Why Google ruined my life
Once upon a time there was an iluy (prodigy - though not the firestarter variety). He could recite shakla and tarya of sugyos, quote films and songs without hesitation, play the Kevin Bacon game for hours on end, while performing complicated math in his head and giving you the years of birth and death of the major Rishonim and Achronim. He could even spell words correctly.
I've since then lost the ability to retain information of any kind. Partially due to my excessive-inebriation habit. And the advancing years. But also due to a lack of need to remember anything. Thanks to google, there are very few pieces of information I actually must remember. Even a useful Chazon Ish or Meiri when arguing with my more UO brethren. My favorite sports team's results for the last 12 years. The history of zionism. I no longer have to sit down and write out lyrics to a song, or listen to it 1001 times before I know all the words. My memory chip has rotted away, burnt out, to be replaced by a website that sounds like something a baby does.
Thank you google.
TRK
posted by TRK @ 1:50 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
also cellphone phonebooks. remember back when you needed to remember phone numbers? now i can barely remember my own cell. 11 months in this apt, and i still don't even know the house phone.
This is not, lulei demistafina, a bad thing. You know the famous Einstein (Albert, not the Medical School) story.
OMG - so true. Need a lyric to ANY song?? a moment away with google!
Anything -- and I mean ANYTHING! just a click away......what did we do without it?
as for phone numbers, since I have them all on speed dial on my cellphone, I totally forgot all the numbers that I was so proud of remembering long after everyone else had forgotten.
Ah, the age of technology - I don't know whether it's good or bad.
I certainly agree I've googled for sources for a speech on a parsha and found them instantly. It's a monster and their getting reacy to take on Microsoft.
they keep getting better and bigger. I don't even know my own name I just google my address and there it is.
Shopsy,
You are right about us having no more patience, and we expect things now now now. Shabbos is a good way to unlearn this sickness.
I don't know about the Moshiach things. I'm sure there are lots of obscure statements about the Ikvesa Demeshicha, but I'm wary about efforts to apply them to our times. They've been said before, and didn't turn out to be true. Do your stuff, serve G-d as best you can and Moshiach will come when we are ready for him, when Hashem decides.
Good night
TRK
Technology is *not* a bad thing.
Consider that the invention of the printing press brought literacy to the masses. Before then, books were handwritten, making them very expensive and rare (not to mention the very common occurence of copyist errors resulting in divergent texts). As a result, only the wealthy or the clergy, for the most part, were able to read.
When the printing press made books cheaper and more common, literacy began to rise. It became easier to pass information on to others and to the next generation.
I believe that the Internet today is just the next step in this revolution. It has made it possible to share information globally and easily. I think that when history looks back on this time period, the invention and rise of the internet will be more significant to us, technologically, than the invention of the printing press was.
The Wolf
Would you agree that "ruined" in this case is a bit, lulei demsitafina, hyperbolic?
cloojew - sarcasm?
technology can be the best thing that happened but it can also take away our need 4 brains...
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