As We May Think
Vannevar Bush's Vision For a Future of Information and Technology
Seeped Into Modern Society
In "As We May Think," Vannevar Bush urge for advancement of technology
that empowers the brain rather than the fist -- a message and
realization appropriate surfaced and to be acknowledged especially in
the period of 'peace'. He envisioned how society would look like in
the future with collective and accessible knowledge, powered by
technology that, at the time of writing, had not been developed or
achieved.
Especially after nearing the end of the WWII period, it is
understandable that Bush's concern about the direction of
technological advancements will drive mankind into its own
destruction. The period of WWII has made great evolutions in
technology of mass destruction, and I agree with Bush's efforts to
push for advancement of technology that focus on improving knowledge,
as it would have lasting impact on the overall process for innovation
and invention.
Bush describes Memex as a conceptualization of what he envisioned the
technology that would provide collective and accessible knowledge to
be like. It surprisingly holds uncanny similarities to modern
technologies such as the Internet and the World Wide Web.
Evaluating the Shortfalls of Memex in Modern Society
Impose limitations on accessibility to certain knowledge.
Academic journals or materials are also often locked behind paywalls, limiting access to knowledge.
People today are being rapidly fed and rapidly intaking information. In such situations, people also often don't think critically about the information they're intaking.
Bush hoped that these technologies would help facilitate knowledge in the era of vast information. While I believe the modern 'Memex' technologies have lasting significant positive impacts on promoting knowledge, I believe such is somewhat limited to professions. Today, we also observe people being fed information (especially on social media) and rapidly consuming them rather than thinking critically about them. While we have the technologies to facilitate accessibility to information, we also have outside factors that limits this. Censorship impose limitations on accessibility to certain knowledge. Academic journals or materials are also often locked behind paywalls. These limitations provoke a need for new innovations or solutions that can overcome this issue.
