In the days pre-web, depending on one’s access and effort, the range of knowledge held by an individual on any given topic would be a continuous variable. With almost instantaneous access and ubiquitous availability internet does collapse the middle band into the lowest. Everybody is an so-so expert. In other words the incentive to grind out for any marginal knowledge gain is low. And as lesser people climb up the stairs, lesser get to the very top.

The ones who reach the top, though, are now in select company and will be able to command a premium for their prices.

This situation will evolve to web making us (the society, and not a specific individual) dumb, if the falling incentives for climbing up the starting blocks prevent anyone from reaching. On the other hand, internet has the capability to raising the lower bar so people at the top will have to strive harder to retain their position and hence making us (again society) smarter in the process.

I could go out and buy the text books for a university course on any subject. But could I gain the same expertise by just studying those text books and skipping the classes and the university tuition? In theory, it would seem the answer is yes. But do we see that in practice? No, and that’s because experts aren’t created by providing people with access to information.

Maurice Benayoun, the Algerian new-media artist, says it best in his installation, Emotional Traffic (Link: http://bit.ly/cocoXV)

“As a metaphoric organ, the Internet plays the role of the World nervous system, the transmission system for all sensations, either positive or negative, pleasures or pains. Nevertheless, this entity is schizophrenic. Excluding or denying parts of its own body, forgetting to take into consideration continents, languages, communities, because they don’t respect to the world press (Media) code: English speaking net connected communities. The language, the location, and the technological level of development determine the accuracy of the Internet feedback of the planet. Thus the Internet is a highly filtered culturally oriented nervous system.”

However, I do believe that dynamic translation services are becoming more powerful and allowing non-English speakers to play a bigger role. Google in particular has taken on this challenge quite seriously (http://nyti.ms/by4b0a).