Maudlin Thought
Thinking about this article on NYT about idea based societies versus knowledge based societies has me thinking of a theory/phenomenon I learned about several years ago called "knowledge banking." I tried to find a link of what I'm talking about (you'll read more hopefully and find why that's funny) with knowledge banking but I think the realm of "knowledge based consulting" has subsumed it.
Anyway, knowledge banking as I read it was the name given to knowledge you personally do not know but know where to go find it. This was before the rise of the internet, so mainly what they were discussing was knowledge other people had and you knew to consult them on this topic. The fact that you knew someone who knew this information saved you from having to know this information as well. All you had essentially in your brain was a pointer to a person whenever that topic came up.
All seems pretty straightforward and duh, doesn't it? Everyone can think of an expert they consult about something or other. But what I was reading about was the impact of knowledge banking between spouses. Every marriage has some division of labor agreement within it that keeps life going. With that division of labor comes knowledge division as well and thus spouses serve as knowledge banks for each other. Anyone who has every heard someone yell to their spouse "Honey, what's the name of that restaurant we love in Miami?" knows what I'm talking about. Spouses do this for all sorts of things be it family friend contacts, birthdays, tying a tie, finances, what have you.
Then, the article discussed the impact of the loss of a spouse and the aftermath. This article was referencing couples who have essentially spent their lives together (something becoming exceeding rare) and how the surviving spouse, understandably devastated by the loss of a lifelong lover and friend, also had to cope with the loss of their knowledge bank. I remember the article referring to it as "losing half your brain." The disorientation, fear, and anxiety that came with no longer having the person around to consult on knowledge you entrusted in them was cited as one of the underlying factors of why a surviving spouse can seem to rapidly deteriorate after the loss of their partner.
So with that in mind, extrapolate that principle forward into today with what the NYT article was talking about. Today, we, internet consuming humans, are more obsessed with knowledge than ever before. But with that obsession comes an interesting twist as we actually know less than ever before as well. Why? Because the internet and its always on steadfastness has turned it into the mother of all knowledge banks. We don't need to know things - I can google it, bing it, look it up on Wikipedia, on and on and on. I don't even need a person or book anymore.
You know this is true. Any casual bar conversation will have someone stumbling over some factoid they can't quite remember, but about after two seconds of recall failure out comes the smart phone and they look it up. You probably are one of those people. I know I am. Think how you feel in that moment when you're actually trying to think before you go cheating - you're frustrated and maybe just a ting of panic? But then you look it up and you have that ahhhhhhh moment of knowledge satisfaction.
So what happens if (maybe when) we lose our spouse and King Knowledge Bank, the internet? There's no guarantees it is with us forever. War, evil ISPs, wacky government policies, cyber attacks from China (or Russia, *cough*LJ*cough*), or hacks from groups like Anonymous - that's just a start of how we could lose the internet. How do we react when the next time we need to look up every movie Billy Bob Thornton has done IMDB simply isn't there anymore?
I once read a tweet that went along the lines of "While twitter was down, I actually had to get by on only the 5 things I actually know." Yeah, it's amusing but frightfully scary as well. If we lose our big knowledge bank we've created in the internet, what do we actually know anymore? How much knowledge would disappear with it? How much disorientation, fear, and anxiety would come with that loss? What would you still actually know?
Is the internet becoming humanity's giant Easter basket of knowledge of every fact big and mundane?
Anyway, knowledge banking as I read it was the name given to knowledge you personally do not know but know where to go find it. This was before the rise of the internet, so mainly what they were discussing was knowledge other people had and you knew to consult them on this topic. The fact that you knew someone who knew this information saved you from having to know this information as well. All you had essentially in your brain was a pointer to a person whenever that topic came up.
All seems pretty straightforward and duh, doesn't it? Everyone can think of an expert they consult about something or other. But what I was reading about was the impact of knowledge banking between spouses. Every marriage has some division of labor agreement within it that keeps life going. With that division of labor comes knowledge division as well and thus spouses serve as knowledge banks for each other. Anyone who has every heard someone yell to their spouse "Honey, what's the name of that restaurant we love in Miami?" knows what I'm talking about. Spouses do this for all sorts of things be it family friend contacts, birthdays, tying a tie, finances, what have you.
Then, the article discussed the impact of the loss of a spouse and the aftermath. This article was referencing couples who have essentially spent their lives together (something becoming exceeding rare) and how the surviving spouse, understandably devastated by the loss of a lifelong lover and friend, also had to cope with the loss of their knowledge bank. I remember the article referring to it as "losing half your brain." The disorientation, fear, and anxiety that came with no longer having the person around to consult on knowledge you entrusted in them was cited as one of the underlying factors of why a surviving spouse can seem to rapidly deteriorate after the loss of their partner.
So with that in mind, extrapolate that principle forward into today with what the NYT article was talking about. Today, we, internet consuming humans, are more obsessed with knowledge than ever before. But with that obsession comes an interesting twist as we actually know less than ever before as well. Why? Because the internet and its always on steadfastness has turned it into the mother of all knowledge banks. We don't need to know things - I can google it, bing it, look it up on Wikipedia, on and on and on. I don't even need a person or book anymore.
You know this is true. Any casual bar conversation will have someone stumbling over some factoid they can't quite remember, but about after two seconds of recall failure out comes the smart phone and they look it up. You probably are one of those people. I know I am. Think how you feel in that moment when you're actually trying to think before you go cheating - you're frustrated and maybe just a ting of panic? But then you look it up and you have that ahhhhhhh moment of knowledge satisfaction.
So what happens if (maybe when) we lose our spouse and King Knowledge Bank, the internet? There's no guarantees it is with us forever. War, evil ISPs, wacky government policies, cyber attacks from China (or Russia, *cough*LJ*cough*), or hacks from groups like Anonymous - that's just a start of how we could lose the internet. How do we react when the next time we need to look up every movie Billy Bob Thornton has done IMDB simply isn't there anymore?
I once read a tweet that went along the lines of "While twitter was down, I actually had to get by on only the 5 things I actually know." Yeah, it's amusing but frightfully scary as well. If we lose our big knowledge bank we've created in the internet, what do we actually know anymore? How much knowledge would disappear with it? How much disorientation, fear, and anxiety would come with that loss? What would you still actually know?
Is the internet becoming humanity's giant Easter basket of knowledge of every fact big and mundane?