Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Quote of the day: In our age, ‘Information is cheap, but meaning is expensive’

While Tom Ricks is away from his blog, he has selected a few of his favorite posts to re-run. We will be posting a few every day until he returns. This originally ran on October 26, 2011. “We now live in a world where information is potentially unlimited. Information is cheap, but meaning is expensive.” ...

While Tom Ricks is away from his blog, he has selected a few of his favorite posts to re-run. We will be posting a few every day until he returns. This originally ran on October 26, 2011.

“We now live in a world where information is potentially unlimited. Information is cheap, but meaning is expensive.” — George Dyson. (I’d heard of his pop and his sister but not of him.)

This wasn’t always the case. I remember reading in Braudel’s history of the Mediterranean that in 16th century Europe, information was mighty expensive. One example that struck me (if I am recalling Braudel correctly) was that sending a letter from Spain to Paris cost the equivalent of a university professor’s annual salary. Now sending that e-mail is basically free. On the other hand, no one got spammed back in 1550.

I think that what this blog should try to be about is making sense of new information. I march forward with new resolve!

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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