Thomas Jefferson and the death of wisdom

In recent weeks I have been trying out a mental exercise. Perhaps you might join me? Cast your mind back to 1999. We were standing on the dawn of a new millennium. True, there was a strange fear that all the computers might crash because of a bug called Y2K. But aside from that there seemed to be a tremendous optimism. One of the biggest causes for this was the nature of information technology: specifically, the internet.

Imagine if someone had said to you then: ‘We are heading into a world where almost anything can be read at the click of a mouse. Almost all the great books will be available free online. Almost any quote or reference can be found at the press of a few buttons. Oh and anyone in the world can speak to anyone else, swap information and solve problems. So if you are a physicist in London and another great physicist lives on the other side of the planet, you can do a thing called “Skype” – just remember to unmute yourself.’