Regardless of apparent current political trends, there is actually substantial reason for optimism that truth will prevail in the near term -even truth about such badly mangled subjects as nuclear energy and atmospheric science. The principal reason for this optimism is that computer technology is rapidly destroying all central monopolies on the dissemination of information. Monopolistic control over information has historically been an indispensable aspect of tyranny. It is easy to concoct a lie, but it is not so easy to keep the lie viable in the minds of people unless their sources of information are under tight control. Virtually all tyrannies - whether they involve small groups of people or entire nations - involve mechanisms for the control of information. This control does not necessarily imply a book-burning police state. Small groups can be controlled simply by instilling a bias against ra
In order to control states and nations, however, it is necessary to control the press and other media and to control educational institutions. While this can be done by direct force as in many communist countries, in more free societies it must be established gradually through economic and political means and by a long process of individual screening so that information sources are largely staffed by those with the desired political biases.
The extreme leftist, anti-free enterprise bias in American educational institutions and news and entertainment media did not arise overnight. It has required generations of work. Now, however, that work is beginning to unravel in a technological maelstrom. There are two computer technologies responsible for this revolution.
The first of these is in the rate at which information can be transferred by means of wires, fiber optic cables, and satellites. The July and August issues of the
Gilder Technology Report available from Gilder Technology Group, Inc., Monument Mills, P. O. Box 660, Housatonic, MA 01236, or by telephone toll free at (888) GTG-2727, definitively describe and analyze this advance. (The Gilder Report is, without exception, the very best source of information on computer technology that I have ever read.) George Gilder points out that the initial computer revolution occurred when technological advance made the transistor almost free. This allowed the mass production of equipment containing millions of transistors and thereby the virtual miracles in computing power that are now available at low cost to all Americans.Now, new advances in electronics are making the real-time communication of information almost free as well. Figure 1, reproduced from the
Gilder Technology Report, shows the effect that just the initial phase of this almost free bandwidth (the information capacity of an electronic transmission system) is having on Internet traffic.
This is only the beginning. With emerging technologies that Gilder describes in detail in these newsletters, it will soon be possible to transmit essentially unlimited information at very low cost to almost any location. This capability is so great that the coming generations of computers are expected to have ways of capturing and using this information without requiring that it pass through the central processing units, which are far too slow to keep up with it.
The effect of this revolution will be to give every individual, regardless of his location, the ability to be mentally present at any other location. This freedom of location will transform human affairs and simultaneously destroy the barriers to information transfer that those who trade in the control of people by disinformation require.
The second advance is that of information storage. Current CD-ROM technology allows the storage of about 600 megabytes of information on a plastic disk that can be manufactured for about one dollar and read into an ordinary desk-top computer in a few minutes. One of these disks can hold about 3,000 books as text files or about 50 books as 300 dot per inch image files. New CD-ROMs that are to be marketed late in 1996 or in 1997 will hold about 10 times as much information - about 30,000 books. Fifty dollars worth of these new CD-ROMs can hold a university library of one million books.
CDs, however, only store information in two dimensions. "New Dye Adds Depth to Data Storage by C. Wu in
Science News 150, p 148 (1996), describes one of the three-dimensional data storage methods that is being developed. This particular method depends upon a block of material which contains dye molecules that fluoresce after a two-photon absorption. This allows three-dimensional encoding of the location and energy state of the dye molecules. It is estimated that one cubic centimeter (a volume approximately equal to 30 ordinary-sized drops of water and weighing 1/30 of an ounce) of this material could store as much as 1,000 current CD-ROMs - a three million book library. One ounce of this material could store 100 million books as text files. Even using high quality image files (with perhaps simple, uncleaned OCR behind them to allow text search), one ounce would hold 25,000 books or about 400,000 books per pound. Audio and video capacity with appropriate compression is spectacularly large as well.Therefore, both by wire transfer and by inexpensive physical storage, the academic monopoly on published information is being shattered, and the corporate media and government monopolies on information dissemination are being destroyed.
Why attend a university where retired-in-place tenured academics hoard information and disseminate it grudgingly in second-rate lectures and books, when the entire life's work and lectures of the most accomplished scholars alive can be stored on a few CD-ROMs and delivered to any home by wire or on plastic for negligible cost? Why be brainwashed by media moguls and their retainers who misreport current affairs to serve their personal political agendas, when essentially free bandwidth can effectively transport you to the events themselves and provide direct communication with the participants?
A major growth industry within this river of information will be in defining quality. Entrepreneurs must reach into this river and extract quality for delivery to the marketplace, since individuals will lack time to sift through the river by themselves. What is the highest quality information? The highest quality is that which is the truth and in which the truth is communicated most effectively.
Who will be the judges of these qualities? The market place will judge. An honestly earned reputation for integrity will once again be among each person's most valuable possessions. Economic power to control media resources and monopolies on the distribution of information will no longer confer pseudocredibility upon the holders of this power, since the cost of disseminating and receiving information will be negligible. With virtually all entrepreneurs having the economic capability to extract and send information, those who build the highest reputations for integrity will become the more widely utilized.
Moreover, I predict that small entrepreneurs entirely outside of the power structures of media and education will be the most successful. People who remain within those power structures will be institutionally hampered by the prejudices and agendas of the institutions. It will
be much more difficult for them to build reputations of integrity.The most influential news sources might become single, adventurous reporters who are self-employed, gain a reputation for depth and accuracy, and are not beholden to any organization or group whose interests must be considered when reporting the news. They could travel to interesting places and events, gather facts and analysis, and then make themselves available to anyone who wishes to tune them in.
No one can predict the ultimate events that will accompany the new informational freedom. It is, however, obvious that the lies that now keep us in bondage manage to survive only because they are favored by those who control the enormous amounts of capital required to effectively communicate with the public. As that economic control is ended by low-cost technology, truth will be able to compete on a level playing field with fiction. I think that there will then be a very high free market preference for truth.
|
|
Vol. 24, No. 2
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 24, No. 2 Date: October 01, 1996 12:51 PM Title: Truth vs. Fiction
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
|