The Information Paradox of Mindanao

Back in Grade School, in the Ateneo the Cagayan elementary library, I came upon a very nice European Science Fiction Comic Book. It was a very well illustrated story of a human-like civilization in a futuristic city assisted by a World Computer. Sounds Familiar? If it isnt Yahoo, its google. to get your email or your search engine running, requires a very large complex, with thousands of units working in unison to give answers to millions of people every day.

And we use these services for a very minimal fee.

The difference between my Google and the World Computer (WC) in my childhood novel is this; Google is a very powerful information sorting, classifying and disseminating machine. The WC knows how to talk to its disciples in English ( or Tagalog or Bisaya), and gives wisdom and practical advice on local matters.

Now that does not mean Google is just a sorting machine; it can literally find dead on any particular piece of information on almost any topic ever discussed, which is quite quite powerful, if you know how to search for it. Google satisfies my need for this 10000000000%.

Its the local content that disturbs me. I literally know more about the world than I do about the activities here in Mindanao. I hardly know whats happening in the neighbouring provinces outside of that which appears in Media.

And that, I guess, is where some of my next searches will begin....