He Saw It Coming
"The whole human memory can be, and probably in a short time will be, made accessible to every individual... It need not be concentrated in any one single place. It need not be vulnerable as a human head or a human heart is vulnerable. It can be reproduced exactly and fully, in Peru, China, Iceland, Central Africa, or wherever else.. It can have at once, the concentration of a craniate animal and the diffused vitality of an amoeba.
"This is no remote dream, no fantasy... It is a matter of such manifest importance and desirability for science, for the practical needs of mankind, for general education and the like, that it is difficult not to believe that in quite the near future, this Permanent World Encyclopaedia, so compact in its material form and so gigantic in its scope and possible influence, will not come into existence.
"Its uses will be multiple and many of them will be fairly obvious. Special sections of it, historical, technical, scientific, artistic, e.g. will easily be reproduced for specific professional use. Based upon it, a series of summaries of greater or less fullness and simplicity, for the homes and studies of ordinary people, for the college and the school, can be continually issued and revised...
"Quietly and sanely this new encyclopaedia will, not so much overcome these archaic discords, as deprive them, steadily but imperceptibly, of their present reality."
H.G. Wells, 1937, "World Brain"
UPDATE: You might want to click through and read the whole thing. Wells' was remarkably prophetic in this essay, but he was always an elitist. He seemed to believe that a "World Brain" would bring about consensus - a universally accepted truth that could be spoon-fed to the unclean masses.
The "World Brain" has had an opposite effect. Instead of being a force to centralize power, it decentralizes. And that's good.
Comments
Elitist? Possibly. But consider this:
And its creation is a way to world peace that can be followed without any very grave risk of collision with the warring political forces and the vested institutional interests of today. Quietly and sanely this new encyclopaedia will, not so much overcome these archaic discords, as deprive them, steadily but imperceptibly, of their present reality.
Sounds more like True Believer waxing on about open source. When I see a reference to vested institutional interests being deprived of their present reality, I can't help but think of the blogosphere taking on the MSM.
Posted by: Phil Bowermaster![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blog.speculist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 15, 2005 09:08 PM
This is very interesting. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Posted by: Micah Glasser![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blog.speculist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 15, 2005 09:41 PM
Actually Micah, it was a post of yours that put me on the track to finding this. It was your Turing's Cathedral post.
A couple of clicks into your sources has an author over at The Edge making a partial quote from this essay.
Google did the rest.
:-)
Anyway, belated hattip to Micah.
Posted by: Stephen Gordon![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blog.speculist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 15, 2005 10:33 PM
"He seemed to believe that a "World Brain" would bring about consensus - a universally accepted truth that could be spoon-fed to the unclean masses."
This isn't completely wrong though. There's been some recent discussion about why UFO sitings have dropped off since the internet boom, and the answer is basically that Snopes-like researchers disprove them so quickly that people don't believe in them anymore.
More often today the discussions on the Internet today are only on topics which are non-testable or non-verifiable, like intelligent design or "If we'd only listened to Michael Moore" hypotheses. For those things which are testable, Google builds a consensus.
Posted by: Cardozo Bozo![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blog.speculist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 20, 2005 10:25 PM