Wednesday, January 14, 2009

"Don't Be Stupid."

Daniel Henninger offers a modest proposal and wonders how so many bright people could be so dumb:

Only one other area of modern life produces this unprecedented error rate: the World Wide Web. Could it be that in the world of money, the information highway was the road to ruin -- www.Stupid.com?

Illuminated screens are fun -- and pernicious. People have long believed that if they see or hear something on TV, it must be true. This credulity has transferred exponentially to the PC screen, the cell-phone screen and email. Sophisticated people send fake news stories or photographs from the Web to everyone on their distribution list, until someone debunks it. Then it happens again. Something about information on screens reduces skepticism.

No comments: