Up to a point, yes, you can get facts and figures on the Internet. But can you get the smell of the place? Can you get the atmosphere? No. No. ~ Frederick Forsyth Explains what made his books so readable. (Also explains why AI isn't quite there yet.) RIP đ https://t.co/H23z3M0KVu
While information always connects, some types of informationâfrom scientific books to political speechesâmay strive to connect people by accurately representing certain aspects of reality. But this requires a special effort, which most information does not make. This is why the naive view is wrong to believe that creating more powerful information
... See moreMcLuhanâs depiction of modern life as a global village and âone big gossip column that is unforgiving, unforgetting and from which there is no redemption, no erasure of early âmistakesââ could have been written for the social media age.
Therefore the crucial distinction for me is not the difference between fact and fiction, but the distinction between fact and truth. Because facts can exist without human intelligence, but truth cannot.
Maybe eBooks are going to take over, one day, but not until those whizzkids in Silicon Valley invent a way to bend the corners, fold the spine, yellow the pages, add a coffee ring or two and allow the plastic tablet to fall open at a favourite page.
Questions of this sort were particularly pertinent for the traditional clients of news in medieval society: Europe's rulers and merchants. They might study pamphlets to take the temperature of public debate, but they needed their own sources of news for more precise intelligence. For those in positions of power, the confidential despatch remained t
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