Overall I found David Weinberger's book to be readable and thought-provoking. While it often came off as repetitive, I liked his overall assessment of the internet and its affect on how we organize and use knowledge. I think one of the main reasons I enjoyed this reading so much was that it spelled out the details of the internet age and its effects on knowledge so clearly. At 21, the internet is so ubiquitous in my life, and always has been, that its hard for me to comprehend what a drastic change its been from the past. Its almost the same as how you can't write about history when you're living in it... you need distance to see the connections. I feel like Weinberger helped to give me that distance so that I'm now in a better position to analyze the how the internet has changed how we organize and find information.
While reading, I marked a couple passages in the book that I found compelling and worth more thought. In one of these sections, Weinberger discusses knowledge, saying that in the past there could "be only one knowledge because the world is one way and not any other. But there will always be multiple conversations and thus multiple understandings." (203-204). This resonated with me because I agree that knowledge is not composed of single, static truths; rather it is changeable and understood uniquely in different times by different people. To assume that knowledge is unchangeable hurts both you and the people you interact with. A person who rejects the idea that knowledge is fluid and active won't be able to look at the world in new and valuable ways. Similarly, they will reject people who's conception of knowledge is different from their own. I believe everyone would benefit from conceiving of knowledge the way David Weinberger does, as a means of gaining understanding of the world and the people who occupy it, rather than a set of strict facts and definitions.
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