A Quote by Howard Rheingold
Some critics argue that a tsunami of hogwash has already rendered the Web useless. I disagree. We are indeed inundated by online noise pollution, but the problem is soluble.
Related Quotes
Even in the most beautiful music, there are some silences, which are there so we can witness the importance of silence. Silence is more important than ever, as life today is full of noise. We speak a lot about environmental pollution but not enough about noise pollution.
Pollution is a problem, and there's the whole problem of the spoiling of the commons, but we've addressed the pollution problem on a variety of different levels in a variety of ways, and it's worked pretty well.
Online abuse has been a problem since the earliest days of the web.
The social web can't exist until you are your real self online. I have to be me. You have to be you. Once we are online as ourselves, connected to each other and our other friends, then you can have the evolution of what becomes the social web.
Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.
Have you ever noticed how most critics disagree with the public? That should tell you a lot about critics.
Some may try to argue that conservatism and libertarianism are contradictory perspectives. But I disagree.
Global warming pollution, indeed all pollution, is now described by economists as an “externality.” This absurd label means, in essence: we don’t to keep track of this stuff so let’s pretend it doesn’t exist.
There will be this mix of people like me who write for major national newspapers and amateur critics, practitioner critics, whose primary way of distributing what they talk about is through blogs and on the web. The line between professional and amateur criticism will become increasingly blurred. The problem here is that if you want to do this for a living, you have to be able to earn a living doing it.
You could argue that as web audiences have grown larger and advertisers have demanded scale, the web has dumbed down - like the mainstream media we so mocked.
If two men on the same job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree all the time, both are useless.
The birds are already evolving, changing the way that they sing as a result of noise pollution. And we have yet to do that. We're still not communicating. We're not changing our words. We are not testing, not providing this new lexicon for noise-polluted areas.
Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions--tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them?... If nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece--must the whole web be rent in drawing them out?
Noise pollution is basically defined as the presence of simple information that makes it impossible to hear all the other more delicate - and often more important - information. Noise pollution creates, if you will, dumb environments. Our industrial areas, many of our downtown urban areas, are dumb acoustic environments. Very simple, very loud, often unhealthy.
Every problem that is interesting is also soluble.
The open web is full of spam, shady operators, and blatant falsehoods. Outside of a relatively small percentage of high quality sites, most of the web is chock full of popup ads and other interruptive come-ons. It's nearly impossible to find signal in that noise, and the web is in danger of being overrun by all that crap.
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