95% of my information from the internet over the past 5-6 years. There exists a special mix of intelligence, altruism and collegial respect that can unite to make internet forums worth much more than the price of admission. As such I've become habituated to a variety of sources, bloggers, websites, and internet personalities. Of late it seems these forums have become more shrill and predictable in their aggregate coverage of real life. Recently the signal to noise ratio is so low that I find myself using the internet for learning less and less, and when I do, with increasing occasion shake my head at the content. Buzzwords such as 'fiat currency', 'fractional reserve system', 'banksters', 'hyperinflation' and even 'peak oil' are prevalent, though the analysis and understanding of these concepts seems shallow and repetitive. Worse, the denizens of particular forums (not surprisingly) all seem to drink their own particular form of kool-aid. Given the prevalence of high quality content and thought of a few years ago, the blending and parroting of the major themes that a casual perusal of the resource/energy/finance blogosphere reveals today reminds one of the time shift in the movie Idiocracy. A psychiatrist might label this phenomenon 'information anhedonia'. An economist would say we've reached 'decreasing informational returns from the marginal blog entry'. I'll just call it 'clown-fest'.
Midway through this post I am forced to acknowledge the possibility that "I" am the clown. Maybe my being editor here for so many years has given me an exaggerated sense of my own understanding of things. It's feasible that the signal to noise ratio I see deteriorating on the internet is just fine. It's possible that what I perceive as signal is noise, and vice-versa. (And, its possible, as my girlfriend says, that its all noise). But why do I hear from friends (who are not clowns) of increasing apathy and disinterest in reading blogs for information? Why do mainstream people roll their eyes when 'peak oil' or 'fiat currency' or 'runaway climate change' come up in discussions? It's reasonably clear to me that honking the squeaky red clown nose on these issues is not only ineffective, but becoming obnoxious.
When Greshams Law trumps Dunbar's Number
One (major) way to combat ignorance, nihilism and divisiveness is with education. But education in forums where the noise to signal ratio rises higher and higher makes civil, informed discourse impossible. With increasing occasion I see Greshams Law, where the 'bad drives out the good', evidenced in internet forums (such as this one). Our brains only have so many cc's of grey matter, and so many neurons/synapses etc. Evolutionary psychologists state that we are able to handle about 150 relationships effectively at one time, before quality deteriorates or someone on front end gets bumped off (Dunbar's Number).
This dynamic is manifesting in resource depletion forums right now. As the signal to noise ratio declines, I find myself spending less and less time at sites I once frequented for information and high quality discussion...
Please read on and discuss at TOD