Making the Web Safe for Research

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” -- Charles McKay

Wired Magazine says the web is dead. They say that two decades were spent: (a) planting the mass media seeds of e-commerce; and (b) dispelling all doubt that any non-Google property downstream of this snake oil spill was going to prosper from it.

Whether all sites and pages can now be reduced to apps and devices remains to be seen. But I fervently hope that the marketers reading these signs run for the exits. Wired would have us believe each storefront is littered with abandoned shopping carts. Bargain-crazed shopaholics can only keep so many uncertainties in their stomachs and details in their heads. Big box retailers are dismantling their web domains and firewalling their fortunes to their own Internet turf safe -- a gated community of high margin members. That information superhighway is turning into a private driveway patrolled by in-house security.

This sounds like we're taking that narrow speculative turn towards the narrative that casts down the little girls and guys. It's the lost cause pamphleteering for net neutrality. It's the New York Times ceasing to publish all the news that's fit to print (in a print edition). Hell, the fall semester is upon us and Amherst Mass is down to a single record store -- that's on or off-web.

I'm rooting for all that doom-perbole to come to pass. But it's not because a darker web will be a dead one. I will hold open any rear entry that the big advertisers and the catalog herders wish to exit. Then us researchers, scientists, and writers can thank them all for this gorgeous infrastructure they left us.

My first pre-HTTP shopping trip was taken on a 300 baud modem through a passage way called Tymnet. My fellow info-brokers in the Quick Information Center at FIND/SVP would brag how we could stack our line commands ahead of our logins so that our per article charges were actually higher than our connect fees -- up to $150/hour for Investext -- the forerunner of Thomson Financial. And what glistening product commanded those early nineties recession-based fees? It was a stack of unadorned print-outs. The most visually appealing part of the whole package was the enhancement of bracketing keywords with asterisks:

[set KWIC *]

That way the readout would display as...

"*Forecasts* and *projections* for canned peaches are not so keen and that's not the only ominous sign for *corrugated packaging* executives in the coming year."

That was how the magic happened.

Nowadays we marvel at our distraction-prone and paperless world, having let go any notion that a planet turning this fast could ever pause long enough to get its documentation in order. But as the hyperstimulated flea the web for the ways of fee-based information, us analog online natives will have the web to ourselves.

Better still we will embrace the unclaimed property that answers to mouse clicks once or more removed from the dollar sign radar. The surfing days of non-searchers are waning. For those of us who prize learning as the ultimate getaway, our best investigations lie ahead. For every scattered and boredom-deprived gamer at home in his electronic playground, I guarantee this: There will be an unflappable researcher with an unbreakable concentration leveled at attentions worthy of payment.

So we can mine our browsers for all the facts, opinions, and cash neutral transactions otherwise lost in this hasty retreat. We may even go "off" line to gather distance -- both physically and mentally an increasingly scarce commodity. Will there be a place for that in tomorrow's Internet? Meet me on the World Wide Web and we'll talk.

Making the Web Safe for Research

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” -- Charles McKay

Wired Magazine says the web is dead. They say that two decades were spent: (a) planting the mass media seeds of e-commerce; and (b) dispelling all doubt that any non-Google property downstream of this snake oil spill was going to prosper from it.

Whether all sites and pages can now be reduced to apps and devices remains to be seen. But I fervently hope that the marketers reading these signs run for the exits. Wired would have us believe each storefront is littered with abandoned shopping carts. Bargain-crazed shopaholics can only keep so many uncertainties in their stomachs and details in their heads. Big box retailers are dismantling their web domains and firewalling their fortunes to their own Internet turf safe -- a gated community of high margin members. That information superhighway is turning into a private driveway patrolled by in-house security.

This sounds like we're taking that narrow speculative turn towards the narrative that casts down the little girls and guys. It's the lost cause pamphleteering for net neutrality. It's the New York Times ceasing to publish all the news that's fit to print (in a print edition). Hell, the fall semester is upon us and Amherst Mass is down to a single record store -- that's on or off-web.

I'm rooting for all that doom-perbole to come to pass. But it's not because a darker web will be a dead one. I will hold open any rear entry that the big advertisers and the catalog herders wish to exit. Then us researchers, scientists, and writers can thank them all for this gorgeous infrastructure they left us.

My first pre-HTTP shopping trip was taken on a 300 baud modem through a passage way called Tymnet. My fellow info-brokers in the Quick Information Center at FIND/SVP would brag how we could stack our line commands ahead of our logins so that our per article charges were actually higher than our connect fees -- up to $150/hour for Investext -- the forerunner of Thomson Financial. And what glistening product commanded those early nineties recession-based fees? It was a stack of unadorned print-outs. The most visually appealing part of the whole package was the enhancement of bracketing keywords with asterisks:

[set KWIC *]

That way the readout would display as...

"*Forecasts* and *projections* for canned peaches are not so keen and that's not the only ominous sign for *corrugated packaging* executives in the coming year."

That was how the magic happened.

Nowadays we marvel at our distraction-prone and paperless world, having let go any notion that a planet turning this fast could ever pause long enough to get its documentation in order. But as the hyperstimulated flea the web for the ways of fee-based information, us analog online natives will have the web to ourselves.

Better still we will embrace the unclaimed property that answers to mouse clicks once or more removed from the dollar sign radar. The surfing days of non-searchers are waning. For those of us who prize learning as the ultimate getaway, our best investigations lie ahead. For every scattered and boredom-deprived gamer at home in his electronic playground, I guarantee this: There will be an unflappable researcher with an unbreakable concentration leveled at attentions worthy of payment.

So we can mine our browsers for all the facts, opinions, and cash neutral transactions otherwise lost in this hasty retreat. We may even go "off" line to gather distance -- both physically and mentally an increasingly scarce commodity. Will there be a place for that in tomorrow's Internet? Meet me on the World Wide Web and we'll talk.

Parse-Snips: Up Close and Impersonal

This remember the Ground Zero Alamo stuff around the Cordoba Mosque has everything going for it: two opposing teams, a murder scene, demagoguery, bullhorns, and a global audience that can say we-told-you-so no matter what's been communicated by which side.

This story's legs are so long that we don't have to wait for the economy to recover, the next spill to evaporate, or the insurgents to reload their rhetorical weapons. But there is one element missing here. And it just may turn out the lights before the next line of stem cells is showing trace elements of salmonella poisoning.

There are no coveted interviews awaiting attention-starved witness-experts of the paranormal infidels. There are no human circus acts posing as brokers between victims and perpetrators. Pending any celebrity appearances there are no book deals or screen rights in the balance. With little chance of a false confession, embarrassing disclosure, or an ingratiating nut bug to keep the cameras rolling, this story has no leading star. Just bit players. But what did we expect? No laws have been broken in the sale of this property.

A Cause Smaller than Ourselves

There are two teams but neither one lays claim to a single magnetic contestant. The mulahs are all too pleased to don their dark road jerseys on our competitive-crazed home turf. But with no stars in the lineup and the nagging potential that both sides have a point, the air time will escape from this balloon long before it pops.

And even if there was a whiff of corruption, it's mired in the intricacies of leasing agreements and zoning restrictions. Not exactly the gavel-pounding foray into a cable news auction for the fuzziest cellphone photo.

The problem with this story is that it's about principles and policies. We expect debating points to be packaged as shouting matches masquerading as contests of ideas. But our attentions will not hold to this level of abstraction. NPR's Morning Edition reported this morning that only 41% of all Americans even knew one of the billion-and-a-quarter Muslims on the planet. It's hard to personalize a story when you don't know the characters.

That's a whole lot of fuel burned for keeping close to home. And that's where those attentions will stay barring the collision of continental shelves set adrift by climate change or the next big militant Islamist outbreak inside our clammy and porous borders.

When We Come Back

A movie deal is still attainable. A self-appointed victim steps forward a year from now to bask in the 10th year anniversary of 9-11. They're onto something and promise to spill fresh explosives on these dying embers.

Why will they have waited a year?
Will their story be riddled with inconsistencies?
Are the retainers of their own legal teams riding on these answers?

The vetting of that process is not to be an interview topic because it compromises the talent and the networks: "It's a very defined underworld of behavior that people really don't talk about," says a former storybroker in the News merchant piece by Sheelah Kolhatkar running in the current issue of the Atlantic.

It's also the one history lesson of competitive politicking that bears repeating.

We conclude with a new term and three of its casualties:

The competifying of politics

1. - Thoughtful debate ("you have a point")
2. - Just punishment ("debt to society")
3. - Win-win situations (the "greater good")

Parse-Snips: Up Close and Impersonal

This remember the Ground Zero Alamo stuff around the Cordoba Mosque has everything going for it: two opposing teams, a murder scene, demagoguery, bullhorns, and a global audience that can say we-told-you-so no matter what's been communicated by which side.

This story's legs are so long that we don't have to wait for the economy to recover, the next spill to evaporate, or the insurgents to reload their rhetorical weapons. But there is one element missing here. And it just may turn out the lights before the next line of stem cells is showing trace elements of salmonella poisoning.

There are no coveted interviews awaiting attention-starved witness-experts of the paranormal infidels. There are no human circus acts posing as brokers between victims and perpetrators. Pending any celebrity appearances there are no book deals or screen rights in the balance. With little chance of a false confession, embarrassing disclosure, or an ingratiating nut bug to keep the cameras rolling, this story has no leading star. Just bit players. But what did we expect? No laws have been broken in the sale of this property.

A Cause Smaller than Ourselves

There are two teams but neither one lays claim to a single magnetic contestant. The mulahs are all too pleased to don their dark road jerseys on our competitive-crazed home turf. But with no stars in the lineup and the nagging potential that both sides have a point, the air time will escape from this balloon long before it pops.

And even if there was a whiff of corruption, it's mired in the intricacies of leasing agreements and zoning restrictions. Not exactly the gavel-pounding foray into a cable news auction for the fuzziest cellphone photo.

The problem with this story is that it's about principles and policies. We expect debating points to be packaged as shouting matches masquerading as contests of ideas. But our attentions will not hold to this level of abstraction. NPR's Morning Edition reported this morning that only 41% of all Americans even knew one of the billion-and-a-quarter Muslims on the planet. It's hard to personalize a story when you don't know the characters.

That's a whole lot of fuel burned for keeping close to home. And that's where those attentions will stay barring the collision of continental shelves set adrift by climate change or the next big militant Islamist outbreak inside our clammy and porous borders.

When We Come Back

A movie deal is still attainable. A self-appointed victim steps forward a year from now to bask in the 10th year anniversary of 9-11. They're onto something and promise to spill fresh explosives on these dying embers.

Why will they have waited a year?
Will their story be riddled with inconsistencies?
Are the retainers of their own legal teams riding on these answers?

The vetting of that process is not to be an interview topic because it compromises the talent and the networks: "It's a very defined underworld of behavior that people really don't talk about," says a former storybroker in the News merchant piece by Sheelah Kolhatkar running in the current issue of the Atlantic.

It's also the one history lesson of competitive politicking that bears repeating.

We conclude with a new term and three of its casualties:

The competifying of politics

1. - Thoughtful debate ("you have a point")
2. - Just punishment ("debt to society")
3. - Win-win situations (the "greater good")

Living Outside the Discomfort Zone

At my son's last IEP meeting the district SPED director threw out one of those warm, fuzzy compliments that could penetrate the battle armor of the most game-faced, contrarian parent. For the parent of a special needs kid this is not about making the honor role or the JV squad or the likeliest to become whatever classified aspirations define success in 2010 America. She applauded him for his courage and open-mindedness for trying new challenges.

He, his mom, and me all nodded with the understanding that no new road is traveled on at all without a sense of boldness no matter how pedestrian that adventure may seem -- even if the exploration is testing out his fondness for opening new chapters that are closely affiliated with his core interests. But the explorer role comes with its own set of boundaries and limits. Some are nature, some nurture -- none of them are open to negotiation either in an organized school meeting or in other tests of will and a willingness to grow:

* He can't attempt more than a single test at one time. The inability to tackle multiple steps impairs all follow-up actions before any momentum for change can build, e.g. learning how to drive while simultaneously holding a job in order to save up for a car.

* He will not advance to a next level or willingly expand a commitment. To take a liking to something is to fortify all boundaries with comfort and compliance. Once the comfort zone is set in place, it will not stretch -- no matter how much he enjoys the activity.

* He will not coordinate his own program because that's messing with "the schedule." The schedule refers to the third rail that lies between "the pull" of the status quo and the "push"of his unexplored potential.

The stronger the push, the more resistant the pull has become. It will endure until the day he concludes that passive acceptance is a choice -- not a disability -- and that there is much to make of himself in ways he can't possibly know now. Until that day he will continue to call on girls who string him along because they don't have the gumption to break someone whose heart is as pure as his senses are dull to the slights of nonverbal cues.

That same reluctance to turn him down for a date may well be the same reason the SPED director's praises carry a patronizing ring and the same reason that after a few hours on the road he is confident of passing his road test. That's because he's used to being told that any mental sparks beyond retardation levels are crowning achievements. The truth is that his intelligence is as vast as it is undeveloped. That would not fit within the schedule, comfort zone, or the number of steps it would take to address. In addition to his kindness and expressive self he is also handsome and could be quite a catch -- once the girl catching him is free to be his companion and not his surrogate mother.

It is always going to be easier to step in and save the day than it is to let events running their own course to teach the next class. You don't have to be a helicopter parent to be deaf to the most debilitating phrase we clueless parents ever taught our special needs kids:

"Here. Let me try that..."

That doesn't mean we do it all while they sit idly by. But if we plan their next driving lesson, floor the gas, point the wheel, and fill the tank, it's important that our student drivers assume more of the responsibilities the next cycle through. Completing a task that's 90% pre-finished means beginning the next time at 80% complete, and so on.

Another well-intended but self-defeating lesson is to script them when petitioning on our own behalf. For instance a state agency we've been working with encourages potential employers to take on disabled workers with cash incentives to train and pay them while still pocketing a meaningful margin for their efforts.

Now try putting that into some persuasive talking points as my son re-approaches the dozen or more rejections he got from employers when he inquired about summer jobs back in June. Not only does that mean going off-script the moment a question arises but he is unclear how to propose, advance, or close a deal that would include something as complex and threatening as a 3 or 4 way negotiation that crosses over into each of his discomfort zones.

A simpler more tangible way to focus on an achievable goal is to teach him how to ride mass transit so that getting on by himself on the city bus to community college becomes less an adventure and more one of those things he does. Once we achieve second nature status all those formula-rattling multistep problems can be addressed -- in one less step.

Living Outside the Discomfort Zone

At my son's last IEP meeting the district SPED director threw out one of those warm, fuzzy compliments that could penetrate the battle armor of the most game-faced, contrarian parent. For the parent of a special needs kid this is not about making the honor role or the JV squad or the likeliest to become whatever classified aspirations define success in 2010 America. She applauded him for his courage and open-mindedness for trying new challenges.

He, his mom, and me all nodded with the understanding that no new road is traveled on at all without a sense of boldness no matter how pedestrian that adventure may seem -- even if the exploration is testing out his fondness for opening new chapters that are closely affiliated with his core interests. But the explorer role comes with its own set of boundaries and limits. Some are nature, some nurture -- none of them are open to negotiation either in an organized school meeting or in other tests of will and a willingness to grow:

* He can't attempt more than a single test at one time. The inability to tackle multiple steps impairs all follow-up actions before any momentum for change can build, e.g. learning how to drive while simultaneously holding a job in order to save up for a car.

* He will not advance to a next level or willingly expand a commitment. To take a liking to something is to fortify all boundaries with comfort and compliance. Once the comfort zone is set in place, it will not stretch -- no matter how much he enjoys the activity.

* He will not coordinate his own program because that's messing with "the schedule." The schedule refers to the third rail that lies between "the pull" of the status quo and the "push"of his unexplored potential.

The stronger the push, the more resistant the pull has become. It will endure until the day he concludes that passive acceptance is a choice -- not a disability -- and that there is much to make of himself in ways he can't possibly know now. Until that day he will continue to call on girls who string him along because they don't have the gumption to break someone whose heart is as pure as his senses are dull to the slights of nonverbal cues.

That same reluctance to turn him down for a date may well be the same reason the SPED director's praises carry a patronizing ring and the same reason that after a few hours on the road he is confident of passing his road test. That's because he's used to being told that any mental sparks beyond retardation levels are crowning achievements. The truth is that his intelligence is as vast as it is undeveloped. That would not fit within the schedule, comfort zone, or the number of steps it would take to address. In addition to his kindness and expressive self he is also handsome and could be quite a catch -- once the girl catching him is free to be his companion and not his surrogate mother.

It is always going to be easier to step in and save the day than it is to let events running their own course to teach the next class. You don't have to be a helicopter parent to be deaf to the most debilitating phrase we clueless parents ever taught our special needs kids:

"Here. Let me try that..."

That doesn't mean we do it all while they sit idly by. But if we plan their next driving lesson, floor the gas, point the wheel, and fill the tank, it's important that our student drivers assume more of the responsibilities the next cycle through. Completing a task that's 90% pre-finished means beginning the next time at 80% complete, and so on.

Another well-intended but self-defeating lesson is to script them when petitioning on our own behalf. For instance a state agency we've been working with encourages potential employers to take on disabled workers with cash incentives to train and pay them while still pocketing a meaningful margin for their efforts.

Now try putting that into some persuasive talking points as my son re-approaches the dozen or more rejections he got from employers when he inquired about summer jobs back in June. Not only does that mean going off-script the moment a question arises but he is unclear how to propose, advance, or close a deal that would include something as complex and threatening as a 3 or 4 way negotiation that crosses over into each of his discomfort zones.

A simpler more tangible way to focus on an achievable goal is to teach him how to ride mass transit so that getting on by himself on the city bus to community college becomes less an adventure and more one of those things he does. Once we achieve second nature status all those formula-rattling multistep problems can be addressed -- in one less step.

Investigation Entry

The cognitive psyches have weighed in and it's nearly unanimous -- a brain on wireless is one that's rewired. Our circuits are abuzz with new spongy cells burning neural pulses into the trendy new places brains like yours and mine are looking for action. We're as easy to find as the answers to our searches. That's because we're conversing freely and openly, punching our surfing sessions into Google-enabled keypads -- the MRI scoring each mental discharge.

Critics like Nicholas Carr argue that more neurons firing (or even faster processing) doesn't necessarily mean a brain capable of lucid thinking for sense-making or problem-solving in support of sound, evidence-based decisions:

"Dozens of studies by psychologists, neurobiologists, and educators point to the same conclusion: When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. Even as the Internet grants us easy access to vast amounts of information, it is turning us into shallower thinkers, literally changing the structure of our brain."

The more interesting question to me is not about brain shape or mental depth but the enfeebled analytical muscles of an unquestioning generation of digital natives. That's not to say Carr's cautionary polemic is an indictment of GenY. I'm sure for every would-be hedge fund trader there's a budding journalist willing to hold a day job too. But we've barely begun to assess the damage of coming of age in a world where:

* Capital (not English) is the universal language of the species

* First Amendment rights are surrendered with the wave of a coupon, and

* The healthy skepticism of an informed electorate is confused for the faltering missteps of a business model (that being the demise of newspapers and the cleansing power of public investigations)

Rather than lamenting the golden age of impeachable offenses it might be more productive to consider some of these recoverable assets if we taught investigation skills to home bound couch-surfers sniffing for cheese in their own white Google lab coats. Here are a few initial thoughts:

1) Paying for information doesn't necessarily mean a vendor or an identity thief owns your credit card. Another form of payment is attention. Short of subpoenaing a suspect's surfing sessions how does one capture that?

2) The web 2.0 world is a giant echo chamber when you're trying to be heard. But if you can tune your research ear you can better understand the motivations of your search targets and the social circles that they travel in.

3) With the advent of suggested search Google is now in the business of completing your thoughts for you -- or at least sketch them out early enough to reward their Ad Word buyers for their advertising dollars. Other than to follow the herd there is no useful purpose to keywording one's way through a Google-based investigation.

4) A stealth researcher doesn't file FOIA requests or hack into the hard drive of a person of interest. They can use frameworks like Oceans, Lakes, and Ponds to determine where to search and source conjugation in order to determine what to believe.

5) It's not just about the right approach. The right tool-set is essential for knowing what evidence passes the smell test and comes with the pattern-matching potential the researcher needs to press their case. Here's what Carr has to say about the random and undisciplined way that critical mental thought rolls out to sea in most search sessions:

The depth of our intelligence hinges on our ability to transfer information from working memory, the scratch pad of consciousness, to long-term memory, the mind’s filing system. When facts and experiences enter our long-term memory, we are able to weave them into the complex ideas that give richness to our thought. But the passage from working memory to long-term memory also forms a bottleneck in our brain. Whereas long-term memory has an almost unlimited capacity, working memory can hold only a relatively small amount of information at a time. And that short-term storage is fragile: A break in our attention can sweep its contents from our mind.

That buffer that Carr finds lacking in working memory is a reservoir of resilient research exhibits called an RSS reader. Consider the sound operation of one to be the price of investigation entry.

So that's the start of teaching Gen-Yers how to teach themselves at the Academy of Higher Skepticism. When those questions become the properties of digital natives, the immigrants will feel a whole lot better about turning over the messes of our creation. We'll also stop waxing nostalgically for the big three networks, the Sunday papers, and paid subscription media.

Investigation Entry

The cognitive psyches have weighed in and it's nearly unanimous -- a brain on wireless is one that's rewired. Our circuits are abuzz with new spongy cells burning neural pulses into the trendy new places brains like yours and mine are looking for action. We're as easy to find as the answers to our searches. That's because we're conversing freely and openly, punching our surfing sessions into Google-enabled keypads -- the MRI scoring each mental discharge.

Critics like Nicholas Carr argue that more neurons firing (or even faster processing) doesn't necessarily mean a brain capable of lucid thinking for sense-making or problem-solving in support of sound, evidence-based decisions:

"Dozens of studies by psychologists, neurobiologists, and educators point to the same conclusion: When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. Even as the Internet grants us easy access to vast amounts of information, it is turning us into shallower thinkers, literally changing the structure of our brain."

The more interesting question to me is not about brain shape or mental depth but the enfeebled analytical muscles of an unquestioning generation of digital natives. That's not to say Carr's cautionary polemic is an indictment of GenY. I'm sure for every would-be hedge fund trader there's a budding journalist willing to hold a day job too. But we've barely begun to assess the damage of coming of age in a world where:

* Capital (not English) is the universal language of the species

* First Amendment rights are surrendered with the wave of a coupon, and

* The healthy skepticism of an informed electorate is confused for the faltering missteps of a business model (that being the demise of newspapers and the cleansing power of public investigations)

Rather than lamenting the golden age of impeachable offenses it might be more productive to consider some of these recoverable assets if we taught investigation skills to home bound couch-surfers sniffing for cheese in their own white Google lab coats. Here are a few initial thoughts:

1) Paying for information doesn't necessarily mean a vendor or an identity thief owns your credit card. Another form of payment is attention. Short of subpoenaing a suspect's surfing sessions how does one capture that?

2) The web 2.0 world is a giant echo chamber when you're trying to be heard. But if you can tune your research ear you can better understand the motivations of your search targets and the social circles that they travel in.

3) With the advent of suggested search Google is now in the business of completing your thoughts for you -- or at least sketch them out early enough to reward their Ad Word buyers for their advertising dollars. Other than to follow the herd there is no useful purpose to keywording one's way through a Google-based investigation.

4) A stealth researcher doesn't file FOIA requests or hack into the hard drive of a person of interest. They can use frameworks like Oceans, Lakes, and Ponds to determine where to search and source conjugation in order to determine what to believe.

5) It's not just about the right approach. The right tool-set is essential for knowing what evidence passes the smell test and comes with the pattern-matching potential the researcher needs to press their case. Here's what Carr has to say about the random and undisciplined way that critical mental thought rolls out to sea in most search sessions:

The depth of our intelligence hinges on our ability to transfer information from working memory, the scratch pad of consciousness, to long-term memory, the mind’s filing system. When facts and experiences enter our long-term memory, we are able to weave them into the complex ideas that give richness to our thought. But the passage from working memory to long-term memory also forms a bottleneck in our brain. Whereas long-term memory has an almost unlimited capacity, working memory can hold only a relatively small amount of information at a time. And that short-term storage is fragile: A break in our attention can sweep its contents from our mind.

That buffer that Carr finds lacking in working memory is a reservoir of resilient research exhibits called an RSS reader. Consider the sound operation of one to be the price of investigation entry.

So that's the start of teaching Gen-Yers how to teach themselves at the Academy of Higher Skepticism. When those questions become the properties of digital natives, the immigrants will feel a whole lot better about turning over the messes of our creation. We'll also stop waxing nostalgically for the big three networks, the Sunday papers, and paid subscription media.