Hi again-

Here is a revised column; let me know if this works for you.

In my first column for this publication, I made what I hope to be the convincing case that the rise of the internet has had a net positive effect on the thought processes of those who use it with regularity - comparable, perhaps, to the demonstrable increase in reasoning ability we see in the classical Greek world upon the adaption of written language, which itself appears to be something of a prerequisite for any number of abstract undertakings ranging from political theory to ethics. Appropriately enough, my argument in that instance was itself rather abstract, and soI would like to expand upon it here, as well as to provide concrete evidence which, though anecdotal and thus by itself incapable of proving that the net effect of the net (sorry) has indeed been positive, ought to at least convince the reader that (a) certain dynamics now in play provide for the possibility of a net positive effect on the thought processes of internet users, that (b) these likewise provide for the possibility of a public that is more skeptical overall, and that (c) it is extraordinarily likely that some large segment of the general population has already begun to benefit from these dynamics in such a way as to have vastly increased their knowledge and their skepticism, and that this last phenomenon is almost certain to make itself felt more and more as time goes on. We will be dealing, then, not with the subject of cognition per se, but rather with the specific subjects of knowledge attainment and extent of skepticism.

Such arguments as I have made and am about to expand upon are necessary because there are a number of very well-informed people in a variety of pertinent fields who have been declaiming my friend the internet as of late. As noted in my first column, the publication Edge recently asked a number of relevant professionals about their thoughts on the subject. Several neuroscientists and others with similar backgrounds responded with their suspicions, and in some cases their outright declarations, that the internet has a had some deleterious effect on the cognitive functioning of its users. A few took the less critical but far odder stance that internet use actually has no effect at all on the cognition of those users. This latter opinion is patently absurd; even the process of navigating a busy city street has been convincingly demonstrated to have some measurable effect on brain functioning in general and focus in particular - a negative one, incidentally - and it would be hard to show how such a practice as weaving through pedestrians is much more substantial in terms of the effects on its practitioners than is the practice of sitting in front of a computer monitor for hours at a time each day and taking in, navigating, and creating content ranging in nature from text to video to interactive mediums of a hundred sorts.

It might also be tempting to ask those who argue for a negative effect and those who argue for no effect to argue amongst themselves while those of us who have determined otherwise go about making our own case - but it would be unnecessary, as there have been quite a few studies indicating that various computer-related activities do indeed enhance cognitive performance (as is noted by author and Wired contributor Jonah Lehrer in the article on city navigation linked above, incidentally). Still, the issue has yet to be resolved, and it will probably be years until anything approaching a consensus is reached by neuroscientists and others with a professional stake in the question. In the meantime, then, let us finally turn our attention away from cognition and to what we can indeed show to be the effects of internet use on the knowledge of those who use it with at least moderate responsibility, what potential the internet possesses in terms of our ability as skeptics to promote our approach to such knowledge, and what this all means for the future.

We would not be amiss in beginning with a quote by one of those experts to whom Edge put the original question of the internet’s effect on our thinking several months ago - one who had a positive take on the overall dynamic, and who also happens to be noted skeptic Michael Shermer:

Thanks to the Internet, for the first time in my life I feel that I have a chance to compete on a level playing field. My academic background is embarrassing compared to that of most successful intellectuals... Since teaching as an adjunct professor is no way to make a living (literally), I founded the Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine just as the Internet was getting legs in the early-1990s.

Starting with no money, no backers, and no affiliation with elite institutions, the Internet made it possible for us to succeed by making knowledge accessible and searchable to me and my editors and writers on a scale never previously available. The intellectual playing field was being leveled and the Internet changed the way I think about the very real possibility of fairness and opportunity in a world that has for too long been rigged to favor the elite.

Here, Shermer has laid out the basic case for one superbly positive aspect of the internet, which is its role in providing individuals with vastly increased opportunities to act, to inform, and to otherwise improve the environment, intellectual or otherwise - and to do so outside of the structures that have developed, somewhat haphazardly, around our major institutions such as academia and media. Neither the Skeptics Society or Skeptic would have succeeded, Shermer himself notes, with the internet’s particular advantages - and certainly both of those institutions have had some great degree of positive effect on the thinking of some large number of people. Of course, it is also true that the internet has given rise to all manner of deleterious institutions with net negative impacts on the thinking of individuals, such as websites advocating for crystal healing and e-mail forwards to the effect that Barack Obama is the antichrist or even Kenyan. I will note, and the reader will perhaps agree, that the sort of people who are taken in by such things were probably already lost causes to some degree or another, and that it matters very little whether such people add some additional piece of falsity to their respective quivers of nonsense. But I will not let myself off the hook so easily; instead, I will note that for every false assertion that spreads via the internet, the actual truth of the thing is just as readily available to those who desire the truth - and those who desire something less than the truth will always get it, the avoidance of cognitive dissonance being the defining drive of such people.

Again, we cannot know with certainty what the net effect of all this is in terms of the distribution of the true versus that of the false - but it is worth repeating that the internet has made available a vast storehouse of reliable information, far more than had previously been available to anyone who has ever lived. Significantly, such information is not only available, but quite readily so - and thus more likely to be accessed.

There is another factor at work here, one that amplifies the positive potential of the internet as it currently exists: the particular web institutions to which we turn for knowledge - regardless of whether we are erudite or ignorant - are in the control of relatively rational individuals who have wisely engineered such entities to serve as reliable sources of facts. Wikipedia, for example, has been the target of countless one-liners to the effect that it is unreliable as a tool for gathering information. As is so often the case, it is the one-liners and the popular sentiment expressed thereby that are in error; Nature published a study in 2005 showing that the online encyclopedia was about as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica. This revelation was not particularly shocking to those of us who have kept a close eye on such emergent internet phenomena as Wikipedia, which operates under a system of rules that require every assertion to be tied to a verifiable source - and which, unlike printed works, also facilitates links to such sources and thereby allows users to verify context and otherwise ensure that the facts on display are indeed facts. Meanwhile, Wikipedia continues to improve as new experts join the ranks of its editors and scan articles to ensure accuracy. Doubly meanwhile, it is worth putting into perspective the concerns with this outlet being something that “anyone can edit,” as not everyone does, of course, and those who do are by definition the sort of people who would spend their free time editing an online encyclopedia for fun - not a surefire prevention of foolishness by any means, but one that at least seems to attract more technocrats than fools, as may be discovered by an examination of the contributions of the average editor and which may be confirmed in part by the Nature study.

The mechanisms and dynamics of the online world which we find in play within the enterprise of Wikipedia may of course be found elsewhere as well. At its best, the internet outperforms the best of equivalent brick-and-mortar institutions hands down. And it is the best of the internet that tends to draw the attention of those clever enough to make accurate determinations regarding such things. It is well-known among observant people that such outlets as CNN and The Washington Post are quite inferior in many respects to the better blogs, for instance; as evidence of this, I will note that the former provides a largely uncritical outlet for such people as psychic Sylvia Browne and End Times advocate Joel Rosenberg, and that the latter has promoted Charles Krauthammer as some sort of expert on foreign policy despite the fact - easier to verify, incidentally, due to the internet’s archival nature - that the Pulitzer winner has been demonstrably wrong in his predictions about every single U.S. military action conducted in the past twelve years at the very least. Incidentally, Krauthammer’s liberal counterpart Thomas Friedman - another Pulitzer winner who is widely regarded by the ignorant as some sort of modern polymath - has been similarly wrong on such a wide range of subjects that I have composed some dozen articles and a book chapter on this unwholesome subject without expending the entirety of the examples I have discovered in my perusals of his past columns, and does not seem to have ever been particularly correct about anything that is not common knowledge among the educated. Meanwhile, no one has attempted to make any similar case against those regarded as among the best of the bloggers, such as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald or Middle East expert and independent blogger Dr. Juan Cole. In light of these and other observations, I do not think I would be amiss in thinking that it is the more orthodox institutions that merit scrutiny, rather than these more modern institutions which are still evolving after existing for a scant decade - particularly insomuch as that the former are largely insulated from any reasoned criticism of the sort that might be seen by their respective audiences while the latter are each day subject to that very thing by way of commenters and other bloggers.

Plainly, the best of bloggers are not representative of the whole of them, no matter how much better they may be in comparison to the most unjustifiably prominent of columnists, and this is true of all emergent institutions we find on the internet. Still, there are mechanisms by which the reasoned individual may quickly sift through the nonsense of the many in order to obtain the wise counsel of the few. This brings us to the example of reddit.com, a website at which users may submit various online materials for the consideration of others, who subsequently upvote or downvote these entries based on their perceived value. Thus it is that the collective usership of this entity promotes to the top those articles deemed to have merit while strangling in the crib those deemed to have none. It does not take much imagination to see how such a system can fail, but experience with this system reveals it to surpass the medium of the newspaper or television program in its usefulness. As is the case with Wikipedia, those familiar with the site in the first place have passed what amounts to a test of their knowledge - in this case, knowledge of the existence of some information-oriented entity. Such a test as this immediately excludes several billion people who are, on the whole, less knowledgeable than those of us with the benefit of having lived in the Western world - a Masai tribesman, for all his virtues, does not understand the theory of evolution and for similar reasons is unlikely to know of reddit or Wikipedia or even the internet, and is thus not likely to show up at Wikipedia to edit an article on germ theory to include information on the demonic origin of disease. To a lesser extent, but by way of the same dynamic, the creationist Texan is unlikely to waste everyone’s time with the product of his more self-enforced brand of ignorance, not being as likely as a research scientist to learn of Wikipedia, reddit, or any of the other institutions that have come to exist as concentrations of erudite individuals with relatively high levels of education and intellectual curiosity.

Similar to the case of Wikipedia, then, is the more exciting case of reddit, filled as it is with implications for the future of human organization and collaboration. On a typical day some months back, one user submits an article announcing that President Obama has promised federal financial backing for the opening of new nuclear power plants. Other users understand the significance of this story and vote it to the top of the front page where it may be seen by all, and meanwhile various individuals post comments that may likewise be visible to anyone who cares to see them (and most users do seem to be so inclined). A few comments question the wisdom of nuclear power, citing the cases of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl; these are answered promptly by others aware of the actual facts behind such cases, such as the absolute lack of casualties of the former and the easily-avoided failures that prompted the latter, and who are likewise quick to point out the widespread death and pollution caused by such alternatives as coal. Overall, the vast majority of the comments in question are made in justifiable defense of nuclear power, while the minority of comments in opposition are quickly answered with a range of verifiable facts. Compare such a result to the impression one might receive on the subject from one of the usual outlets - in fact, such a comparison is provided by one of the commenters:

I was watching NBC news tonight where I saw the announcement of this and, of course, they were showing pictures of the Chernobyl aftermath. WHY?!

We need media that educates instead of terrifies...

Indeed we do - and by way of the emergent dynamics of the internet, we are starting to get it.

By necessity, this essay has provided only an overview of the case for the internet as compared to other mediums, and certain of the concepts described herein merit additional commentary, evidence, and context, and I hope to provide such things in subsequent columns. In the meantime, I would end by noting that, whatever the advantages that the internet may provide to our skeptical endeavors even without any direct action on our behalf, such dynamics also entail vast opportunities in this regard - opportunities that will be wasted unless we move quickly to identify and act on them. I have provided one such opportunity as of my last column and have received some amount of response from the readers of Skeptical Inquirer; next month, I will announce a more specific, related opportunity, one with the potential to accomplish a great deal of that which we all would like to see accomplished. I would again request of the reader that he consider the first such opportunity and return here for the second.

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 11:24 AM, <SkeptInq@aol.com> wrote:

Barrett

 

 

Sorry,  it has been unusually insane here the last few weeks.  I read over the column, and although I did enjoy it, I don't think it is quite what I'd want for the Skeptical Inquirer site.  I could easily see the folks at Free Inquiry using it, however.  Let me copy it to the editor there, Tom Flynn, and  perhaps we can see what develops.  I like to keep the religion critiques to a minimum if possible on csicop.org

 

Best.

 

Barry

 

In a message dated 6/8/2010 3:09:52 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, barriticus@gmail.com writes:

Howdy, Barry-

Here's this month's column. Let me know if this works for you. Otherwise, I can do another one that I'd been planning. 

An Open Letter to Some Undetermined Number of American Elected Officials

I am writing this missive, or “epistle,” in hopes of receiving a few clarifications from certain members of Congress as well as a far greater number of officials serving in legislative and various other capacities among the various states of what I have been informed is a Judeo-Christian union.

Before making these inquiries, it would be appropriate for me to apologize for the conduct of my fellow secularists, particularly those in the skeptical community, for the terrible things that have been said about those of you and your constituents who term yourselves “Bible-believing Christians,” Orthodox Jews, and, to a lesser extent, the conservative Muslims who are generally excluded from your reindeer games despite sharing many of your most fundamental values. I myself have even said and wrote some of these awful things, but I can assure you that I only did it for the money, and I needed the money because my wife was dying of cancer and of course I needed to pay my divorce lawyer. I may be confusing myself with Newt Gingrich, however. At any rate, I am sorry for the terrible things I have written. It’s just that I’m not a very good writer.

Now, to business. As you are no doubt aware, some great number of religious officeholders and other national leaders have asserted that secularism is, in fact, a religion. As of this moment, though, our religion seems to be just as disorganized as Christianity was back in the 4th century, when the respective followers of Bishop Athanasius and Presbytr Arius fought bloody street battles over whether or not the Father and Son were co-equals or whether the Father was in fact older and thus superior to the Son. Back then, the issue was decided by the Emperor Constantius, and then decided again with almost the exact opposite result by the Emperor Theodosius, thereby establishing what became the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. But then I am boring you with historical matters of which every Christian congressman is no doubt already aware.

What I'm getting at, I assume, is that our secularist religion is at a disadvantage to your Christian one, as we have no emperor to decide our non-existent non-theological disputes on our behalf, and it will be at least another decade before America falls under a dictatorship with the authority necessary to establish some state-sanctioned leadership for us non-believers, as was kindly done for your own predecessors. Rather than wait around for that to happen, I hereby declare myself Pontifex Maximus Americanus of the Secularist Religion, as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are both Brits, and Sam Harris... well, he's not here, now, is he?

In my apparent capacity of Pontifex Maximus, I do hereby submit the following inquiry to the Congress of the United States on behalf of the nation's secularists: why is it that our religion, as it has been publicly deemed by such a great number of our congressmen and state officials, is the only such religion of which the pertinent activities are not tax exempt? As you are aware, the taxation of religious entities is unconstitutional due to an, uh, activist Supreme Court which decided that the clause noting that "Congress will establish no law..." could be interpreted as meaning that the requirements demanded of everyone else cannot be demanded of Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis, Protestant ministers, Islamic imams, and Hindu, uh, holy guys, nor may their allegedly religious peripheral activities be subject to any taxation of the sort that would be applied to those same activities were they to be performed by those of us who ascribe to the secularist religion.

This strikes me as unfair. I myself have made a number of expenditures in the course of pursuing my secularist beliefs. I have, out of sheer secularism, purchased both of Gore Vidal's autobiographies. Would it be possible for me to write off these purchases retroactively after such point as our constitutional rights to pursue our rituals without taxation is enacted by act of Congress, subject of course to judicial review? And will those of you who have characterized secularism as a religion be willing to sponsor a bill that would prompt the federal government to recognize it as such, preferably before the release of the next Vidal autobiography or the one after that? More importantly, it would be a fine thing if those of our secularist institutions which are currently incorporated under various less advantageous legal frameworks could be speedily accommodated in their transition to the status of churches, with all the benefits entailed thereby. For instance, when I was a young man I worked for a time as a furniture mover for a Pentacostal church which accepted donations of office furniture, refurbished them a bit, and then sold them off to other businesses. All of this was done without any taxes being paid whatsoever because, after all, this was done under the purview of a “church.” As for the profits - well, the head of this church certainly had a fine penthouse apartment, though to be fair, I should note that his wife’s Bentley was at least two years out of style. With that and endless other examples in mind, I can think of any number of lucrative things that our new secularist churches could do with similarly expansive tax exemptions. For instance, we could legitimately advocate for our religion of secularism without committing the sort of widespread federal tax fraud described by so many Christians.

At any rate, I am delighted to know that I have so many allies in Congress who agree with me that secularism is a religion and thus ought to receive the same Constitutional protections as any other religion. I am so grateful, in fact, that I have compiled a list of contact information for those congressmen, former executive branch officials, and failed Mormon presidential candidates who have proclaimed our absence of religious belief to constitute a religious belief. I would write them all letters, but I imagine that such current and former officials have other things they ought to be reading, such as Thomas Jefferson’s explanation as to why he tore out large portions of the New Testament that were clearly nonsense, John Adam’s signature on the Treaty of Tripoli which itself noted that “the government is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion” as well as Adam’s own contempt for anyone who believed in the Trinity, Benjamin Franklin’s noting that the “Christian dogma” is “unintelligible,” and everything Thomas Paine wrote ever. Least of all do I wish to deter such congressmen from reading the following excerpt from a letter James Madison wrote some number of years after fathering our Constitution: “During almost 15 centuries the legal establishment known as Christianity has been on trial, and what have been its fruits, more or less in all places? THESE ARE THE FRUITS: Pride, indolence, ignorance and arrogance in the clergy. Ignorance ... arrogance and servility in the laity and IN BOTH CLERGY AND LAITY superstition, bigotry, and persecution."

These men, who together have done more for human liberty than has any collection of men before or after, are said to have been religious by half of our modern population and half of our elected representatives as well. I was even told myself by a clergyman, upon appearing on the wonderful Fox News Channel, that “they were all spiritual people,” and this sentiment was seconded by the “moderator” of the debate in question. If such men who say such things can be deemed spiritual people, than I, too, ought to be considered spiritual, and thus the case for the religion of secularism is strengthened further by way of the logic of our entirely logical Christian countrymen.   

Again, then, I do not wish to add to the reading lists of any elected official whose help I will be seeking in getting this bill passed. Instead, I will be calling them - hundreds of them, in fact, one by one. And in my capacity as a reporter and contributor to such publications as Vanity Fair, Huffington Post, and Pizza Today, I will be recording these phone calls in order that I might relay the answers I receive with perfect accuracy, as of course those congressmen that I am able to reach will all have very reasonable answers to my very basic questions regarding the implications of their public pronouncements; the alternative is that some such recordings will end up being hilarious as the officials in question struggle to figure out how to answer such simple queries on a topic of apparently great interest to them. Of course, that would be unthinkable; certainly the great bulk of the American citizenry would not be so incompetent as to put in place hundreds of incompetent officials who don’t know basic history or even horse sense, and only some secular Eastern elitist like John Adams or James Madison or Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Paine could think so poorly of the American people as to even consider such an insulting possibility. No, surely these recordings will all depict the officials in question in a flattering light, which is why they won’t mind me posting them on the internet, or sending transcripts to those local media catering to their constituents, or editing the best portions and selling them as ringtones.

In conclusion, my cell phone plan provides for free unlimited domestic calls and I have plenty of free time on my hands.

Sincerely,

Barrett Brown

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 3:20 PM, <SkeptInq@aol.com> wrote:

Hi Barrett,  the column just went up on the site a few minutes ago and we put a link onto our Skeptical Inquirer facebook page.

 

Barry Karr

 

In a message dated 5/3/2010 12:09:24 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, SkeptInq@aol.com writes:

The first column was titled:

 

 

The Internet and the Republic of Skepticism, Part One

by Barrett Brown

All Info All Ways

March 18, 2010

 

 

so, I guess this would be Part II

 

Barry

 

 

In a message dated 5/3/2010 12:05:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, aisaak@centerforinquiry.net writes:

Hey Barry,

What did you want me to use as a title for this?

Thanks,
Adam

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Julia Lavarnway <jlavarnway@centerforinquiry.net> wrote:

Here's the edited version. I wasn't sure what to put as a title, so it
doesn't have one as of now.

Julia

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 10:17 AM, Julia Lavarnway
<jlavarnway@centerforinquiry.net> wrote:
> Hi Barry,
>
> I'll take a look at this and make sure Adam has it to post by Monday.
> Does it have a title?
>
> Julia
>
> On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 9:34 AM,  <SkeptInq@aol.com> wrote:
>> If possible I'd like us to post on Monday.
>>
>> Barry
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: barriticus@gmail.com
>> To: SkeptInq@aol.com
>> Sent: 4/22/2010 11:16:02 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time
>> Subj: Re: Lectures?
>>
>> Howdy-
>> Here's the second column. Let me know what you think.
>> I spent a portion of last year reading through more than a decade of
>> accumulated columns and articles by the United States' most respected and
>> widely-read pundits; this was done in the course of writing my upcoming book
>> on the failure of the American media to provide the passive news-consuming
>> citizenry with a reasonably competent stream of opinion journalism.
>> Additionally, I've spent much of the past five years engaging in media
>> criticism in general, both professionally and as a deranged sort of hobby. I
>> may accurately boast of being among the world's greatest authorities on the
>> failures of other media professionals, and ignoring for a moment what that
>> says about me as a person, the reader should consider what a fine thing it
>> is to know whether or not a crucial, resource-heavy enterprise does its job,
>> and if it doesn't, how bad the situation is and what the implications may
>> be.
>> Even more to the point, the situation has just recently entered a state of
>> unprecedented flux, this having been prompted almost entirely by the onset
>> of the information age and its all-encompassing primary feature, the
>> internet. If we're willing to take the opportunity, the organized skeptic
>> community can have a hand in assisting with the magnificent and
>> unprecedented revolution that is now occurring as a result of all this, as
>> well as utilizing its dynamics in such a way as to spread skepticism in
>> general and our specific debunkings in particular to a far larger audience
>> than that which we have at present. More importantly, we will vastly improve
>> our influence upon those whom we have the greatest positive impact: those
>> who are not already active skeptics, and who are thus more likely to
>> personally benefit from the knowledge we bring to the table.
>> We have an opportunity to do something great, something unprecedented,
>> something revolutionary. All that is needed is a viable plan by which to
>> accomplish this - which, of course, is like saying that all we need to buy
>> the Empire State Building is the money to do so as well as some people to
>> handle the actual purchase for us.
>>
>> ***
>>
>> If we acknowledge that things are not what they are because they should be,
>> but rather simply because they are, we might go on to conclude that that
>> which happens to be is not necessarily that which would be best.  The
>> totality of human society, being one such thing, may be expected to exist in
>> something less than what we would deem to be a state of perfection. The
>> reader is invited to confirm this for himself.
>> We are aware, then, that society has suffered from imperfections in the
>> past, the past being the only thing available for our review. We may
>> extrapolate from this that society suffers from imperfections in the present
>> insomuch as that the present is simply the past in gestation, and does not
>> seem to go through any radical transformation in becoming the past, which is
>> to say that we may find great similarity in the now as compared to, say, the
>> now minus ten years. Still, portions of the past may differ in some respects
>> from the present - the past contains the Ottoman Empire, for instance,
>> whereas the present does not. This is reassuring, as it would seem to
>> indicate that the future may differ from the present as well, particularly
>> if we give it cause to do so.  Of course, we cannot help but give the future
>> cause to take a certain form, as we influence it merely by existing in the
>> present, which is the future's raw material. The present, incidentally, is
>> the unconscious conspiracy of the past; it does not come to us through
>> design. The exception is that small portion of a given present - breakfast,
>> a cigarette, an overthrow of some flawed institution - which is the result
>> of conscious planning in the past by self-aware beings. To the extent that
>> we are able and willing to do so, then, we may conspire against the future
>> in such a way as to bring about such things as these. To have breakfast
>> later, one makes the appropriate preparations beforehand.
>> The reader may object that it is all well and good to point out that things
>> are not perfect and perhaps ought to be changed, but that there is a great
>> difference between pointing out flaws and eradicating them. The difference,
>> our objector continues, is akin to the difference between breakfast,
>> cigarettes, and institutional overthrows; the first two may be successfully
>> pursued by individuals whereas the third tends to require some degree of
>> collaboration, which itself is more difficult to set into motion than are
>> the individual actions necessary to obtain food and tobacco. Certainly these
>> differences are real, and certainly the overthrowing of institutions is a
>> business best pursued in tandem with other individuals - and certainly such
>> arrangements as require the cooperation of others are difficult to bring
>> about. But in a more fundamental sense, an institutional overthrow can be
>> set in motion by way of an individual action just as fixing breakfast or
>> obtaining a cigarette can be. If, for instance, an individual is able to
>> devise a plan by which such an overthrow may be successfully accomplished,
>> and is able to convince others to adopt the plan in such a way as that the
>> plan is perpetuated to the extent necessary to achieve the intended change,
>> then, yes, an individual may cause an institution to be overthrown.
>> Now the reader may also object that, aside from the semantics of what
>> constitutes individual action, there is still quite a bit of substantive
>> difference between making breakfast or acquiring a cigarette and convincing
>> others to adopt some plan. The former actions are quite easy, and
>> accomplished every day by quite a few individuals; the latter, we might
>> agree, is a great rarity - but if we did agree, we would be wrong, because
>> such a thing is not rare at all. Each day, one convinces others to
>> collaborate on some or another thing, such as the preparation of breakfast.
>> It is simply a matter of convincing others to join one in doing such a
>> thing.
>> Again, the reader objects, this time noting that it is nothing more than a
>> transparent rhetorical trick to compare the persuasion of others to join one
>> in making breakfast to the persuasion of others to join one in attempting to
>> pull off something so ambitious as the overthrow of an institution. There
>> is, one would note, a major difference in terms of feasibility between the
>> making of breakfast and the making of trouble. To overthrow something worth
>> overthrowing, one would have to concoct a plan that would be sufficiently
>> promising to incite the interest of others. One would have to locate those
>> individuals who are in a position to ensure that the plan is disseminated to
>> the extent necessary for implementation, and then one would have to contact
>> them and convince them not only to agree with the plan, but to act on it. To
>> the extent that the plan requires resources, expertise, and infrastructure,
>> all of these things must be secured, and this may require one to convince
>> others to provide these things. To summarize, one must put in place the
>> conditions by which the plan is not only possible, but deemed not only
>> desirable, but also viable by those whose cooperation is necessary to
>> implement it. One must set things in motion.
>> I will admit at this point that one perhaps ought not to consider
>> contributing to a project until that project has been set in motion in such
>> a way as that one might reasonably expect it to succeed. Likewise, I will
>> admit that such tasks as described above are easier stated than done.
>> I am happy to admit that all of these things must be done because I have
>> already done them all.
>> ***
>> The formal announcement and manifesto for Project PM will be forthcoming,
>> although I have released bits and pieces of the overall plan in the three
>> months since I first announced what I had in mind in an article for Vanity
>> Fair. On this occasion, I would like to address the skeptic community as a
>> whole in order to recruit as many as I can for the project, for much the
>> same reason that the Byzantine emperors sought to recruit as many Varangians
>> as they could for their own projects - there is no demographic that is
>> better-equipped to operate in the landscape that is now open to us. And the
>> landscape is very much open to us; the internet has come about so rapidly
>> that few have yet to grasp its meaning and its potential, while its
>> particular wonders have come about with such regularity that we have ceased
>> to wonder at them, indeed would only wonder if the wonders ever ceased.
>> A more intricate description of how Project PM works may be found here.
>> Briefly, the effort involves two major components. Both of these components
>> operate within a network that I have designed to take special advantage of
>> the internet's peculiarities as medium while also avoiding those problems
>> that have arisen almost universally within those communities to which the
>> internet has given rise. The first network encompasses commentators who
>> operate at least partially online - mostly bloggers of the sort who got
>> their respective starts as such, but also journalists who have begun writing
>> for online outlets after initially working in print, television, and radio.
>> The second network encompasses everyone else - people with wildly varying
>> skill sets, backgrounds, and physical locations across the globe, the common
>> element being a great degree of erudition and intellectual honesty as well
>> as a willingness to take responsibility for the future of human society.
>> Both networks are designed to grow exponentially while at the same time
>> retaining quality; how this is achieved is explained at the link above.
>> The first network will serve as the most efficient possible means of
>> obtaining the most important information as determined by the most capable
>> of commentators; it will also serve to confront and engage the amoral and
>> rudderless media infrastructure as it exists today, combining forces on
>> occasion to focus attention on a particular outlet or media figure who has
>> managed to accrue some great deal of unearned influence and respectability.
>> In concentrating on one particular target by way of advance agreement,
>> participants will thereby create the critical mass necessary to prompt the
>> major outlets to address those of its own failures which otherwise would
>> remain unknown to the general public. This tactic will also be employed in a
>> more general way, as a means of raising awareness of any particular topic
>> that the mainstream media as a whole lacks the inclination to cover in any
>> serious manner.
>> The second network will serve to run all aspects of Project PM other than
>> those handled by the other network. It is best thought of as a sort of
>> ever-expanding House of Lords, at least during such time as I retain control
>> of the project; after this body has finished composing the more specific
>> procedures by which it will operate on a day-to-day basis, the network will
>> thereafter exist as something similar to that which we saw in anarchist
>> Catalonia. At that point, I will be stepping down from my current role in
>> order that the body may carry out its other fundamental mission - to
>> demonstrate the administrative viability of a technocratic organization
>> operating under this particular network schematic and recruited in such a
>> fashion as I have gone about recruiting the several dozen members who have
>> joined thus far, a process I will describe at a later date in order to
>> provide others with the knowledge necessary to build their own networks.
>> Similarly, the fundamental mission of Project PM as an entity is to
>> encourage the development of other, similar entities - self-perpetuating,
>> self-governing organizations harnessing human talent from around the globe,
>> operating as representative meritocracies and built with the intent of
>> shaking up the existing order. Such entities as I envision and hope to spur
>> on by example will have numerous advantages over those more orthodox
>> institutions on which man has relied for ten thousand years. Collectively,
>> they will constitute a grand public conspiracy against every manner of
>> nonsense.
>> All of that is decades away, though. Here and now, we have the specific goal
>> of improving the process of information flow. As of this writing, I have
>> assembled a fine cadre of bloggers with a collective monthly audience of
>> several hundred thousand people, and each of these bloggers will soon be
>> selecting others to connect to them within the network, who will in turn
>> choose others, and so on. We have Allison Kilkenny, an up-and-coming
>> commentator who deals in policy like a cable anchor deals in cheery banter,
>> and who in addition to her blogging hosts the satisfyingly wonkish program
>> Citizen Radio along with her co-host and husband, the comedian Jamie
>> Kilstein. We have Michael Hastings, who served as Newsweek's Baghdad
>> correspondent and afterwards covered the 2008 election, after which point he
>> grew disgusted with the frivolous nature of political coverage in this
>> nation and left a prestigious position in favor of more virtuous pastures.
>> We have Charles Johnson, the pioneering founder of the blog Little Green
>> Footballs who was among the most widely-read of political bloggers until he
>> found himself at odds with the bulk of his allies and audience due to his
>> support for science and his opposition to racism. I am also in talks with
>> other, similarly prominent commentators and journalists who have likewise
>> demonstrated themselves to be experts in their respective subject as well as
>> intellectually honest with regards to all of them. Meanwhile, the governing
>> network is thus far comprised of academics of various sorts, programmers,
>> hedge fund managers, global risk analysts, political activists, as well as
>> individuals of no formal credentials but of demonstrable honesty and
>> erudition - all the credentials one requires in such an age as this, when
>> institutionalism for institutionalism's sake is finally and happily
>> threatened by the meritocratic dynamics of the internet and the culture that
>> it has facilitated.
>> Today, I am seeking to recruit skeptics for both of these networks; I want
>> them to be as over-represented within Project PM as they are
>> under-represented in the U.S. Congress and every state legislature in the
>> U.S. If you are a blogger or other media professional, get in touch. If you
>> are simply a private citizen with a penchant for skepticism and the desire
>> to take on those institutions which perpetuate ignorance when they could
>> just as easily bring about understanding, get in touch. We look back on
>> Houdini, on Sagan, on the still-cantankerous Randi, and we see how much they
>> have achieved for the world and the manner in which the man on the street
>> perceives it. They did what they did without the tools that we ourselves
>> have. The only failure that awaits us is that which stems from failing to
>> follow the example of those who stood up and acted in service to the cause
>> of skepticism, which is itself the cause of truth.
>> Barrett Brown
>> barriticus@gmail.com
>> 512-560-2302
>> April 22, 2010
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 1:51 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Okay, great. When would you want the next column by? Trying to plan out my
>>> month.
>>> Thanks,
>>> Barrett Brown
>>> Brooklyn, NY
>>> 512-560-2302
>>>
>>> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 11:58 AM, <SkeptInq@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Barrett,
>>>>
>>>> sorry for the delay.  Our web person left the company with only 2 weeks
>>>> notice - we weren't able to replace him in that short of time - we are doing
>>>> some interviews, but we are delayed on updating the site.  I will try and
>>>> have this done today, however.
>>>>
>>>> Barry
>>>>
>>>> In a message dated 3/18/2010 7:03:53 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>>>> barriticus@gmail.com writes:
>>>>
>>>> Also, could you add to the end of my bio, "Brown can be reached via
>>>> barriticus@gmail.com"? I like to be able to receive reader input and would
>>>> be particularly interested in hearing from readers of the Skeptical
>>>> Inquirer.
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Barrett Brown
>>>> Brooklyn, NY
>>>> 512-560-2302
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 1:07 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Barry-
>>>>> Right, once a month, but I might occasionally send the columns in a bit
>>>>> early.
>>>>> Also, regarding the "distributed cartel" I mention in my bio - are you
>>>>> in touch with any good bloggers, specializing in skepticism or otherwise,
>>>>> who might be interested in taking a look at my project proposal? Briefly,
>>>>> I've recruited several prominent folks and am in talks with the producers at
>>>>> True/Slant and the editor of The New York Observer (for whom I'm about to
>>>>> start writing anyway) regarding setting up what I intend to be a vastly
>>>>> improved means of distributing information. I've pasted a rough draft
>>>>> summary of the network below in case you'd like to learn more. Let me know
>>>>> if you can think of anyone who might be interested in talking with me
>>>>> further about this; now that I'm done with the other book, this is going to
>>>>> be my main project for quite a while, and I believe it to be sufficiently
>>>>> viable that clever folks who wish to see improvements in the media would
>>>>> find it worth their time to get involved.
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Barrett
>>>>>
>>>>> Project PM Network Summary
>>>>> The institutions and structures that have developed over the past two
>>>>> decades of accelerating public internet use have had what we reasonably
>>>>> describe as a wholesome effect on information flow. But the information age
>>>>> is a work in progress, and thus there are potential improvements to be made.
>>>>> More importantly, there are improvements that can be made by an initially
>>>>> small number of influential participants working in coordination. The
>>>>> purpose of Project PM is to implement these solutions to the extent that
>>>>> participants are collectively able to do so, as well as to demonstrate the
>>>>> beneficial effects of these solutions to others that they might be spurred
>>>>> to recreate or even build upon them independently of our own efforts.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Problems
>>>>>
>>>>> Project PM is intended to address the following inefficiencies:
>>>>>
>>>>> (a) Watering down of contributor quality within participatory
>>>>> networks: Open institutions such as reddit.com tend to peak in terms of the
>>>>> erudition of the content conveyed a few years after coming about, with this
>>>>> being due to the particular dynamics of network growth. By definition, early
>>>>> users are early adapters, who themselves tend to be better-informed and
>>>>> otherwise relatively capable in terms of the value they bring to the
>>>>> network. To even know of such networks early in their existence is to pass a
>>>>> certain sort of test regarding the potential quality of one's contributions;
>>>>> as knowledge of the network expands, this "test" becomes easier, and to the
>>>>> extent that it does, the network is less "protected" from those who did not
>>>>> pass such a test by virtue of the fact that they did not know of the network
>>>>> until knowledge became more common. Obviously, failing to be aware of some
>>>>> particular institution does not come anywhere near precluding one from being
>>>>> intelligent and knowledgable in general and thus of value to the
>>>>> institution, but the influx of valuable participants versus damaging
>>>>> participants appears to decrease after a certain level of notoriety is
>>>>> reached. Again, the decline in the intellectual relevance of content at
>>>>> reddit.com is a good example of this.
>>>>> (b) Data overflow: The watering down process described above does not
>>>>> only result in one coming across information of relatively low quality, but
>>>>> also in having to contend with more of it. On reddit.com, for instance, a
>>>>> user who scans new submissions will find not only a certain amount of
>>>>> potentially useful information, but also some amount of almost certainly
>>>>> useless information. The watering down of contributor quality also
>>>>> contributes to the extent to which the latter is perpetuated within the
>>>>> network itself insomuch as that lesser contributors are more likely to vote
>>>>> up useless information, thus helping to ensure that the barriers built into
>>>>> the network in order to facilitate the viewing of important rather than
>>>>> unimportant content - in this case, a pre-established threshold of up votes
>>>>> necessary to bring something to the front page - will thereby lose their
>>>>> effectiveness.
>>>>> (c) Barriers to obtaining raw data: The obvious fact of data overflow -
>>>>> that some data is more useful than other data - is dealt with by means of
>>>>> selecting certain sources of information which one has identified as being a
>>>>> provider of quality output relative to other sources. Bloggers and others
>>>>> who require a steady stream of data in order to operate have certain methods
>>>>> of obtaining that data, and there is of course no reason to believe that any
>>>>> of these methods could not be improved upon to an extent that these
>>>>> improvements would be worth adapting. One has RSS feeds flowing from sources
>>>>> one has selected (and by virtue of having been selected, the sources must
>>>>> have been necessarily known to the blogger in the first place); one has
>>>>> algorithm-based sites like Memorandum.com (which merely shows what bloggers
>>>>> are talking about rather than necessarily providing any insight into what
>>>>> they should be talking about); one has democratic or pseudo-democratic sites
>>>>> such as reddit.com and digg.com; and one has the fundamentally one-way
>>>>> outlets of television and newspapers, the content of which is decided upon
>>>>> by a handful of producers or editors (who themselves are working within an
>>>>> incidental structure that does not appear to be of much value relative to
>>>>> what may now be found among the better portions of the blogosphere). A means
>>>>> of obtaining data that improves upon these and all other methods would be of
>>>>> great utility insomuch as that the quality of data is of course one major
>>>>> limiting factor with regards to the quality of output..
>>>>> The Solutions
>>>>> By way of a network designed to take better advantage of the existing
>>>>> informational environment, Project PM can help to remedy the problems
>>>>> described above without significant effort on the part of participants, yet
>>>>> with potentially dramatic results on the efficiency of information flow.
>>>>> (a) Watering down of contributor quality within participatory
>>>>> networks: Project PM will greatly reduce the accumulation of low-value
>>>>> contributors by way of the method by which contributors are brought it. The
>>>>> network will be established with a handful of contributors who have been
>>>>> selected by virtue of intellectual honesty, proven expertise in certain
>>>>> topics, and journalistic competence in general. Each of these contributors
>>>>> has the option of inviting into the network any number of other bloggers,
>>>>> each of whom will initially be connected only to the contributor who brought
>>>>> him in. Each of these new participants also has the option of bringing
>>>>> others into the network in the same fashion as well as offering a connection
>>>>> to any other participant, as will anyone they bring in, and so on. To the
>>>>> extent that the original participants are of value in terms of their
>>>>> judgement, they may be expected to bring in participants of similarly high
>>>>> value, and so on; meanwhile, as the network expands, participants will be
>>>>> likely to form new direct connections to others whom they have determined to
>>>>> be of particular value relative to other participants, and conversely, to
>>>>> disestablish any direct connections they might have established to those
>>>>> whose output they find to be below par. Of course, none of this precludes
>>>>> the network from eventually encompassing participants of low desirability
>>>>> relative to that of the average participant, but to the extent that such a
>>>>> thing occurs, its effect are largely neutralized by way of the dynamic
>>>>> described below.
>>>>> (b) Data overflow: Information flows through the Project PM network by
>>>>> way of a single button accessible to each participant. When a participant
>>>>> either writes or receives a blog post or other informational element, the
>>>>> participant may "push" the item, thus sending it to all of those with whom
>>>>> he is directly connected in the network. In such a case as a participant
>>>>> pushes forward items that others may determine to be of little merit, the
>>>>> resulting clutter is only seen by the participant who brought such a
>>>>> low-value blogger into the network in the first place, as well as those whom
>>>>> the low-value blogger has to this point brought in himself along with those
>>>>> who have agreed to connect with him from elsewhere in the network. To the
>>>>> extent that a given participant exercises good judgment in establishing
>>>>> connections, then, he will only receive informational elements of value
>>>>> while also being able to quickly transmit them to contributors who will be
>>>>> able to make best use of such information. Meanwhile, below-average
>>>>> participants will have only very limited means by which to clutter the
>>>>> network, as informational elements become less likely to be pushed forward
>>>>> as they approach above-average participants within the network, who
>>>>> themselves are "buffered" from such things by way of the competent
>>>>> participants with whom they surround themselves by way of their connections
>>>>> and who, by virtue of their competence, are unlikely to push forward
>>>>> low-value information.
>>>>> (c) Barriers to obtaining raw data: The dynamics described
>>>>> in (a) and (b) collectively provide for a means of information inflow that
>>>>> should theoretically be superior to any other medium currently in existence
>>>>> in terms of overall quality, both by virtue of the network's improved
>>>>> organizational methods as well as the relatively high competence of
>>>>> participating bloggers relative to members of the traditional media outlets
>>>>> as a whole. Accessibility to particularly valuable items of information will
>>>>> be enhanced further by the option to set one's widget in such a way as to
>>>>> display any piece of information from the network, regardless of
>>>>> "proximity," if such information is pushed forward (which is to say,
>>>>> approved of other participants) a certain number of times. This should help
>>>>> to ensure that, as the network expands, particularly valuable information
>>>>> does not become unduly "regionalized." A variant on the widget for use by
>>>>> readers (as opposed to network participants) displaying information that
>>>>> meets similar thresholds of popularity within the network would likewise
>>>>> provide those readers with a source of information above and beyond other
>>>>> existing mediums.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 12:56 PM, <SkeptInq@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yep, it's there.  Drawback of being so far beind in my email.  Right
>>>>>> now we should shoot for once a month on the columns.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Barry
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In a message dated 3/18/2010 12:39:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>>>>>> barriticus@gmail.com writes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Barry-
>>>>>> Great, I'll send you the next column soon. I actually sent an invoice
>>>>>> to Paul a couple days ago and copied you in on it; he seems to have received
>>>>>> it as he asked for my SS number afterwards. There should be a copy in your
>>>>>> inbox.
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Barrett Brown
>>>>>> Brooklyn,
>>>>>> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 12:35 PM, <SkeptInq@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Barrett,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> the column is now up, see below.  Remember, to send us an invoice:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Also,  you would need to send us an invoice for the column.  You can
>>>>>>> email the invoice to Pat Beauchamp at pbeauchamp@centerforinquiry.net  and
>>>>>>> copy me as well.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks again
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Barry Karr
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In a message dated 3/18/2010 12:03:51 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>>>>>>> azoppa@centerforinquiry.net writes:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Here you are.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/archive/category/all_info_all_ways
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> C. Alan Zoppa
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Web Developer
>>>>>>> Center for Inquiry, Transnational
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Open PGP: 0xF88C907E
>>>>>>> 5547 E44E B271 2ADB E921 568F 4B71 7C84 F88C 907E
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 12:13 PM, <SkeptInq@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ________________________________
>>>>>>>> From: barriticus@gmail.com
>>>>>>>> To: SkeptInq@aol.com
>>>>>>>> Sent: 3/12/2010 4:35:38 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
>>>>>>>> Subj: Re: Lectures?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Barry-
>>>>>>>> I've attached the proposed logo for the column, which I'd like to
>>>>>>>> entitle All Info All Ways.
>>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>> Barrett Brown
>>>>>>>> Brooklyn, NY
>>>>>>>> 512-560-2302
>>>>>>>> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 9:01 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Hi, Barry-
>>>>>>>>> Glad you liked the first column. I've attached a possible headshot
>>>>>>>>> and pasted a brief bio. I'll get back to you with a logo and title for the
>>>>>>>>> column itself sometime in the next couple of days. The first line of the bio
>>>>>>>>> refers to a project that is about to be announced.
>>>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>>> Barrett Brown
>>>>>>>>> Brooklyn, NY
>>>>>>>>> 512-560-2302
>>>>>>>>> Barrett Brown is the instigator of Project PM, a distributed cartel
>>>>>>>>> intended to reduce certain structural deficits that have arisen in the news
>>>>>>>>> media. He's a regular contributor to Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, and
>>>>>>>>> True/Slant. His first book, Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism,
>>>>>>>>> Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny, was released in 2007; his second,
>>>>>>>>> Hot, Fat, and Clouded: The Amazing and Amusing Failures of the American
>>>>>>>>> Chattering Class, is set for publication in 2010.
>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 9:37 AM, <SkeptInq@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Hi Barrett,
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Just had the opportunity to read the article - I enjoyed it a great
>>>>>>>>>> deal and hope to post it soon.  I have it in editorial right now.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Would it be possible for you to send me a few sentence bio - along
>>>>>>>>>> with a possible title for the Column? Also a photo of yourself or some art
>>>>>>>>>> work or column logo to accompany the column would be good.    I can use a
>>>>>>>>>> page shot of the Skeptical Inquirer articles as a graphic to go into this
>>>>>>>>>> article - any other  visuals you'd like to suggest would be good, perhaps a
>>>>>>>>>> shot of a library with rows and rows of books, and/or a computer terminal
>>>>>>>>>> with the word "Library" hung upon it?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> For column title & logo see for example:
>>>>>>>>>> http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/archive/category/curiouser_and_curiouser
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Also,  you would need to send us an invoice for the column.  You
>>>>>>>>>> can email the invoice to Pat Beauchamp at pbeauchamp@centerforinquiry.net
>>>>>>>>>> and copy me as well.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Thanks again
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Barry Karr
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> In a message dated 3/4/2010 1:14:31 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
>>>>>>>>>> barriticus@gmail.com writes:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Hi, Barry-
>>>>>>>>>> Sorry for the delay in getting this to you. Here's the essay I
>>>>>>>>>> mentioned to you a few e-mails back; I was thinking of following with
>>>>>>>>>> another one that goes into more specifics as to how and in what specific
>>>>>>>>>> manner that skepticism and its products are perpetuated by the internet, as
>>>>>>>>>> well as the potential cultural consequences. I've pasted the first one
>>>>>>>>>> below; let me know if it works for you.
>>>>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>>>> Barrett Brown
>>>>>>>>>> Brooklyn, NY
>>>>>>>>>> 512-560-2302
>>>>>>>>>> The Internet and the Republic of Skepticism, Part One
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Having recently found myself in need of an anecdote with which to
>>>>>>>>>> make some allegedly clever point about man's track record in predicting his
>>>>>>>>>> own technological innovations, I recalled a story that had made the rounds
>>>>>>>>>> in the months leading up to 2000, during which time the nation's periodicals
>>>>>>>>>> were running retrospectives on the soon-to-be-completed 20th century. Some
>>>>>>>>>> great number of the resulting feature articles of that era ended up
>>>>>>>>>> beginning with the same account of a U.S. patent clerk who had resigned his
>>>>>>>>>> post in 1899 with the explanation that everything worth inventing had
>>>>>>>>>> already been invented. The incident seemed to me sufficiently amusing to be
>>>>>>>>>> thrown in to the essay as essay filler, which is the stuff that writers
>>>>>>>>>> throw into essays when they get sick of their own writing (unless I'm the
>>>>>>>>>> only one who does this, in which case the term does not actually exist). At
>>>>>>>>>> any rate,  the story would serve as a fine illustration of the manner by
>>>>>>>>>> which even attentive individuals often overlook the indications that great
>>>>>>>>>> change is afoot. A few moments and Google search terms later, though, I had
>>>>>>>>>> learned that this oft-repeated anecdote was almost certainly false.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> The patent clerk myth had been printed as fact in quite a few
>>>>>>>>>> respected publications throughout 1999 - this, despite that very same myth
>>>>>>>>>> having been debunked by The Skeptical Inquirer back in 1989. Ten years after
>>>>>>>>>> the tale was shown to be false, then, a number of professional journalists
>>>>>>>>>> and their fact-checkers got wind of it and determined it to be true. Yet
>>>>>>>>>> another ten years on, I recalled the tale and was able to determine it to be
>>>>>>>>>> false - and after less than half a minute of thing-clicking. This is hardly
>>>>>>>>>> to my credit; I was simply working in an informational landscape vastly
>>>>>>>>>> superior to that which existed a decade ago. For instance, humanity has made
>>>>>>>>>> impressive strides with regards to the results one may obtain by way of
>>>>>>>>>> thing-clicking.
>>>>>>>>>> Look back to 1989, when the Skeptical Inquirer article in question
>>>>>>>>>> was released. Tens of thousands of people may have read the piece at that
>>>>>>>>>> time and found it interesting, but altogether the author was unable to have
>>>>>>>>>> much positive impact on the public understanding. The limitations of the era
>>>>>>>>>> made it quite unlikely anyone who read the piece would happen to be in a
>>>>>>>>>> position to use the information therein in any significant manner;
>>>>>>>>>> conversely, those who could have used the information in some way that would
>>>>>>>>>> be of measurable benefit were quite unlikely to have known that such a
>>>>>>>>>> useful article existed, much less been able to locate it, and thus it was
>>>>>>>>>> that some dozen or so feature editors ran the myth as fact. In terms of its
>>>>>>>>>> utility to the public understanding, then, the article might as well not
>>>>>>>>>> even have existed until it existed on the internet.
>>>>>>>>>> Taken together, the rise of the search engine coupled with the
>>>>>>>>>> digitalization of vast amounts of information that would have previously
>>>>>>>>>> been either difficult or impossible to access has provided us with
>>>>>>>>>> unprecedented opportunities to debunk that which requires debunking, as well
>>>>>>>>>> as to ensure that a given debunking is particularly accessible to those who
>>>>>>>>>> happen to be looking into a given subject. This is just as well; the rise of
>>>>>>>>>> such things as e-mail forwards have provided our not-so-skeptical
>>>>>>>>>> adversaries with similarly unprecedented opportunities to perpetuate things
>>>>>>>>>> that need to be debunked, which you've probably experienced to the extent
>>>>>>>>>> that you're included in the address books of people in whose address books
>>>>>>>>>> you were not really intending to be included. The question that naturally
>>>>>>>>>> arises, then, concerns whether the particular dynamics of the internet have
>>>>>>>>>> had the overall effect of fueling nonsense or throttling it.
>>>>>>>>>> The reader will agree that the extent and nature of the stimuli
>>>>>>>>>> that one takes in has some effect on the content one accumulates in one's
>>>>>>>>>> mind; the reader will just as readily agree that the internet has some
>>>>>>>>>> effect in turn on the extent and nature of the stimuli one takes in. To the
>>>>>>>>>> extent that one uses the internet, then, one is subjected to a different
>>>>>>>>>> array of stimuli than if one did not use the internet. We thus establish
>>>>>>>>>> that the internet does indeed have some effect on the content one
>>>>>>>>>> accumulates in one's mind.
>>>>>>>>>> Less immediately obvious, though still fairly obvious, is the
>>>>>>>>>> extent to which a given medium has an effect not only on the user's
>>>>>>>>>> knowledge base, but even the structure of the mind itself, and thus in turn
>>>>>>>>>> its potential products. The adaptation of writing by the classical Greeks,
>>>>>>>>>> for instance, appears to have brought radical changes in the nature of Greek
>>>>>>>>>> output, allowing for a fundamentally greater degree of abstract thought than
>>>>>>>>>> was previously possible, and allowing in turn for systems of ethics and high
>>>>>>>>>> philosophical commentary of the sort that we do not seem to find in the oral
>>>>>>>>>> output of the pre-alphabet Greeks or any pre-literate culture, in fact.
>>>>>>>>>> Plainly, this is an extreme example, and the transition from orality to
>>>>>>>>>> literacy is likely of more severity in terms of the cognition of the user
>>>>>>>>>> than is the transition from the printing press to the internet (both of
>>>>>>>>>> which are merely sub-mediums by which literacy may be conveyed). Even so,
>>>>>>>>>> the severity of the former is of sufficiently high degree that the lesser
>>>>>>>>>> severity of the latter is nonetheless potentially quite great in its own
>>>>>>>>>> right. The shift from a textual environment defined by the printing press to
>>>>>>>>>> one providing for the internet as well, then, must have some undefined
>>>>>>>>>> impact - perhaps even a great one - on the cognitive abilities of those of
>>>>>>>>>> us who have participated in the transition, as well as those who will have
>>>>>>>>>> grown up in the post-transition era.
>>>>>>>>>> The attentive reader will notice that we have yet to establish
>>>>>>>>>> whether or not the cognitive impact that we have determined to exist along
>>>>>>>>>> with the impact on one's knowledge base is a good or bad thing in terms of
>>>>>>>>>> the mind's overall functioning. The more widely-read attentive reader will
>>>>>>>>>> notice that my assertion to the effect that the internet has any cognitive
>>>>>>>>>> effect at all is itself controversial, and is in fact disputed by a number
>>>>>>>>>> of prominent neuroscientists and others whose views on the subject would
>>>>>>>>>> presumably merit attention. Before we continue, such objections ought to be
>>>>>>>>>> addressed.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> In January of this year, the publication Edge released the
>>>>>>>>>> responses to a question its editors had posed to dozens of authors,
>>>>>>>>>> journalists, artists, and scientists: "How is the internet changing the way
>>>>>>>>>> you think?" The results were picked up on by such mainstream outlets
>>>>>>>>>> as Newsweek, from which science editor Sharon Begley makes the following
>>>>>>>>>> observation:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Although a number of contributors drivel on about, say, how much
>>>>>>>>>> time they waste on e-mail, the most striking thing about the 50-plus answers
>>>>>>>>>> is that scholars who study the mind and the brain, and who therefore seem
>>>>>>>>>> best equipped to figure out how the Internet alters thought, shoot down the
>>>>>>>>>> very idea.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> For instance, Harvard cognitive neuroscientist Joshua Butler
>>>>>>>>>> responded to the question in part by way of the following:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> The Internet hasn't changed the way we think anymore than the
>>>>>>>>>> microwave oven has changed the way we digest food. The Internet has provided
>>>>>>>>>> us with unprecedented access to information, but it hasn't changed what we
>>>>>>>>>> do with it once it's made it into our heads. This is because the Internet
>>>>>>>>>> doesn't (yet) know how to think. We still have to do it for ourselves, and
>>>>>>>>>> we do it the old-fashioned way. Until then, the Internet will continue to be
>>>>>>>>>> nothing more, and nothing less, than a very useful, and very dumb, butler.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Others, including others with backgrounds in neuroscience as well
>>>>>>>>>> as psychology and related fields, expressed agreement with this general
>>>>>>>>>> conclusion, if not necessarily for the same reasons. And thus Begley is
>>>>>>>>>> correct to note that "scholars who study the mind and brain" dismiss the
>>>>>>>>>> idea that "the internet alters thought." But as she herself makes clear
>>>>>>>>>> later in her piece, other scholars of similar and even identical areas of
>>>>>>>>>> expertise entirely embrace the idea, while still others identify it as a
>>>>>>>>>> reasonable possibility. One might wonder how it is that Begley decided that
>>>>>>>>>> the "most striking thing" about the answers is that some mind-oriented
>>>>>>>>>> scholars dismissed the idea of the internet's impact on thinking, rather
>>>>>>>>>> than that other mind-oriented scholars embraced it. Begley herself quotes
>>>>>>>>>> several of the latter grouop, and even makes her own passing reference to
>>>>>>>>>> "the (few) positive changes in thinking the Internet has caused" after
>>>>>>>>>> having quoted additional experts who likewise ascribe to the concept of the
>>>>>>>>>> internet having an effect on the thinking of its users, although considering
>>>>>>>>>> such changes to be largely negative. One might conclude that the truly "most
>>>>>>>>>> striking thing" about the results is that mind-oriented experts are in fact
>>>>>>>>>> split three ways on whether the internet has positive, negative, or no
>>>>>>>>>> effects whatsoever on the mental processes of those who use it, while others
>>>>>>>>>> consider the truth to be as of yet undetermined.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Of those opinions expressed to the effect that internet use has
>>>>>>>>>> either no or negative effects, several appear not to make much sense. Begley
>>>>>>>>>> provides a briefer version of the following excerpt from the answer given
>>>>>>>>>> by Foreign Policy contributing editor Evgeny Morozov:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> What I find particularly worrisome with regards to the "what"
>>>>>>>>>> question is the rapid and inexorable disappearance of retrospection and
>>>>>>>>>> reminiscence from our digital lives. One of the most significant but
>>>>>>>>>> overlooked Internet developments of 2009 — the arrival of the so-called
>>>>>>>>>> "real-time Web", whereby all new content is instantly indexed, read, and
>>>>>>>>>> analyzed — is a potent reminder that our lives are increasingly lived in the
>>>>>>>>>> present, completely detached even from the most recent of the pasts...
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> ... In a sense, this is hardly surprising: the social beast that
>>>>>>>>>> has taken over our digital lives has to be constantly fed with the most
>>>>>>>>>> trivial of ephemera. And so we oblige, treating it to countless status
>>>>>>>>>> updates and zetabytes of multimedia (almost a thousand photos are uploaded
>>>>>>>>>> to Facebook every second!). This hunger for the present is deeply embedded
>>>>>>>>>> in the very architecture and business models of social networking sites.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Regardless of what one thinks of Facebook, it is difficult to see
>>>>>>>>>> that Morozov has really shown that an obsession with photos and other
>>>>>>>>>> records of the past somehow denotes some unseemly and unwarranted "hunger
>>>>>>>>>> for the present." It would be even more difficult to see how the nature of
>>>>>>>>>> the internet, which has provided unprecedentedly facilitated access to the
>>>>>>>>>> whole of the past at least to the extent that the past has been recorded, is
>>>>>>>>>> of any greater detriment to man's collective focus on that which came before
>>>>>>>>>> him. Sitting in an easy chair in some unscrubbed corner of Brooklyn, I may
>>>>>>>>>> obtain, within just a few seconds, a general summary of any known event in
>>>>>>>>>> the history of man or nature, coupled with links to more specific and
>>>>>>>>>> comprehensive sources of information on some great number of aspects of such
>>>>>>>>>> an event, including those pieces of data from which the general summary was
>>>>>>>>>> originally composed in the first place. How long would this have taken in
>>>>>>>>>> the 1950s, even for someone with the advantage of residing in some cultural
>>>>>>>>>> node equipped with fine libraries, universities, and potentially accessible
>>>>>>>>>> experts? It would have likely taken at least an hour even in such an optimal
>>>>>>>>>> environment as the grounds of a university, which is the sort of place that
>>>>>>>>>> not even a student is likely to be at any given moment, if memory serves,
>>>>>>>>>> which it very well may not. It would certainly not have taken a mere ten
>>>>>>>>>> seconds, as it would today for me to learn something about, for instance,
>>>>>>>>>> the Russo-Japanese War. Incidentally, I just Googled that term, clicked on a
>>>>>>>>>> link to its Wikipedia article, browsed the table of contents found at the
>>>>>>>>>> top of that page, went straight to a subsection of that article, read the
>>>>>>>>>> assertion that Japanese civilians were on the whole not particularly happy
>>>>>>>>>> with the extent to which Japan pressed Russia for concessions after its
>>>>>>>>>> victory, and then verified that this was the case by clicking on a citation
>>>>>>>>>> which in turn led me to the text of a newspaper account of the treaty in
>>>>>>>>>> question - a New York Times article from 1905, itself one of the millions of
>>>>>>>>>> artifacts to which our predecessors would have been unable to receive access
>>>>>>>>>> without some degree of wasted time and difficulty, if at all. The past has
>>>>>>>>>> never been anywhere near as accessible, nor as accessed, yet some complain
>>>>>>>>>> that the internet has prompted us to become "completely detached" from same
>>>>>>>>>> in the favor of the present, which itself has never been so lacking in
>>>>>>>>>> accessible content relative to that which came before.
>>>>>>>>>> Naturally, other sorts of objections are raised in the responses.
>>>>>>>>>> University of California neurobiologist Leo Chalupa challenges the
>>>>>>>>>> internet's utility in a manner that does not seem to draw on his relevant
>>>>>>>>>> specialty:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> The Internet is the greatest detractor to serious thinking since
>>>>>>>>>> the invention of television. Moreover, while the Internet provides a means
>>>>>>>>>> for rapidly communicating with colleagues globally, the sophisticated user
>>>>>>>>>> will rarely reveal true thoughts and feelings in such messages. Serious
>>>>>>>>>> thinking requires honest and open communication and that is simply untenable
>>>>>>>>>> on the Internet by those that value their professional reputation.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I know of no situation in which "honest and open communication" is
>>>>>>>>>> necessarily tenable in the first place, although Dr. Chalupa is correct that
>>>>>>>>>> there is more to lose in conveying unpopular thoughts by way of some facet
>>>>>>>>>> of the internet, which, as he notes, "provides a means for rapidly
>>>>>>>>>> communicating with colleagues globally" and which could thus be used to more
>>>>>>>>>> widely convey some or another expressed opinion thing that would
>>>>>>>>>> consequently evoke some negative reaction from one's fellows, particularly
>>>>>>>>>> if one's fellows are easily upset. But surely Mr. Chalupa has some useful
>>>>>>>>>> information to convey that will not enrage his colleagues, and at any rate
>>>>>>>>>> one would expect that the majority of the information he'd be inclined to
>>>>>>>>>> disseminate by way of the internet would be of value, and not damage, either
>>>>>>>>>> to the world or to his very own reputation. And surely the majority of
>>>>>>>>>> accessible information is worth being made available to the majority of
>>>>>>>>>> connected humans, and certainly the information to which one is likely to
>>>>>>>>>> expose one's self on the internet is, on the whole, accurate, and thus
>>>>>>>>>> potentially useful. Certainly there is misinformation to be found and in
>>>>>>>>>> some cases believed, and certainly there is some degree of irrelevant
>>>>>>>>>> information that one might be inclined to take in at the expense of time
>>>>>>>>>> dedicated to other, more useful pursuits. But the objection that the
>>>>>>>>>> internet's facilitation of information flow may damage one's "professional
>>>>>>>>>> reputation" due to one's colleagues being unable to handle one's awesome yet
>>>>>>>>>> edgy ideas does not strike me as a particularly damning condemnation of the
>>>>>>>>>> communications age, although it may tell us something about neurobiology,
>>>>>>>>>> which sounds more and more interesting.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> There are certainly downsides - of both the merely potential and
>>>>>>>>>> nearly universal sorts - to use of the internet, particularly if the one
>>>>>>>>>> doing the using is proceeding in an undisciplined manner. Even its
>>>>>>>>>> advantages are potential traps, as is known to anyone who has sought out
>>>>>>>>>> data on some relevant thing like Chinese wheat production only to end up
>>>>>>>>>> spending two hours learning the plots of various Japanese role playing
>>>>>>>>>> games. The potential for information addiction is real. But upon the
>>>>>>>>>> harnessing of fire, man must have wasted quite a bit of time staring into it
>>>>>>>>>> even after having properly utilized it in cooking his meals. Every new
>>>>>>>>>> invention entails a test of our will.
>>>>>>>>>> Still, I will not cop out of this argument by suddenly declaring
>>>>>>>>>> that we all have free will and what will be will be, a tact that God is
>>>>>>>>>> always taking out of plain intellectual cowardice. Rather, I will note again
>>>>>>>>>> that the views expressed above regarding the internet's lack of impact on
>>>>>>>>>> the human mind are countered by views to the contrary held by individuals
>>>>>>>>>> with just as much claim to our attention by virtue of academic background as
>>>>>>>>>> those with whom they are in disagreement.
>>>>>>>>>> While the credentialed debate the subject, we may in the meanwhile
>>>>>>>>>> consider that the perpetuation of information has, on average, been a
>>>>>>>>>> positive thing for humanity's station on the planet, where we were once in
>>>>>>>>>> actual competition with its other inhabitants but have since outran them all
>>>>>>>>>> and are now preparing to decide which of our old adversaries will get to
>>>>>>>>>> accompany us to Mars. Insomuch as that the knowledge we have gained will
>>>>>>>>>> soon allow us to spread the planet's life beyond the planet's own confines
>>>>>>>>>> and thus to perpetuate it well beyond its earth-bound potential, and to the
>>>>>>>>>> extent that we favor the perpetuation of life, we ought to agree that the
>>>>>>>>>> process by which we have obtained the means to accomplish all of this - the
>>>>>>>>>> general uptrend in the average human being's access to information - might
>>>>>>>>>> very well be something worth maintaining. And then we might remember that no
>>>>>>>>>> one is seriously arguing that the internet has not increased the average
>>>>>>>>>> human being's access to information. Whatever other effects it may have on
>>>>>>>>>> our mind, it is at least providing it with the unprecedented potential that
>>>>>>>>>> comes with having one's mind satiated as the mind wills. Likewise, it brings
>>>>>>>>>> the revolutionary novelty that arises when inviduals can obtain any
>>>>>>>>>> information in any combination, individuals being to some degree defined by
>>>>>>>>>> the information that informs his thoughts. No biologist should object to the
>>>>>>>>>> mixing of genes; no humanist should object to the mixing of memes.
>>>>>>>>>> Though it has not been proven that the internet has some overall
>>>>>>>>>> cognitive effect on its users that we would deem positive, those who are
>>>>>>>>>> convinced that the effect is largely negative or even non-existent have yet
>>>>>>>>>> to compile any airtight case, either. But if we ask the specific question
>>>>>>>>>> regarding whether or not the internet assists the cause of skepticism, we
>>>>>>>>>> may show that it assists the cause of information, and trust in our
>>>>>>>>>> collective judgement that the former has nothing to fear from the latter.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 4:28 PM, <SkeptInq@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Hi Barrett,
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> No, I am open to most any topic within the area of science,
>>>>>>>>>>> pseudoscience, paranormal - you know Skeptical Inquirer type skepticism.
>>>>>>>>>>> Not so much anti-religion themes - unless they touch on miracle claims,
>>>>>>>>>>> faith-healing, creation vs. evolution, etc.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Best.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Barry
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> In a message dated 2/4/2010 1:55:04 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
>>>>>>>>>>> barriticus@gmail.com writes:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Hi, Barry-
>>>>>>>>>>> Incidentally, is there a particular subject you're not interested
>>>>>>>>>>> in having covered, having already addressed it quite a bit over the past
>>>>>>>>>>> couple of years?
>>>>>>>>>>> I was thinking of perhaps starting off with an essay on the manner
>>>>>>>>>>> in which the rise of the internet may perhaps have an effect on the critical
>>>>>>>>>>> thinking and general knowledge of some portion of those who grew up with
>>>>>>>>>>> it/will grow up with it that is similarly beneficial to the effect that
>>>>>>>>>>> appears to have been had on the classical Greeks upon the rise of literacy;
>>>>>>>>>>> for instance, do such new conventions as hyperlinks provide a marked
>>>>>>>>>>> advantage in determining the truth of a matter? The piece would also draw on
>>>>>>>>>>> any studies in existence which might provide data on this, aside from some
>>>>>>>>>>> observations and hypotheses I've made in the course of my own recent work on
>>>>>>>>>>> the subject. Let me know if this idea interests you.
>>>>>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>>>>> Barrett Brown
>>>>>>>>>>> Brooklyn, NY
>>>>>>>>>>> 512-560-2302
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Regards,
>>
>> Barrett Brown
>> Brooklyn, NY
>> 512-560-2302
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Julia Lavarnway
> Assistant Editor, Skeptical Inquirer
> Permissions & Assistant Editor, Free Inquiry
> jlavarnway@centerforinquiry.net
>
> Center for Inquiry/Transnational
> 3965 Rensch Road
> Amherst, New York 14228
>



--
Julia Lavarnway
Assistant Editor, Skeptical Inquirer
Permissions & Assistant Editor, Free Inquiry
jlavarnway@centerforinquiry.net

Center for Inquiry/Transnational
3965 Rensch Road
Amherst, New York 14228

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302