Kort Explores conundrums of the human condition

I was recently asked where I'd found a particularly insightful piece explaining how the UN creates its unique "scientific" findings of eminent global environmental catastrophe. I thought the piece contained important information that hadn't been addressed in the mainstream media, and passed it along to a few friends and relatives.

Apparently my questioner didn't share the opinion of some that I just make this stuff up on the fly, but I still couldn't answer his question. You see, I didn't actually find the piece anywhere - it just magically appeared in my email inbox. However, while the original question didn't offer much potential for exploration, it did suggest a more substantive topic - the changing dynamics of information flow resulting from the rapidly expanding Internet.

While I regularly visit a few alternative news and issue oriented websites, most of my web surfing is an extension of my computer software business - a seemingly endless quest through the ever changing labyrinthine digital underworld, in search of rumored secret incantations that can trick reluctant hardware and software into getting along. But while it can take days of intensive searching to uncover a few scraps of obscure technical information, it has taken very little purposeful effort to attract the substantial flow of social, political, and philosophical insights that I'm privileged to enjoy.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, self-selected information now tends to find its own way to me through an informal network of individuals and organizations with whom I apparently share overlapping interests. Access to information is becoming more a matter of resistance than intentional effort.

In the past, the pursuit of information tended to require a significant effort on the part of the searcher. Even during the brief time that recorded information has been in existence, access to the accumulated knowledge of human experience has remained beyond the reach of most humans.

Consider how dramatically information flow has changed just during the lifetimes of many people alive today. Before TV, people had to make a conscious effort to access information - acquire physical possession of printed materials, go to the library or cinema, gossip with neighbors, etc. During times when access to information was very limited - such as in medieval Europe or the American Old West - the possibility that a stranger in town might have an interesting story to tell about the outside world would draw a crowd. Traveling minstrels and story tellers could make a good living simply by conveying information about the outside world to those who were physically isolated, but still hungry for information about a larger world that was beyond their first hand experience.

TV made it possible to passively access information. The quality of the information might have left something to be desired, but the TV could deliver some sort of information as long as the passive viewer was able to stand it. Today the merest finger twitch can access more epiphany laden change-your-whole-world-view information than the average Medieval peasant encountered in a lifetime. And there are literally millions of additional pages, containing information that is potentially useful to someone, added to the web every year.

Modern industrial agriculture has made previously rare foodstuffs so relentlessly available, that gluttony has created an epidemic of what were previously thought of as "rich man's diseases" among America's poor. Dieting has become a national obsession as we seek to accommodate the genetic heredity of bodies that evolved in an environment of scarcity, with the modern world of plenty that our minds have created. In a similar fashion, our previously information starved culture is now having to develop ways of dealing with the information overload made possible by the digital revolution.

There are two very different approaches to controlling systems - negative and positive. The negative approach grows out of simplistic attempts to obstruct or punish those alternatives which are perceived to be undesirable. Speed bumps that create an artificial danger for those who drive faster than desired, are an example of a negative approach.

A fundamental flaw in the negative approach, is that it almost always attempts to control a complex system through the manipulation of a small number of factors. Speed bumps may force drivers to slow down at the point of impact, but they're ineffective at keeping irresponsible drivers from accelerating to unsafe speeds between the "inverse potholes" intentionally installed in the road.

Negative approaches also tend to have unintended consequences. Speed bumps cause physical discomfort for all drivers, and damage the suspensions of all vehicles, not just those exceeding the speed limit. They also have significantly greater adverse effects on smaller cars with shorter wheelbases than on oversized cars with mushy suspensions - at the same time that other government programs are actively trying to encourage drivers to switch to smaller, more fuel efficient cars. Speed bumps pose a particular problem for emergency vehicles that might otherwise be justified in traveling at higher speeds than is considered desirable for normal traffic.

A positive approach seeks to encourage voluntary compliance by making the desirable also personally advantageous. Synchronized traffic lights, for example, encourage responsible driving by creating positive advantages for those who drive at the sync speed of the lights.

Positive approaches often result in additional positive effects. Smoothly flowing traffic that doesn't have to stop at every light maximizes the carrying capacity of the roadway, while minimizing both the the travel time of individual drivers, and the amount of air pollution they generate idling at stop lights.

The typical first impulse of those with only a superficial understanding of the dynamics involved, is to resort to negative authoritarian "solutions". Past authoritarian attempts to regulate the flow of information have failed as badly as similar attempts to regulate the flow of material goods. Socialist controlled economies have consistently demonstrated that the primary products of an artificially controlled economy are shortages of those goods granted official approval, and a rampant black market in those goods that are prohibited. While claiming to be motivated by the principle of limiting the excesses of some in order to provide enough for all, the real world result of socialist control has been the destruction of the very distribution systems it sought to "improve" through authoritarian regulation.

Censorship is the evil dark side of controlling information flow. Censorship has earned such a well deserved "unfavorable" reputation that it has become standard procedure, for those advocating "new" permutations, to start their pitch by claiming that their desired form of authoritarian control is somehow not censorship.

But arbitrary authority is by definition arbitrary, while information is a continuous multidimensional spectrum that defies simplistic solutions. The current politically correct attempt to impose censorship on the "dangerous" information anarchy of the Internet is the demand for "child safe filters". But these attempts at negative control not only block the erotic content that the censors find so offensive, but also valid information that might be of significant value to those arbitrarily denied access to it.

The key is that while censorship seeks to deny access to any information that doesn't fit the peculiarities and perversions of the censors, a postitive form of filtering would enable the most desirable bits of information to rise above the cacophony of background noise. Censorship is a negative attempt to suppress information, while filtering should be a positive means for an individual to selectively access that portion of the information flow that is of highest value to him.

The Internet is easily the most powerful information technology, and social dynamic, humanity has ever created. It has also enjoyed the greatest freedom from arbitrary authoritarian controls. The resulting exponential productivity generated by the exuberant interactive anarchy of millions of individuals, each self-regulated by their own enlightened self-interest, is largely responsible for our current "problem" of information overload.

Current theory now holds that even chaotic systems become orderly at some level, and the Internet would appear to confirm this view. While the Internet may appear chaotic in the macro view, the system tends to be subtly self-organizing at the individual and small group levels - if self-organizing sub-networks are allowed to dynamically evolve within the larger system.

Which brings me the long way around to the original question of where I "found" a particular piece of information. (Well, somebody has to generate all the "new" information needed to live up to the expectations of information doubling theory...) On a superficial level, it would appear that the original message came to me without any overt effort on my part. I certainly didn't make any direct effort to acquire it, since I didn't know of its existence until it was already in my possession. But on a more subtle level, I received that particular message as a result of my prior efforts to "prime the pump" so that someone I've never met face-to-face, and over whom I have "less than insignificant" authoritarian control, would consider it worth their effort to send it to me.

The origins of the self-filtering information system that appears to be evolving on the Internet, lie in the motivations of countless individuals like me, who start out simply wanting to share something interesting with a few friends and relatives. Those I've shared with in turn tend to return the favor when they come across something they think I might find interesting. I can then use these returned favors to fulfill my social obligation to the source of the original message. Exposure to information created by others also encourages me to contribute my own thoughts and acquired wisdom to the flow, hopefully enriching, in turn, the lives of those who have contributed so much to mine.

Over time, the nature of the information being exchanged defines the range of overlapping interests among the diverse participants. People tend to send me pieces that are similar to the ones I thought were interesting enough to send them - and vice-versa. I only have around a dozen addresses on my mailing list. Over the years, a few have asked to be removed because they no longer shared an overlapping interest, while others have been added - most often because someone already on my list thought someone they knew would be similarly interested in the kinds of information I was passing along. I have similarly sought to establish those connections that best suited my personal tastes and interests.

The more those to whom I send information appreciate what I send, the more likely they are to make the effort to send me things they think I would appreciate receiving. So as I read through the materials that have been sent to my "node" of the network, it's in my self-interest to select out those pieces that best fit my understanding of the tastes and interests of the names in my address book. This process of selection results in the information flowing through my node being actively "distilled" down over 90%, with just the best 10% continuing on to those who have indicated they want to receive the sort of information I think they want to receive. The amount of care and selectivity I put into the system will have an effect on the quality of the information that I receive, giving me a vested interest in self-regulating my own participation.

Nearly everyone who has an email address becomes a node in one or more informal networks with whom they exchange information. In a voluntary network, the nature and degree of participation is up to the individual. Some actively seek out materials to share, some pass things on when the mood strikes them, some delete most of their mail unread, some hardly ever bother to check their mail boxes.

The fact that the system worked well enough to deliver the original message that sparked this dissertation, to those who have expressed appreciation for receiving it, seems to indicate that the system is working well enough without authoritarian interference. This is especially true since the kinds of authoritarianism being currently demanded by censors "to protect the children", tend to also be very effective at prohibiting access to the kinds of information that are so critically important to an informed electorate, and to the citizens of a free society.