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!
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