What is considered intelligent？

 In the book Amusing Ourselves to death,  Neil Postman pointed out, in an oral culture people with good memory or people with power to invent compact sayings of wide applicability are considered intelligent. The good example is the wise Solomon, who had three thousand proverbs in his head.

While Postman did not explain the relationship between good memory and compact sayings, I found in another book Walter Ong cast a bunch of insight on this topic. Per Ong, compact saying or proverb, indeed, is the vital way for people in oral culture to store and exchange information. Imagine in the old oral time when there are no written words, memory is the only library you can refer to. A well composed proverb with rhythm not only conveys the literal meaning, but also stores the live scene where the story of the proverb happens, thus the proverb is perfect for memorizing and mouth to mouth communication.

Ong went further, compact saying or proverb is the way how people in oral culture think or tell the truth, in some tribes the proverb is the law.  It must be very interesting to watch a scene like this: in a south pacific tribe, two men were in such a serious conflict that one wanted to kill the other guy. The chief showed up and set up a court for the case. The old chief picked up one proverb from his head “mhm, dmas, sdaets” (Love is the only gold), spoke loudly to the two men, magically the case was settled, the two men shook hands and went back home peacefully: )  Now you can imagine Solomon, the man with three thousand proverbs in mind, how powerful and intelligent he was in his age.

Nowadays people who know a lot of proverbs should be considered old-styled or classical, rather than intelligent. You may ask what is considered intelligent today? Well, personally I really admire people who are with good memory and read a lot books. The culture in which I was brought up is a mixture of orality, printing and TV. In my childhood, most of the joy I got is in an oral environment, while most of the knowledge I learnt about the society and humanity is from TV; school is just all about examinations. I didn’t feel the importance of the printing until I was in the college, and fell in love with the girl all kinds of bizarre theories. I still have all the admiration to the great intelligence in the oral or printing culture, even though I’ve been immersed in the electrical and the Internet age today.  

What is considered intelligent in the Internet age? I don’t know the answer yet, but I believe playing with real-time information is dangerous to the intelligence cuz it makes you an information processor rather than a wisdom owner.  Knowing a lot of information in the Internet age is not like reading a lot book in the printing age, you are overwhelmed with information and has little time to think.

Say, if you still treat the Internet as a tool, then knowing how to make best use of the tool can be intelligent. With this powerful tool, you could make your life easier. However, if the Internet is no more a tool to you, you just live a virtual life in the cybernetic space, probably you don’t need intelligence any longer. Become the bot of the Great Wisdom, you’ll never die.

Google+: Verify your name against the LAW or against YOU?

I know there are already too much buzzing on the Google+ name and profiles topics,  to my surprise, people are that serious in the discussion, kind of austere. Isn’t it a simple 1+1=2 problem?

OK, here are my 2 cents, just for fun, or to be more serious :D

Verify your name against the LAW or against YOU ?

This is the key point. Why does Google+ want to verify your name? Google acts like it wants to obey the law, and wants its users to obey the law too. 

Look at Google Community Standards the listing items: Nudity and sexually explicit material, Hate Speech... etc. All of standards are just there to ensure the users obeying the community rule or the US law.  

Gundotra also explained to Scoble, "it is about having common names and removing people who spell their names in weird ways, like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like 'god' or worse."'

That’s fine, if the purpose of verifying the user’s name is to obey the law, Google have my 100% support, and I really like an online community in good order.

However,  just listen to all those noise from Google+ killing user’s account：

Google Plus Bans Creator of Firefox, For Using His Real Name
Google Bans Facebook Product Director Blake Ross From Google+

Obviously Google wants to do more than obeying the law, Google wants to verify your name against YOU--who are you?  (OK Google, no bothering, even I myself don’t know who I am, that’s a sophistical philosophical question. ) 

That’s the reason why you see so many mis-killings here. For an online Service, it’s a mission impossible to verify all the user names against the users, that’s the job of the Global Government, which hasn’t born yet.

Not to mention the case that Google could even mis-kill the account names in English(how? you said you understand English the best!), if the account names are in languages other than English,  there is no way for Google to fully verify the user name against the user.  The name is more than the words, it’s culture, fame, trust, virtue...

I was thinking Google’s purpose of verifying the user’s name is to obey the law, which is the right and exact job an online service provider needs to do, but Google just did it in a wrong way. However, if Google insists on verifying the user name against the user, here is my suggestion: outsource the effort to the Google+ users.

More important than real name, real relationship, real interaction and real engagement are the keys to define who you are.  If It’s impossible for Google to verify the user, the connections to that user can verify it. By its words, posting or interaction, other users can easily make judgement whether the account is fake or not.  This method applies to both normal users or celebrities. The only risk is it takes some time. Here Google needs to exert its effort: provide verification mechanism to celebrities, to minimize the chaos a fake celebrity might bring in. For all the other verification effort, just leave it to the Google+ community.

Google+ is a great social site, it should accommodate all the diversities as in the real social world: pseudo name, real name, different cultures, and provide a good mechanism for people to join in and enjoy.