That was dumb luck

Post #45,426 by ben_tilly 7/13/02 12:39:55 AM Reply	That was dumb luck You, on the other hand, appear to know what you are talking about... :-) Cheers, Ben "... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything." --Richard Feynman
Post #45,452 by neelk 7/13/02 7:55:15 AM Reply	For me, it was Google :) In this case was able to use Google to find out what I don't know, because I know enough economics to be able to pick out the right keywords and filter out kookage. I got most of this with the keywords "economic history", "South Sea Bubble" and "limited liability". In Vernor Vinge's _Marooned in Realtime_, there's a bit when one of the characters is deprived of her computer link, and then realizes she is no longer an expert at a subject simply by remembering its name. Obviously, we're not at that point yet, but the Web can definitely turn familiarity into knowledge. You know, a computerized fact-checker (like a spelling or grammar checker) would be an amazingly cool application. Think what it could do to political debate. Or Usenet. :)
Post #45,465 by ben_tilly 7/13/02 1:55:40 PM Reply	Google is a knowledge exponentiator :-) It does too well to be called a knowledge multiplier! :-) Seriously I have a talent for pulling up useful random facts even when I knew next to nothing about a topic. Always have. Before Google it was a moderately useful talent. After Google it gets amazing results because those facts get leveraged into searches. As for the computerized fact checker, that would be cool, and what is scary is that I think it is getting close to being feasible. Cheers, Ben "... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything." --Richard Feynman
Post #45,508 by Ashton 7/13/02 11:16:15 PM Reply	Alas.. what is most needed cannot be done by machines, or with assembled fact compilations, since it appears that so much of this quality is irrelevant to either: Wisdom appears to be suffering a prolonged famine. Ashton
Post #45,526 by wharris2 7/14/02 6:21:36 AM Reply	Talent, talent I also have the weird talent of being able to look stuff of which I know little or nothing about and be able to get some useful information about it. For instance, on Google it is relatively easy to look up the Cherokee "Trail of Tears", but it's less easy to look up the (possibly apocryphal) statement Jackson made to the Supreme Court (who ruled in favor of the Cherokees) "Enforce your decision with what army?" Famous last RPG quotes: "I'll just shoot this fireball down the dungeon passageway..."

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