QuoteProject
The Internet allows the small guy a global marketplace. But technology is harmful in the sense that we get too much information from it. Because of the web we get 10 times the amount of noise we ever got, which makes harmful fallacies far more likely.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The Internet creates opportunities for small businesses but also overwhelms us with excessive information, leading to potential misinformation.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb highlights the dual nature of the Internet. While it enables smaller entities to reach a global audience and compete in the marketplace, it also floods us with an overwhelming amount of information that can obscure truth and foster misunderstandings. This vast quantity of data can lead to harmful fallacies, suggesting that while we have unprecedented access to information, we need to navigate it wisely.

Themes

InternetTechnologyInformationBusinessFallacies

In practice

Example use cases

A speaker at a technology conference discussing the challenges of information overload.

More from Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nobody reads the disclosures that roll down your computer screen. You click 'I agree' but you don't know what you're agreeing to.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Fragility is the quality of things that are vulnerable to volatility.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Those who were unlucky in life in spite of their skills would eventually rise. The lucky fool might have benefited from some luck in life; over the longer run he would slowly converge to the state of a less-lucky idiot. Each one would revert to his long-term properties.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money away, and then you can live with much more freedom.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead

Similar quotes

I am all for everyone having a voice; I just don't think everyone has earned the microphone. And that's what the Internet has done.
Aaron SorkinRead
We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.
Sherry TurkleRead
I've always felt that the human-centered approach to computer science leads to more interesting, more exotic, more wild, and more heroic adventures than the machine-supremacy approach, where information is the highest goal.
Jaron LanierRead
Did you know that Kodak actually invented the digital camera that ultimately put it out of business? Kodak had the patents and a head start, but ignored all that.
Peter DiamandisRead
Techno-humanism aims to amplify the power of humans, creating cyborgs and connecting humans to computers, but it still sees human interests and desires as the highest authority in the universe.
Yuval Noah HarariRead
In our age of individualism, we see computers as ways through which we can express our individuality. But the truth is that the computers are really good at spotting the very opposite. The computers can see how similar we are, and they then have the ability to agglomerate us together into groups that have the same behaviours.
Adam CurtisRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.