced a sort of final word on a subject, due to its inability to be contradicted, and an editing process and cost that ensured that only relevant knowledge was present, and the information was correct. Books, the former way that civilization develops ideas, requied an expert to be complete with his arguments. The nature of expertise and experts has changed due to the Net. Much of the contradictory statements are rubbish, but we still have to embrace this new form where anyone can be an expert, because we get points of view that actually give us solutions. On the Net, the facts can have links so that we can check the data, make our own judgments, and even contradict what is being stated. Well worth the read.