Cliff Berg
Jul 22, 2017 · 1 min read

As commenter Sander points out, making the Internet more civilized would require user identification — the loss of anonymity. Perhaps there needs to be more identification in the parts of the Internet that are considered to be “trusted”, I don’t know.

One challenge with the free-for-all Internet is that there is no vetting of ideas — it is the loudest voice, or the voice with the (a) most following or (b) most money that gets heard. Followings don’t always develop because the ideas are good — they develop because the ideas are fun or popular — not the same thing at all, by a long shot. The Internet is often like an online mob, in terms of what ideas get shared the most, and mobs can be pretty stupid.

In Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card envisioned an Internet in which discussion forums were like concentric rings, and to get to an inner ring, you had to demonstrate valuable insight and make contributions — kind of like the way that stackoverflow.com works. Most of the Internet, however, is driven by loudness, money, and popularity.

But as commenter Justin Pickering points out, it is still up to us to curate which content we read, and which we believe. Most people will choose the junk; a small percent — those who are thoughtful — will be more selective.

    Cliff Berg

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    Author and IT consultant