Zettel 202409200022 : Information Overload is the Anti-Zettelkasten
Information Overload is noise. Disinformation can easily hide in that noise. Knowledge isn’t grown in such an environment. This is the Anti-Zettelkasten.
In Yuval Noah Harari’s latest book Nexus, he discusses the history of information and how humans have handeled it across history. In this overview, he discusses how tech companies are using algorithms to exploit people with misinformation. The algorithms (and tech companies) have one goal: To keep your attention. They don’t attempt to form genuine connections between the pieces of information that they feed us. Instead, they leverage the glut of information so that they captivate us so as to advertise to us. Or learn our habits and sell that information about us to the highest bider.
Disinformation can easily hide in this environment. And this can create polarization in nations, cause good people to make horrible decisions, and mask truth and reality from our minds.
Social media, advertisments, the attention grabbing headlines, the trolling, the sensationalism . . . it’s all working against our ablity to form genuine connections with our information and with each other as people.
This is dangerious and may one day destroy us.
References :
- Amanpour & Company Interviews Nexus author Yuval Noah Harari Harari Interview, YouTube