Week 4 - MBA 6101 - Let's Avoid the Dark Ages

Hello,

Information saved digitally for prosperity has two elements. First, the need to preserve the information, and second, the ability to understand the information at a future time. What good is collecting and storing all the data that mankind can muster if no one is able to make use of the information? Think of all the ancient Greek and Roman texts, that even if they were not lost in the Library of Alexandria, or the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols, would be unreadable due to the general lack of knowledge on how to read ancient Greek or Latin. Storage is one thing, but to be able to pull the information out of storage, blow the dust off, and make use of the information is quite another.

For one to retrieve the needed information is a start, but knowledge of the information is required to bring about anything of use. The answer is then education and continuous learning for mankind. Let the instructions be stowed away, but the knowledge of how to use must flow through communities. The fear is that when the information must be used, no one can decipher it. When this happens, the data might as well have been lost to the ages, because no good can come of it now.

How to encourage business and the market to care about knowledge, and the preservation of such? The answer mirrors textbook sales. Textbooks command a heavy price. The reason is the knowledge contained within can bring the reader a better position in life. Medical textbooks are preparing the reader to become a doctor, and the corresponding doctor’s salary. The value of knowledge is what will encourage the information’s preservation. For without the information, without the accumulation of knowledge, mankind will shift from learning the lessons of yesterday, to living day to day making the same errors.