The Worst Thing in the World ...worst practices...

Wangston's Law

by firebus

05/04/2008 - 14:41

Humans should not waste their time discussing any question that can be answered by a robot (google, wikipedia, etc.)

Meme

Comments

Sat, 09/06/2008 - 14:46 — Pastor's Daughter (not verified)

Heard about your law on NPR

So, out of curiousity, why just a statment, why no argument to back it up?

Mon, 09/08/2008 - 15:13 — firebus

I'm a talker, not a fighter...

I have no argument to back it up :) It's a personal preference. I haven't ever liked the kinds of conversations that Wangston's Law prohibits. IMO, the Internet's ability to answer all unimportant questions (correctly or not) makes purely factual conversation even less interesting.

Maybe there's a corollary with Information Theory, in that any statement that merely repeats data already available on the Internet contains less information than one that does not?

Mon, 09/08/2008 - 15:15 — firebus

Wangston's Law on Public Radio

The fantastic Krissy Clark did a show about Google's effect on casual conversation that mentions Wangston's Law.

Sat, 09/13/2008 - 17:02 — firebus

An avalanche of response to Wangston's Law

Traffic has increased by about 800% (from one view to eight views) since the story about Wangston's Law.

Living In Space wrote an excellent commentary that also proposes (and names) the opposite of this concept.

Since Krissy really misaligned (sic) me in her story, I'd like to take this chance to assure everyone that I will not tell you what to talk about at parties just because I have opinions about what you should not talk about at parties.