Internet Information vs Known Information

[undamned]

So, earlier today I was pondering some video game history information I have in some fairly rare newsletters I picked up. I have found basically none of that information on the internet. That got me thinking about how much information that was once public is lost to those that only use the internet to research topics. That also got me thinking about our children's future learning as the internet becomes some pseudo authority about what exists and doesn't exist. Just curious what you guys thought.
-ud

[CMoon]

The internet is no different than the real world. Hearsay is still hearsay. Honestly there's so much 'common knowledge' that is incorrect in one way or another (example: 'you only use 10% of your brain' is an old school meme that is not supported by evidence but everyone believes in.) The issue in my mind isn't internet versus non-internet, but rather, how much of our current knowledge do you suspect is either currently known to be wrong or will at some point in the future be shown to be wrong?

Also, I am curious where the idea of 'certainty' sprang from, as it doesn't really match up with reality particularly well.

[undamned]

The internet is no different than the real world. Hearsay is still hearsay. Honestly there's so much 'common knowledge' that is incorrect in one way or another (example: 'you only use 10% of your brain' is an old school meme that is not supported by evidence but everyone believes in.) The issue in my mind isn't internet versus non-internet, but rather, how much of our current knowledge do you suspect is either currently known to be wrong or will at some point in the future be shown to be wrong?

Also, I am curious where the idea of 'certainty' sprang from, as it doesn't really match up with reality particularly well.

That being said, my intent was internet vs non-internet. The level of accuracy of information floating around in general is another issue altogether!
-ud

[ZacharyB]

If people who don't use the internet for research start to use the internet and find all of the incorrect information, human beings' natural propensity to correct one another might abolish some of the incorrect information. At least until the next generation.

Information is only as important as its relevance to the populace seeking it. Those who engineer search engines know this. Whether that information is correct or not is just a temporary setback.

In other words, the loss of correct information is natural as that information becomes more and more irrelevant. Some guy somewhere will correct it if it truly isn't irrelevant.

[Ed Oscuro]

With all the negatives associated with sources on the internet, add the distractions, and there's still the fact that it's more helpful for some of us to pace back and forth while reading a book. I get shit all done on the computer, I gotta admit

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I think the trust of respected sources is at the core of most information gathering. If I wanted to fix my car ild make use of a Hayne's Technical Manual and seek out the advice of grease monkeys both on the net and in RL. That said even slightly inaccurate sources are fine for the uses of most ppl for what they want to do with the info.

I know someone who wont trust anything on the internet, while putting too much faith in real books. Imo its folly nowadays considering that the authors of these books might be using bad internet sources like those wikipedia books

With all the negatives associated with sources on the internet, add the distractions, and there's still the fact that it's more helpful for some of us to pace back and forth while reading a book. I get shit all done on the computer, I gotta admit

+1 Ild make a bad white collar worker as I cant sit at a desk and concentrate for long periods of time. I tend to pace up and down when im in deep thought, or at the other end of the scale be laid down on my bed.

[CMoon]

Is 'Ild' the same as 'I'd' or 'I would'? Not seen this before, but apparently Delish is now a word, so what do I know. According to the internet, Ild stands for something about lung disease.

All information is suspect.

[Ed Oscuro]

I saw something a month or two back about somebody looking for laws, found something that looked right, but it turned out to quote the wrong section of the law, and later the student realized that it was because it was some attorney's weekend project (a website promising to be a law resource that actually was an ad for his business).

On that note, I recall that my father looked up the "Stand Your Ground" law, and it wasn't given that label, and it actually didn't seem to support the indecision and inability of prosecutors and police to get convictions. It appears that judges and everybody else are simply clueless. If anything, the Internet just reflects the general clueness of our species, but it does have some self-appointed guardians, who give the most visible information more reliability than we might expect even from the "institutional guardians" of the state. Which is not to say that I'm about to fall for the libertarians and Wikipedians over the government, but I do appreciate the work they have done for democracy in this profoundly important respect.

[Ganelon]

Does the "internet" include only public domain or also private information transmitted through private or secure channels? There are plenty of secrets that aren't accessible to the average joe.

Does "known information" include only today's information or all historically known information? There were plenty of verbal information from millennia of cultures that aren't even known today, much less incorporated online.

Does "known information" include private, trivial info (e.g. What did George Washington eat for dinner the night he was elected President; what did random joe shmoe eat for dinner last night)?

There's too much ambiguity here. In terms of video gaming, I'd say 90% of printed information can be found publically online in some form or another in some language. Nevertheless, I still feel that I can easily list off 100 specific facts about games, facts that can't be found online at all.

[Ex-Cyber]

Does the "internet" include only public domain or also private information transmitted through private or secure channels? There are plenty of secrets that aren't accessible to the average joe.

There's also the gray area of a huge amount of stuff that's "on the Internet" in the sense that some huge commercial archives are plugged into the Internet (Lexis-Nexis, academic publishers, etc.) and theoretically can be used by members of the general public, but that culturally and historically are not part of "the Internet" as we think of it in day-to-day use.

[BAD]

Great poll, undamned; this is particularly important. There's so much information on the web, but not all of it is true or even complete. I check various sources (print, human, etc) simply due to that; for example, there's tons of info in some of my old mags like Gamest and Arcadia that still hasn't hit the web. I'd like to put it on Wikipedia, etc, but opted instead to put it on my own sites to show people information is available in sources other than Wikipedia, Gamespot (the worst), and/or IGN...

[undamned]

Does the "internet" include only public domain or also private information transmitted through private or secure channels? There are plenty of secrets that aren't accessible to the average joe.

Ah, good point. I mean stuff that is accessible to the average joe. The context would be "researching topic X."

Does "known information" include only today's information or all historically known information? There were plenty of verbal information from millennia of cultures that aren't even known today, much less incorporated online.

Historically known information. Stuff you could dig up @ the library or the news stand.

Does "known information" include private, trivial info (e.g. What did George Washington eat for dinner the night he was elected President; what did random joe shmoe eat for dinner last night)?

See previous.

In terms of video gaming, I'd say 90% of printed information can be found publically online in some form or another in some language. Nevertheless, I still feel that I can easily list off 100 specific facts about games, facts that can't be found online at all.

Right, and the same can be said for any number of topics, which is concerning to me regarding those that see the internet as "the" source of information.
-ud