I made this reply to a friend who commented on Amelia Beamer’s thoughts on LOST as Hyperlinked Storytelling and I thought it was worth posting here as well:
It’s really the entrance of the technique in storytelling that is the important part. Back in the mid 90’s “The Clue Train Manifesto” talked about the fundamental shift of our culture to a Hyperlinked culture. Most folks agree with it but it’s arrival as a means of information exchange so natural that people didn’t give it a second thought really highlights it as a fundamental shift.
This is where I think Academia is not just stumbling but falling down. People grow their knowledge in a less linear way now, choosing different safe starting points based on their particular interests and individual knowledge and grow out from there. In a strange way this is more modeled after the actual Big Bang in that space appeared all at once rather than a linear expansion from a single point. I think the biggest reason Universities risk becoming irrelevant isn’t so much that it isn’t a job training program, as if often cited, but because it’s methods are becoming increasingly seen as inefficient and self serving toward it’s survival as an industry.
| Originally published at Flagon With The Dragon |
