Knowledge = Power
"Now," men said, "Now we have knowledge, and with knowledge power."
"Now let us demonstrate our greatness. Let us build a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves - lest we be scattered abroad on the face of the whole earth."
And of course, they were scattered.
According to the Bible the builders of the Tower of Babel were a people of one mind. They spoke one language, they lived in one place and soon they had One Desire: The Greatness of a god.
So they built their tower and it reached to the heavens, until God struck a blow to their egos with language. Lots and Lots of different languages! (umm...isn't Language a weird word?)
So many different languages in fact that the people got so confused that they began to tear the Tower of Babel down brick by brick until the whole thing collapsed! The collapse of the tower was immediately followed by a mass exodus born of confusion and panic.
Obviously, the moral of the story is to moderate your desire for power from the knowledge you gain, lest it destroy you.
Question: If knowledge is power, what is wisdom? The ability to let power go?
"Now let us demonstrate our greatness. Let us build a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves - lest we be scattered abroad on the face of the whole earth."
And of course, they were scattered.
According to the Bible the builders of the Tower of Babel were a people of one mind. They spoke one language, they lived in one place and soon they had One Desire: The Greatness of a god.
So they built their tower and it reached to the heavens, until God struck a blow to their egos with language. Lots and Lots of different languages! (umm...isn't Language a weird word?)
So many different languages in fact that the people got so confused that they began to tear the Tower of Babel down brick by brick until the whole thing collapsed! The collapse of the tower was immediately followed by a mass exodus born of confusion and panic.
Obviously, the moral of the story is to moderate your desire for power from the knowledge you gain, lest it destroy you.
Question: If knowledge is power, what is wisdom? The ability to let power go?
*** *** ***
On the subject of having just enough knowledge that leads to power...
I give you Exhibit A. GOOGLE EARTH.
Just type in a city, state or country and zippitydoodah you're looking at a satellite photograph of that location. Then you can get more and more detail by zooming in or tilting the 3D image...what could be bad about that, right?
Who wouldn't want to see Disneyland from above?
Or maybe Vatican City?
No big deal right? How about something more sensitive...maybe Hoover Dam?
If you don't understand where I'm going with this yet maybe the next image will make it clear...
That's Groom Lake in Nevada, otherwise known as Area 51.
My problem with Google Earth is exactly what it was made for.
Google Earth puts knowledge into the hands of the people, and not just those that would use the knowledge for good or fun (Like me) but also into the hands of those that would use this information to harm or plan to harm others.
I just don't think this sort of information should be available to anybody who wants it!
You may call me paranoid but I call Google Earth a security risk.
posted by Benji at 8:30 AM
4 Comments:
I don't think you sound one bit of paranoid... I feel the same way. Actually, Alejandro showed me Google Earth about 2-3 months ago and that's the first conversation we had about it. It was creepy for me to look up my mom's address and be able to see EVERYTHING right down to the shadow of the basketball hoop!!! WTF?!?!? You would think there would be some type of censoring or blockage but I guess there is not. I have only been able to look at it for about 5-10 minutes, so I didn't get too creative... but someone should look up AREA 51.
My bad, Ben... I guess I didn't scroll all the way down to see that you already found AREA 51.
Does anybody know Pam Anderson's address? I hear she sunbathes...
Seriously! And this isn't even close to the quality of pictures and live feeds that our government has access to!
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