The Great Geek Manual

Information overload is the wrong term because it blames the information. That doesn’t make any sense because information isn’t something that can make decisions or be malicious. Information is something that informs decisions, and those decisions are made by people. We never say someone suffering from obesity is suffering from food overload. Bad food is manufactured by companies that are being run by people, being distributed by companies that are run by people, and being purchased with money from people. Spend a night in a room with a bucket of fried chicken, and provided you don’t eat it, your cholesterol is unlikely to change.

Because of this mistake in how we look at the problem, we’re unable to fix it. Information overload’s message is, “put these tools on your computer, and you’ll better manage the information.” This kind of practice would be like trying to go on a food diet by buying a different kind of refrigerator, or trying to become a professional athlete by relying solely on the purchase of running shoes. The problem is, we don’t need to manage the information. We need to manage our consumption of it.

In other words, we don’t suffer from information overload — we suffer from information overconsumption and poor consumption habits. The solution is just as simple as a successful food diet. It’s about building habits and healthy choices for yourself, and sticking to it.

- Clay Johnson, as interviewed in
“Don’t blame the information for your bad habits: Clay Johnson on info overload vs. info overconsumption.” by Mac Slocum, November 29, 2011.
First posted to O’Reilly Radar.

Look what is coming: Technology is stitching together all the minds of the living, wrapping the planet in a vibrating cloak of electronic nerves, entire continents of machines conversing with one another, the whole aggregation watching itself through a million cameras posted daily. How can this not stir that organ in us that is sensitive to something larger than ourselves?

- What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly, 2010.

The good news is that technology is gaining momentum. The architecture of the public square on the Internet is very similar to how it was when the country was founded. Individuals have easy access; there are almost no barriers to access. Ideas matter. We all know examples of how a single blogger has at times turned the course of national debate by pointing out the truths of the matter being debated. This is very, very encouraging.

- Al Gore in comments made at Soho House to honor the ten shortlisted agencies in PSFK’s Gaming for Good competition, December 2, 2011.

We are awfully lucky to be here-and by ‘we’ I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.

- A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, 2003.

Don’t tell me nature isn’t a miracle. Don’t tell me the world isn’t a fairytale. Anyone who hasn’t realised that, may never understand until the fairytale is just about to end. Then there is one final chance to tear off the blinkers, a last chance to rub your eyes in amazement, a final opportunity to abandon yourself to the world you are bidding farewell to and leaving.

- The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder, 2004.

One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. The tale is the map that is the territory; you must remember this.

- American Gods by Neil Gaiman, 2001.

It’s all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine.

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In the future, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it may be that the most important things historians will see are not technological advancements or the Internet, but the fact that for the first time a substantial and rapidly growing number of people had choices.

- Peter Drucker
Cited in “The competitive edge of the social business” by Esko Kilpi, November 22, 2011.