History textbooks used to report historical fact. The good ones might even try to analyze the significance of some events, some movements. But so little history has occurred over the past century that we only ever read about otherwise long-forgotten people, places, and the things that made them noteworthy. There is no desire to know anymore, and so there is also no demand to curate knowledge. Our lackluster education is just as much of a refined process as all agriculture, manufacturing, and retail. And the worst part is that no one even realizes it.
The problem is that no one wants to know anything that is not already known by everyone else. Or what is known by most everyone else. And that is not to say that no one knows anything. That is not quite right. People know things. Enough to know how to read an article: to read a brief article with digestible bolded subheadings and a sentence or two after each. Everyone can then repost the link and probably express a very predictable opinion on it. Knowledge is regurgitated relative to how much any particular piece of information resonates with popular opinion.
And that is the heart of the problem. As I see it, anyway. People do not really want to know anything anymore. They do not want to know what they do not already know, if not explicitly, at least intuitively. No new research is truly novel. Everything just confirms everything we already know.
The following statement is almost completely, literally true: every single bit of recorded knowledge still available in any known/translatable language 127 years ago is now stored in hundreds of thousands of servers across the entire world. Each terabit is backed up on at least seven other mega-computers across each continent, every single bit verified via blockchain so that everything will remain attributable to its original source. Assuming, of course, that the compilers could determine the original source when CIRT began its collections in 2083.
The goal of CIRT was noble, but the problem with its grand museum of knowledge is the same as Instagram. Sure, the servers still house everything you could ever want to know, but no one wants to know any of it, just as much as no one is really interested in seeing their great-great-great-grandmother’s dessert from that trendy new joint in 2020. You can subscribe to Timehop to see your ancestors highlights and oddities. You can subscribe to Timehop-JSTOR if you are a nerd, but who does that? I do, but that is beside the point. Or… I guess that is the point.
If you want to find information, if you have a lust for learning, the modern world is your oyster. With 500 million lives you could not hope to get through everything of interest. With another 500 million lives you could not get through everything of use. There is just too much. Maybe that is why everyone just gave up and felt content to re-post another cat video dubbed with lyrics from JJ Bae feat. Lil Skell and Anyre.
What it really all boils down to is this and only this: how do you want to waste your time? I know that sounds pessimistic, but… no, no, it is too pessimistic. I do not believe that. Others do, but not me. I keep digging in because I think it is worth it. I cannot think of another reason why I keep doing it. I have just barely crested the first rise of the foothills of the mountain of knowledge that multiplies endlessly into an impassable range of dizzying heights and depths. I have never had the slightest chance of finding and sharing even the smallest tidbit of worth to those around me. Whatever I gain is nothing in comparison. Nothing.
And still I guess it is worth it. I do not really know why. I just think I would rather spend my limited years digging into information and not only entertainment. But knowledge is hard-earned. Entertainment is cheap. It always has been. And it gets cheaper and cheaper, regardless of how much they are charging for it these days. And regardless of how much more they keep charging and how free the real stuff is, people just keep buying what they have always bought. Why stop? It will keep you sated so long as you do not ever stop consuming. Just keep consuming all the entertainment you can get your hands on and you do not have to worry so much about the fact that it will never fill you.
Some days I read a single article or chapter, write a few paragraphs worth of reflection, and then walk contemplatively for hours around the old university grounds. Maybe I will write a few more paragraphs in the evening if my contemplation does its job. But seriously, a single article is all it takes. Everyone else has to keep their eyes on the screen at least 50 minutes of every hour in order to not be bored by the real world.
Of course, on the days when you feel like you are going to put a serious dent on the “mountain range of knowledge” (which you never do), you cannot waste too much time on contemplation. You have to read and keep reading all day. And regardless of how exhausted you become by all of your concentration, you still cannot fall asleep at night because everything you have read has not had a chance to settle down and be filed away in your brain. It will take hours for your brain to finally turn off at the end of the day as you blissfully roll around in bed waiting for all the new information to catch up and settle down for the night. This is a very different experience from scrolling on your phone until 3 AM just because you… well, just because.
Just because will keep the blinders on for a man’s entire life if he will let it. Just because is not exactly the thinking that will get you to lead a valuable life. Sure, you might get into some interesting scrapes and unique situations, but just because will rarely add any value to a phone-scrolling existence. This depends, however, on how you determine value.
Value has always been a tricky concept, I suppose. It is intrinsically subjective, at least to a certain degree. Throwing a spear well has value when you have to hunt for your food, but not so much when you buy every meal made for you, when you have never even seen a farm, when you could not even give an adequate description of how modern industrial farming produces, nourishes, and harvests plants and animals. Raising a child well has value when you must trust in your family to ensure your physical, emotional, and social wellbeing, but not so much when the UN guarantees you will be fed, housed, and entertained to your numbed heart’s content.
Adding some meaning to your friends’ and family’s lives, adding some richness to society and culture used to have value. Now worth is only determined by complex algorithms that tally likes, comments, shares, views, exposure, and off-screen mentions. Learning something, synthesizing difficult concepts, and reporting new possibilities used to make life that much more meaningful. Creating for the sake of creation used to have a weight to it. Living like we had something more to gain used to make life worth the living. But now we have all of our desires already met. It does not matter that our desires are met not because we are living such lush, gratifying lives, but because we have lowered our standards so severely to be contented by drivel. It does not matter that our only communication with “friends” and “family” is through broadcasting our opinions to each other via posts, reposts, thumbs ups, and comments. It does not matter if we have seen this episode 11 times this year already. So long as the next swipe will give us another hit of dopamine, it does not matter that all that has gained us is another chance to swipe once more.
I have read a lot on this topic, but rarely from sociologists discussing the issue directly and never from any contemporary thinkers. Mostly because there are no contemporary thinkers. Every blockchain on every academic article can be traced back about 120 years. There are no original sources of information. There is no true news, for there is nothing new.
I have read. I have learned. I have considered. I have reflected. I have developed. And now I am writing. And I will continue to post my articles, my essays, and sometimes even a poem, perhaps. I write and publish, creating new blockchains that will verify into perpetuity that Evan Earl Spillman wrote original material in the 23rd century. Maybe it will be the very last of its kind.
If this kind of stuff ever got comments, likes, or reposts, maybe it could break through the din and stand out as something entirely different and wholly worthwhile. But experience says that when I post any post, it will drown underneath a waterfall of videos, memes, and opinion pieces peppered with fiery comments underneath. Experience says that it will wash quickly downstream, lost in the torrent of “new” and more “relevant” posts. But hey, at least the sea of collected human knowledge, computer storage, and AI search capabilities will never run dry; the ever-deepening sea never fills. There is always a chance, no matter how small, that someone may find it centuries from now and give it the first upvote of a viral revolution.
Maybe that hope is what makes this life worthwhile in the end. Either way, it is my nature to continue in this silly enterprise.