Quote:
'By the way is this a five minute argument or the full half hour?'
I've told you once!
On a serious note, I agree about technical stuff having its place, problem is that the technical stuff and simple straightforward stuff are joined at the hip. If the technical stuff is not understood then there will be an inability to advise or answer simple questions correctly. We can't seperate them. Now this doesn't mean that it is necessary for every birder to study optics, this would be unworkable as most are simply not interested enough. However, if a birder wants to understand optics properly, then he/she
does have to study optics.........and, if someone wants to advise others (such as article writers for example), they also have to study optics. If they don't, they mislead others, who then mislead others.....
ad infinitum, and we get an entire community who argue and debate points that no-one really understands.
Generally, in our consumer society, we tend to be trusting, partly because we want to trust, and also because to not trust means that we have work and hassle ahead of us if we want to find out some truth. This is why so many accept the entire theatre and fiction which is the true face of consumerism thrust upon us.
Similarly, we tend to trust those who inform and advise, often without question, not wishing to entertain the idea that he/she doing the advising may also be as in the dark as us, or perhaps with one more candle lit than we have. (Get a paperback copy of -
Platos' Republic, from any bookstore for £2/€3/$4, and read the allegory of The Cave).
Before the internet we had academic journals as the place to look for new knowledge and scientific breakthroughs. We still have these, and any academic of any worth will look to have scientific papers published in these. For those not interested in journals, but still wanted to know the answers to specific questions about a technical aspect of their hobby, for example, then we have consumer magazines. Reviews of various products in these magazines are no more than opinions, as it much more important for editorial staff to have journalistic and writing talents than fundamental product knowledge. Within our own hobby, this is particularly true with optics. I think this is mainly due to optics being a means to an end, a tool, to enable us to study what we really want to see.........the bird. As long as we think that we know how these tools work, and we can see that they work, then that's good enough.
Then comes the internet. We can now see many forums and "educational" sites, for virtually every hobby that use consumer goods. All are welcome to give their opinion, and fine, why not? Many are controlled by a commercial power and hence tainted a little because of it. Even those that are not, slowly become victims of political feuds (personal struggles for positions of power, not party politics I mean). Both of these phenomena that appear in societies, immediately take over as something that signifies a forum or website as being a warzone or a peaceful meadow.
However, if the website is controlled by level headed people, then hopefully we can weed out the detrimental aspects of these mini-societies.
For the first time in the history of human society, the internet can provide us with something we have not had before. The ordinary people now have a tool (a forum that we can essentially control in terms of information offered, and providing the lunatics are not running the assylum) that can be used to educate us properly, without the controlling methods of commercialism and political interference.
Christ! I sound like Karl Marx...........
Its up to us to ensure it works properly. If it doesn't, it will be because of our own stupidity.
Never mind, soon be Christmas! B
andytyle