great discussion in here

To channel the great Neil Postman, it's good to keep in mind that technology is always a Faustian bargain. As technology evolves, humans adapt to it and in turn, continue tweaking the technology to ensure that the "giveth" outweigh the "taketh."

I particularly like the invocation of Darwin here since that's how I view the progression of technology... new stuff comes along that smokes the old stuff, and the old stuff dies out.

I've felt this most recently after getting my first Kindle. As I hold the device, I can look across the room at my giant bookshelf and feel a physical tug of war taking place. What value do all those physical books hold as they sit there, collected dust on my shelf? The same goes for all my cds which I'm digitizing and organizing in iTunes.

Information no longer needs to take physical shape, unless there's a specific reason it should do so. There are interesting "music objects" like the Buddha Box... little computers that generate music where the value is in their physicality. Then there's the case for vinyl and it's successor, Serato Scratch which allows the DJ to have the tactile feel of vinyl, but access to every song in their collection.

As for the consumption of information or "infovorism"... new tools are emerging to help prioritize the information before it actually gets to us. We've had this for years in the form of human editors, but as mentioned in one of the responses in this piece, individualism is what trumps all. If the machine can help me tailor my consumption to only the things it predicts I'll get value from, the theory is that I can cut out the noise and only spend my time on signal.

The main gotcha I see here is ability for "small" or unpopular voices to make their way through the algorithms and filters. One can argue that if something is truly "good" that it will break through and make it's way to the audience that should see it. Because no machine can catch everything, we will have to rely on each other to bubble things up and we'll just have to accept that many things will fall through the cracks.

in reference to: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/schirrmacher09/schirrmacher09_index.html (view on Google Sidewiki)