{"id":176,"date":"2007-12-31T09:56:58","date_gmt":"2007-12-31T16:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/?p=176"},"modified":"2007-12-29T16:26:48","modified_gmt":"2007-12-29T23:26:48","slug":"the-ultimate-stand-against-ignorance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/?p=176","title":{"rendered":"The ultimate stand against ignorance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Table of contents for 10 Ways To Take A Stand Against Ignorance<\/h3>
  1. The ultimate question, the ultimate answer<\/a><\/li>
  2. The ultimate stand against ignorance<\/li>
  3. Who’s pulling your chain?<\/a><\/li>
  4. Don’t be part of the choir, no matter who’s preaching<\/a><\/li>
  5. Go to the source<\/a><\/li>
  6. Check it out. Check everything out.<\/a><\/li>
  7. Your own library<\/a><\/li>
  8. Look at your world<\/a><\/li>
  9. Break on through to the other side<\/a><\/li>
  10. Explore strange new worlds<\/a><\/li>
  11. Support knowledge expansion<\/a><\/li>
  12. Introduction<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>

    You may have noticed a common thread running through this series of messages.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not accidental.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I firmly believe that the best way to take a stand against ignorance is very simple.<\/p>\n

    Read.<\/p>\n

    Read as though your life depended on it, because in a very real sense, it does.\u00c2\u00a0 Read the news in depth.\u00c2\u00a0 Find a good history book and read that, because if you know your history you’re immunized against claptrap from all sides of the political spectrum.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody can tell you that this, or that, present-day politician is “the best” or “the worst” in history, if you already know what those 19th-century guys were up to.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody can say, as Pat Buchanan did not so long ago, that 1968 was “the most divisive year in United States history,” and get away with it if his audience knows what happened in 1861.<\/p>\n

    If you have a library card, use it.\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t have a library card, get one.\u00c2\u00a0 Make a resolution to visit the library often, and to ask the librarians what’s good to read.\u00c2\u00a0 And once you bring your reading material home, of course, read <\/em>it.<\/p>\n

    More than 30 years ago, Isaac Asimov wrote an essay called “The Ancient and the Ultimate.”\u00c2\u00a0 In it, he presents a carefully-thought-out case for the ultimate multimedia device, which even in the wilds of 1973 was not some exotic electronc gizmo or a product of way-out science-fictional thinking.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a safe, familiar object, easily obtainable.<\/p>\n

    A book.<\/p>\n

    I can’t possibly summarize Asimov’s reasoning on this, but I think he was right.\u00c2\u00a0 And I think anyone who reads that essay will understand why <\/em>he was right.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The essay was collected in a book called The Tragedy of the Moon<\/em>, which is a collection of essays on various subjects.\u00c2\u00a0 You can find it at any public library.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, if you really want to be daring, you can order your own copy from Amazon for as little as 89\u00c2\u00a2 plus shipping.<\/p>\n

    The great thing about a book of short essays is that if one doesn’t interest you, you can skip to the next one.\u00c2\u00a0 And within that same book are two other essays of an eye-opening nature, having to do with social conventions rather than scientific method.\u00c2\u00a0 Once you’ve read “The Ancient and the Ultimate,” then read “By the Numbers” to see what Asimov thought about computers and how he predicted they’d affect our world.\u00c2\u00a0 And then “Lost in Non Translation” to get a clearer viewpoint about the biases we all share.<\/p>\n

    Tomorrow starts a new year.\u00c2\u00a0 Resolve to take a stand against ignorance.\u00c2\u00a0 Individually and collectively, the future we shape will be better if we do.<\/p>\n

    Previous in series<\/a> Next in series<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    You may have noticed a common thread running through this series of messages.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not accidental.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I firmly believe that the best way to take a stand against ignorance is very simple. Read. Read as though your life depended … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[50,35,26,49],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infmom.net\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}