Just having come out of reading Asimov's "Foundation" series, this article, showing ways in which our society is headed for a new dark age, struck a bit of a chord.

One of the central themes of the "Foundation" universe was that of cultural decay - knowledge was being lost, as was the ability to (re)discover it, because the society had, basically, become lazy. No-one needed to go make archaelogical digs on a distant planet to write a book on the subject - someone else had already written a very thorough book, and why dare presume to think you could come up with something better, or even different, than That Well-Known Genius? (Another major issue was that technology hummed along contently running everyday functions, sewage systems and lighting systems and, really, all the things it does for us now, and they ran along so well and for so long, that the time came when no-one had bothered to keep up on how to fix them if something should go wrong.)

This article reminds that "information is not fact". And I'm as guilty as anyone, I google and wiki everything, rather than go over to the library and dig through encyclopedias. (In my defense, a good chunk of what I look up are cultural reference points, which wiki will be better at than encyclopedias. Also, I remember how short and general encyclopedias always were in school, and I think the Internet is a better outlet for those few people who have an effusive and well-rounded knowledge of, oh, I don't know, *looks at wiki's front page*, whatever polar bear happens to be kept at one city's particular zoo.) (Anyway, I usually need impressions more than specific dates and facts.)

But the article makes a lot of good - if not particularly mindblowing - points. We don't even have the leisure skills we used to have - people sit and watch tv, rather than listening/reading and using imagination, and listening or reading or watching instead of creating or relating stories, we play video games of sports instead of actual sports. Our entertainment has become so passive it's ridiculous. I'm guilty of it too - but I grew up less entangled in it all than most people, and it starts bothering me if I couchpotato like that too long. Even lately, when I've been so busy working and all that I come home and check email and watch some tv, then listen to a book and fall asleep, I feel dissatisfied. I can't watch tv for several hours at a stretch - I have to be doing something, even crocheting helps me feel better. I usual chalk it up to being an artist - I have to be creating, it doesn't matter in what format, but doing something that expresses something or creating something or in some way bringing some new (if small and tenative) thing into the world by my own hands. If I go too long without doing so, I wind up melancholy (not the good kind) and depressed and lose self-confidence and feel worthless. (Yes I am aware this is a bit extreme.) But I suppose this is part of it, too - our natures weren't meant to be so passive, we have such vast imaginations and ability to think, to reason, to deduce, to expand on, to create, and we don't. Creative as I am I know I'm out of practice, and Tom's always frustrated with my lack of debating ability. (Though I think he always would be, his mind is far more..well..rational I suppose, than mine.)

The Internet, tv, even magazines, everything is focused around trivia, so much more than larger ideas. Even the news - how many people could give a general statement on what the grand scheme of things is in the Israel/Palestine mess? how much smaller is that number, than those who could, today, rattle off a few headlines, "oh there was some bombing over there today, and this candidate is higher in the polls today than that candidate! oh how exciting, don't you think s/he is such a good person?"

"And so, the Internet has induced society to scorch its path from see-read-listen-remember-digest into scan and flip, thereby replacing judgment with opinion, objective reasoning with subjective impression, and common sense with consensus."

...I am damn well making sure my kids play outside and build themselves tree forts; I'm glad now that I never did have one of those big fancy plastic playhouses. How much better was my little sumac tree at the bottom of the hill, with field grass folded over twine between the branches to make tropical-looking walls, and the pine boughs I brought down to cover the floor in lovely pine needles, the perfect little perch I had on one branch, from where I could look out over fields and distant hills and the gorge in the valley, or look upward toward the sun shining through the leaves, which looked so tropical in the warm afternoon light...