First Footsteppings into the Barvalian Language—Metalleus Collateral Descendant of Lingua Pranca Contents More Glimpses into the Collective Subconscious—Fom Pop
On Google, Wikipedia, and The Development of The Internet
with special attention to the impending collapse of civilization
Fædrus Ϙ. Χ. Plaid’oh

The Wizards Who Stay Up Late said:

Here is an accomplishment, Professor, which will improve both the wisdom and the memory of the users. We have discovered a sure receipt for memory and wisdom.

The Professor replied:

Wizards, my paragons of inventors .... the discoverers of an art are not the best judges of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it. So it is in this case; you, who are the progenitors of the internet, have out of fondness for your offspring attributed to it quite the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on search engines to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of their own internal resources. What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not for memory. And as for wisdom, your users will have the reputation for it without the reality: they will receive a wikiful of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom they will be a burden to society.

References

• Hafner, Katie, 1998. Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet.
• Hamilton, Walter (trans.), 1973. Plato: Phaedrus and the Seventh and Eighth Letters.
• Internet, The, 2009. Personal communication.
• Plato, 370 BC. Φαίδρος.

First Footsteppings into the Barvalian Language—Metalleus
More Glimpses into the Collective Subconscious—Fom Pop
Collateral Descendant of Lingua Pranca Contents