"Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr
1.) Was Socrates' dislike for the development of writing, and the laziness it would instill in mankind's quest for knowledge, a foreshadowing of today's side effects of the internet?
2.) If the internet really is making us stupid, what will the long term side effects be for today's younger generation, who has grown up with the internet at their fingertips?
3.) Is the artificial intelligence that Google wishes to create on a large scale what is best for humanity?
First of all, this article really kind of blew my mind. I am a huge fan of history, and I really enjoyed reading about how Socrates worried that the development of writing would create a laziness in mankind's quest for knowledge, so I will focus on my first question.
As we all know, Socrates did not keep any written records of anything, at all. Everything we know of Socrates and of his teachings, we owe to Plato, who wrote and recorded them for future generations to benefit from. There is no argument that Socrates was a brilliant man. Many even consider him to be one of the greatest thinkers to have ever walked the earth. Now, we don't generally question anything Albert Einstein said, because we all know he was a genius. Now, I am not saying to blindly accept everything Socrates said as pure truth. In fact, I say to you, question everything. But also, this does not mean to dismiss the things he said as bologna. The man isn't famous for no reason. He was brilliant. We know from Plato's "Phaedrus," that Socrates "bemoaned the development of writing." His reasoning, was birthed out of the fear that as people came to rely upon the written word, that they would "cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful." Socrates also said that without proper instruction, people would not truly be knowledgeable, but ignorant. Well, he was right, to a certain extent. Like the author of the article says, he was shortsighted. Writing has spurred mankind's intellectual evolution like Socrates could not have even begun to imagine. Obviously, learning something from experience is better than reading it in a book... but, on the other hand, can you imagine our world today without writing? It would not be anything close to what it is like today. Their would be no records of anything, except by word of mouth, which we all know tends to exaggerate things.
I believe that Socrates' fear, or disdain, of writing, and the laziness it was bound to create, was a foreshadowing of what the internet is doing to us today. Like the author said, what might have used to take one days to research in a library, with books, might only take a person two minutes to successfully find on the internet. Now, I am 21 years old, and I cannot remember any specific occasion where I even attempted to find something in a book, and truly "research" a topic. As far as I can remember, I have used the internet for all of my research needs. Nowadays, one does not even need to read a book to write a book report. There are many websites available at our fingertips just waiting to share with us any information of matter from any book we might search for. In my opinion, it is obvious that the internet is making us lazy, and that as proof of this, we need not look any further that Plato's "Phaedrus." The development of writing, at that time, was the equivalent of the internet in our time. We are facing the same problem today, it has merely taken a different form.
