Tuesday, November 13, 2007

2.Oh, No!

I think we're finally doing the 23 Things here at the library.
I was watching a Mario Bava movie last night (Black Sunday, but I keep falling asleep at the same part when the witch gets the mask hammered into her face or soon after that) and the older professor tells the young student that when he gets to his age, he'll realize just how worthless it is to listen to men present papers and give speeches.

And this I why I support any 2.0 program our library wants to try: Good advice is only good in hindsight.
The old man knows that those scientific speeches are boring only because he's experienced them. He can't transfer his old-man boredom to the young man simply by saying it. And the same is true with 2.0. What you or I think about it means nothing. Others need to blog and wiki and twitter and ning until they, too, can say that it's boring or that it's cool.

Advice that saves your life is worthless advice. If I tell you not to go into a particular house because a crazy man with an axe will kill you, and you take my advice and don't enter, did I give good advice? If a man swings an axe and no one is there to be dismembered, does it make a sound? You will never know if there was or wasn't a man with an axe because you didn't see for yourself.

So we'll do the 2.0 thing. If some learn from it, then great. But if some think it's stupid, then that's great, too. Enlightening one person is good, but boring fifty people is also good. Because up to their becoming bored, they thought there was more to know. So now they know better. That's pretty useful information, I think.

[if this post doesn't make sense, sorry, but I couldn't leave a farting teddy as my top post.]