In this month’s Atlantic, Nicholas Carr shows us his thinking has not improved since his lame-brained diatribe that claimed “IT doesn’t matter” in Harvard Business Review several years ago. This time around, he blames the net in general and Google in particular for putting his mind in such a jumpy state that he can no longer read books cover to cover.
Carr accuses the Googleplex of masterminding a plot to Taylorize the world’s culture. He says Sergei and Larry think humans would be better off were our brains replaced by artificial intelligence. “In Google’s words, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation.”
Carr confuses the ease of search with the result of what search finds. When Google delivers my Zen koan of the day in seconds, my contemplation is no less arduous than if I found the koan in an old-fashioned book.
Speaking of books, maybe Carr’s inability to concentrate is due to the quality of what he reads. These “Business Bestsellers” are a sad commentary on the intellectual prowess of American businesspeople:
I am partway through Here Comes Everybody, The Lucifer Principle, Smart World, The Design of Future Things, Subject to Change, Weird Ideas that Work, Dreaming in Code, and Out of Our Minds. And I’m loving it. Today i decided to lock in another week of reading and reflection. I think I’ll give up reading The Atlantic.
Mu.
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Love the dog pictures. How nice you love dogs. That shows you are a great person! Love the website. Will visit again.
doesn’t google already own the world?
No, Chris, that’s the point. Google owns the toll booth that enables you to reach the rest of the world.
Hey Jay – Seems to me that throwing out the Atlantic with the Nicholas Carr bathwater may be a bit rash, but it did get you link in my post reflecting on the article Is Guttenberg Making Us Stoopid?. Keep up the always interesting observations!
thank you!
i just so happened to see this front page cover laying on my dad’s living room table and, for us ‘critical thinkers’ (sheesh) the title pretty much sums it up. my first thought was ‘well here comes another “ooOOooO.. mc donald’s made me fat!” “tv is making us dumb!” or “sex education made my kid have sex!” debacle.’ clearly the one thing civilization will never grow ’stupid’ in is the use of scapegoating for personal inequity.
i, as it were, googled this article title to see what the hubbub was about, and the first link i bothered to check was this one! (being as it was the first that spelled ’stoopid’ as it was published.) i could not agree more with your view. as i believe is the case with all the aforementioned examples, any shenanigans that lead to an unhappy result are, i rather think, directly related to one’s own glaring lack of critical thinking. were this not true, then i suppose the plaintiffs might have been able to assess the deterioration of their state and perhaps drawn a connection between the two (were they in fact related), and- should god be so kindly- come to the conclusion that they ought to make an alternate plan for themselves. unfortunately, this rarely seems to be the case with these ‘town crier’ types. like the man who sued big tobacco industries for giving him terminal cancer, then enjoyed a plush lifestyle through his winnings while hastening his demise through CONTINUING to smoke three packs a day.
brilliant.
in conclusion- do ya REALLY think google made you dumb…? or could it perhaps have been that you were just an idiot in the first place?
your blog is considerately concluded and considerately worded. well said, sir., i do say… you are truly a gentleman and a scholar ;o)