Finding “those educated, and spiritual, and wise”

csandb • 28th Nov 2005 • General

I just finished reading a blog post by Paul Allen entitled World Digital Library, where he talks about how easily accessible information and knowledge is becoming. As access to books and information becomes more easily accessible the question of which books are even worth reading becomes increasingly important. In response to this problem Paul quotes Jeffrey R. Holland who said

“[What] the present world needs more than ever before, are those educated, and spiritual, and wise who will sort, sift, prioritize, integrate, give some sense of wholeness, some spirit of connectedness to great eternal truths. . . . The watchmen on the tower cry out for those who will integrate, coalesce, clarify, give both order and rank to important human knowledge.

I believe that through blogging, rss feeds, and related technologies the infrastructure is being built on the internet where we can each individually choose our own authorities to listen to on any subject to help us “sort, sift, and prioritize” the information we have access to. Anyone will be free to voice their opinion on any subject matter to help with the sorting, but only those who prove that they are a true experts on any given subject will be listened to by a large following. We will find “those educated, and spiritual, and wise” by the wisdom of the crowds. “Those educated, and spiritual, and wise” will be experts who have proven themselves by attracting a large following by consistently providing their readers relevant information.