Consulting the Oracle

What I see happening more and more is the crowd-sourcing of knowledge, asking questions one can easily find in a Google search, yet asking them in Facebook groups or on Quora or Reddit. I sense this is done to attract attention, rather than of genuine curiosity. People want community however they can get it these days, even if it is asking silly questions (What's the interval of F-triple flat to A triple-flat?). It's the worst way of learning.

I used to say I learned music "on the street" before I studied it formally. This is the way rock 'n' roll (and even jazz) worked in the radio days, still an extension of the 'oral tradition'. The early Internet extended the oral tradition as the new Street, now the Street is social media. There will be other avenues of learning, probably with robots on them. We may already be there, as I have been suspicious of Quora as possibly creating bots to ask questions to make the site more 'sticky'.

Umberto Eco posited in an essay in 2006 (pre-social media), "What's the point of having a teacher?":