Closing Salvo

We are smart enough to realize we are stupid, and stupid enough to make the problem of becoming smarter hard.

—Anders Sandberg

You already saw that quote before, back in my opening salvo in Chapter 1. I happen to like it enough to bring it back. Douglas Engelbart is right: we do have tough problems to solve. It is time to take on the “stupid enough” part of the quote; Engelbart's notion of augmented collective intelligence lies as a key to collective improvement. I believe that the case has been made in this book that XML topic maps, when coupled with the Semantic Web and other technologies, offer a powerful set of tools in the great collaborative armamentarium we must construct in order to solve those tough problems. Steve Newcomb's ...

Get XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.