My friend, RMJ, has written a very good blog post on the paper by Thomas Lessl I linked to yesterday. It makes some very good points. I'll have something to say about the paper myself but am still thinking about it.
One of my motives in blogging isn't to just say things for people to agree with, if they already think the same things I do, of course that is gratifying but it's not worth asking people to just read things they already think. I'm hoping we can find a better way to go to change things for the better, something we haven't found yet. I've come to conclude that when that's happened in the past it was not through what's currently considered liberal of left, which is so often a betrayal of the legitimate goals of liberalism, the continuation of life with a just distribution of goods and the good of life on an equal basis. Anything that leads in that direction is good, that is the discussion and action I hope to be a part of.
I'm anxiously awaiting the furtherance of that discussion, since the conversation at Salon has devolved into how Google can release us from the oppression of lawyers and doctors because we don't need no steenkin' trained professionals anymore! We are smart! Google makes things go!
ReplyDeleteI wish I were making that up.
I know someone who had a gallbladder attack last year. She was advised at the hospital to have her gallbladder removed but she decided against that after she read online about this nutritional program that would melt gall stones. She came home and about 18 hours later called the ambulance to bring her to the hospital where she had her gallbladder removed.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the internet is that it's only as smart as the person using it and as resistant as they are to believing their own wishful thinking and none of us is reliably either always brilliant or grown up.
I was about two days into blogging when I realized that a man who serves as his own editor has a blogger for a client. Still one of the most important things I've learned from using a google product. Salon has a reliably stupid commenting community.
I blame religion. Without it we'd all be smart enough to know how to use Google to correctly diagnose our ailments, and all the doctors and hospitals would be out of business.
DeleteThey're just conspiracies agains the laity anyway.....