Maybe I’m too open-minded, but I see the point about how the more free information is, the better it gets. But I also see the other side of it. There will always have to be some control over information, whether it’s for our nation’s security, or to avoid log-jams like too many people simultaneously editing a Wiki page, or to simply respect people’s This goes back to a theme we have seen come up in class many times – human tension. The dichotomy of having to control some of what we know wants to be free creates constant underlying tension – who should control what information and when and how and where? What if we mess up and the wrong information accidentally gets out? What if we can’t find the appropriate way to store and manage the tremendous constant barrage of information? And since information changes constantly, this tension won’t ever go away. From the tension created by the Cold War and all of the new computer technology that came out of this era, to Carr’s current-day description of the tension created by having to divide our reading attention between the internet and regular books, humans will continue to have to learn to think in different ways. It’s overwhelming at times, and is both a blessing and a curse. As a bit of an aside, I find myself wondering whether Claude Shannon would understand Richard Stallman. To Shannon everything, EVERYTHING, was just bits of information, just “yes’s” and “no’s”. They both seem to have been thinking in terms of separating information from meaning. Would Shannon have agreed with Stallman that the continuous flow of bits and pieces should be available to everyone so that it could continue to grow and theoretically improve? Or perhaps to Stallman there was no separation, and it was the meaning that he felt was so important to belong to everyone?