Wistful for Trivia

Immediate access to information via the internet is a fantastic thing. I honestly don't know how we used to get along beforehand, for instance how could someone plan a trip to Seattle, to take a ferry to Whidbey island prior to the internet? Now, we just click a couple links, book a couple things online, find out the schedule and head to Seattle... Before the internet/www how did we even know that specific ferry existed?

The larger point is "how did we ever know anything" before yahoo (ok, I'm dating myself here but before google was a verb, the best search engine imho was yahoo (what else did you have, altavista? webcrawler?)). In grad school we used to play games where we would ask random "consultant" type interview questions like: "How many weddings take place in Mexico City every year?" The reason we did this was simple: in physics (the discipline I did my graduate school in) it was crucial to know what to expect from a calculation before you did the actual calculation. Otherwise how would you know if you were right?

But now, if you were asked that same question you'd just google it (ah, there I go, using it as a verb.... as Calvin (of Calvin&Hobbes) said "verbing weirds languages.) This fact -- that we can just google things -- really diminishes the role of trivia in our culture. I remember when it I was young, reading books called "The Straight Dope" where people would write questions about random topics and the author (an authority on random trivia) would respond. We can't even begin to think about that delay! Could you imagine submitting a google request and waiting not only for a person to read your query, but for them to draft a response, and then compile about a hundred or so similar queries and then publish a book compiling the results?!? On the one hand it seem ludicrous in today's standards, but on the other it means...

There is no more trivia. I personally think this is sad. How many times have you sat around and the conversation deteriorated to "ok lets just google it"? That statement is as empowering as it is sad. As we embrace the new information age, we should be cognizant of what we're leaving behind.