I can't believe I read the whole thing.
If there is a "collective brain", I find it difficult to understand
what it thinks its accomplishing by distributing more and more copies of seemingly
spontaneously multiplying PowerPoint presentations (or of forwarding bogus
reports that refuse to die).
The particular presentation that I received this time was titled Paradox of
our Time, and it contained numerous "wise sayings" about how we should live
our lives. The word "paradox" in the title seemed pretty clearly a misnomer,
but I suppose that can be forgiven, considering that the presentation, though
in English, was quite clearly not written by a native speaker. Toward the end
of the presentation I was told:
if you're too busy to take the time to send this message
to somebody you love ...
That sentence reads a bit like a threat, something like "we dare you to be
too busy to help someone else". No, I'm not too busy, but I'd prefer to find
something else to do with my free time than send that presentation. Even if I
find myself completely and totally bored and have the whole day on my hands to
fill up, why would I want to pass this on to anyone. Rather than Paradox of our
Time it should be called Platitudes of our Time. Slide after slide tells us thing
like "Today we have ... less time". But if we really do have less time,
what would be the sense in wasting it on sending this 1.5MB of wise sayings onto
our friends?
Go to: Are crowds really that smart?