Dubbed by Britain's Channel 4 as "the crack cocaine of the thinking world," Edge is an organization of thinkers which includes some of the most interesting minds in the world. Each year Edge poses a question, this year collecting 172 essay responses to the question: How is the Internet changing the way you think? This essay from science historian George Dyson was one of our favourites.
KAYAKS vs CANOES
In the North Pacific ocean, there were two approaches to boat building. The Aleuts (and their kayak-building relatives) lived on barren, treeless islands and built their vessels by piecing together skeletal frameworks from fragments of beach-combed wood. The Tlingit (and their dugout canoe-building relatives) built their vessels by selecting entire trees out of the rainforest and removing wood until there was nothing left but a canoe.
The Aleut and the Tlingit achieved similar results–maximum boat/minimum material–by opposite means. The flood of information unleashed by the Internet has produced a similar cultural split. We used to be kayak builders, collecting all available fragments of information to assemble the framework that kept us afloat. Now, we have to learn to become dugout-canoe builders, discarding unnecessary information to reveal the shape of knowledge hidden within.
I was a hardened kayak builder, trained to collect every available stick. I resent having to learn the new skills. But those who don't will be left paddling logs, not canoes.
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