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

With regard to robots, in the early days of robots people said, 'Oh, let's build a robot' and what's the first thought? You make a robot look like a human and do human things. That's so 1950s. We are so past that.
Neil Degrasse TysonRead
We're all vulnerable to social approval. The need to belong, to be approved or appreciated by our peers is among the highest human motivations. But now our social approval is in the hands of tech companies.
Tristan HarrisRead
We think Android is very, very fragmented, and becoming more fragmented by the day. And as you know, Apple strives for the integrated model so that the user isn't forced to be the systems integrator.
Steve JobsRead
In California, we have some of the strongest consumer protection laws in the country. While it is easy to conceive of innovation and regulation as mutually exclusive, California is proof that we can do both. We can innovate responsibly.
Kamala HarrisRead
Web 2.0 ideas have a chirpy, cheerful rhetoric to them, but I think they consistently express a profound pessimism about humans, human nature and the human future.
Jaron LanierRead
People don't want lots and lots of single purpose devices. They do not want to have to learn how to set up something for photos, another thing for music, another thing for video.
Bill GatesRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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

Quote by Nassim Nicholas Taleb | QuoteProject