PREFACE

The map of knowledge is changed beyond recognition. On every side we see new mechanisms and agencies with consequent change to the foundations of our day-to-day. In many ways we are farther from the youth of our grandparents, even from the youth of our parents, than were they from the middle ages. This is ordinary evidence of extraordinary technological advance. Everything is, or can be, connected. Everything has options and the options are endless. The most pressing dilemma of modern society is the scarcity of time.

Access to information is, in the broadest terms, is profoundly possible. The scarcity of time requires shortcuts and simplifications, a system of heuristics for knowledge. This system, however, is disfigured by cross-domain conflicts of interest. Businesses opened shop on Main street for the same reason a news website is an advertising nightmare. What is pitched as quick and easy is often a vehicle for opportunism, both political and fiscal. Despite universally growing access to nearly everything, we, as humans, can still manage to somehow land on the same page. And that is something worth admiration.

This Encyclopaedia is meant to reflect today’s standard of what constitutes as boring. Just a place with links to other places. No ulteriors. No built-in social integration. Slow, thoughtful, and immensely inspired by the abundance of knowledge..