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The secret mission of E2 is to train us to be reference librarians

created by dj

(idea) by dj (6.6 d) (print)   ?   2 C!s I like it! Sat Aug 12 2000 at 4:26:30

I feel I am being brainwashed, but in a healthy, I-know-this-will-benefit-me-some-day kind of way.
I believe everything2 wants to reshape the world as reference librarians! Think about it, in order to write or review a node, you have to think of information and evaluate its worth to your audience, its source, and the best way to disseminate it. Then you have to think of as many related ideas/things/people/places as you can and how they all relate to each other, (cross referencing).
Finally, you organize your information and contribute it to a database, (e2). Just like a reference librarian (except for the adding to the database part).

I am still left wondering though, why reference librarians? This is all good brain exercise, I admit...all that cross referencing builds up dendrite networks in our noodles.
But, is it some altruistic desire to make us more competent at taking care of ourselves? Are we being prepared for alien enslavement on a planet with no system of organization?

(idea) by DJuxtaposition (8.8 mon) (print)   ?   1 C! I like it! Thu Jan 11 2001 at 4:11:00

If anything, we'd be preparing to escape from alien enslavement on a planet with no system of organization, for we, the high and mighty of the 'referentiationists' (ha ha), would be able to organize things and put them in categories where they belong.

Of course, in keeping with our everything tribal laws, we'd have to have lots of stuff to organize, and we'd need to put the same thing in multiple categories, or the same categories, with different names. After that, we'd have to get to know everyone, and then try to erase that knowledge (unless some people enjoyed it). Following this series of actions, we'd probably start breaking the categories we already had into smaller categories, or examining the things around us in such amazing and minute detail that we'd have to break down our observations into many parts, so as to raise our status in the tribe and impress those around us.

Other people would just start making up and telling stories, in an attempt to earn fame among the prisoners, possibly lending their friends a hand so that they too, may participate in the molding of this new society, struggling against the bonds of alien enslavement. Those who failed at this would begin flinging insults randomly at the higher ups of the society, and those who'd become bored with the life would move about in secrecy and silence, subverting or assisting others while slowly increasing their prestige and influence.

Hmmm... Maybe we wouldn't escape at all. Well, then again, maybe Beltane would just lay the smack down on them.

Yeah, right. And I'm a ninja.


printable version
chaos

Librarianship You make that sound like a bad thing The Originist Reference librarian
I'm changing the climate! Ask me how The Newbie's Guide to Your Home Node The Library of Babel Beltane
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library Young Librarians on the Go I'm trippin' my nut sack into a frenzy of dik play Lesbian Techniques
random insult throwing Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a bricklayer! The Faceted Television Episode Guide-O-Matic Classification Scheme I dreamt of rejection and lost library books
National Archives of Canada Someone left the cake out in the rain Troll for the Ages Aristotle's Lost Library, Medieval Andalusia & Chinese Paper, or How Europe Learned to Learn Again and Why the Renaissance Happened When & Where It Did
Reference Opus Number Speaking in tongues I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
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