by Jessica Reed
Billy_Coconut comments on the TIME magazine's choice for their Person of the Year (it's you, by the way):
Power through the internet, universal creativity through the internet: it's an old canard -- and little more than a sales ploy, by those who make a living, selling home computers.
It reminds one of what one use to hear a lot: that word-processors would generate geniuses by the thousands. Where are all these new-fangled geniuses? Nowhere.
(Word-processors were no more than fancy type-writers, why would word-processors have accomplished what type-writers did not accomplish: namely, generate talent in people who were not born with talent)
It reminds one also of what used to be said in defense of universal education: that new Beethovens would be created by the thousands. Where are these new Beethovens? Nowhere! Music teaching in the schools is notoriously awful and the general population is no better educated today, than in the days of restricted education.
Blogs are notoriously unreliable; and Internet users, no better informed than the public of CNN or of FOX. Nor do Internet discussion forums have any more chance of affecting human destinies than bar room babblings or cafe du commerce tirades.
In politics as in finance, the information that really matters is, has always been and always will be in the hands of the miniscule number of people who benefit most from those types of activities. And the David Rockefellers of this world, will always have more influence, than all of their employees and customers, put together.
As for Genius, it is today as it always has been: very rare, and innate. Whether it displays itself on a canvas, in a book or through the internet, is of no particular significance.
