Humanity will survive information deluge - Sir Arthur C Clarke: Sir Arthur Clarke spoke with science writer Nalaka Gunawardene at his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka: "I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that, on balance, even bad TV is preferable to no TV at all. [...] Because we frequently suffer from the scourge of information pollution, we find it hard to imagine its even deadlier opposite – information starvation. I get very annoyed when I hear arguments – usually from those who have been educated beyond their intelligence – about the virtues of keeping happy, backwards people in ignorance. [...] Just as our ancestors quickly realised that no one was going to force them to read the entire library of a thousand books, we are now overcoming the initial alarm at the sheer weight of available information – and coming to understand that it is not the information itself that determines our future, only the use we can make of it."

# Dec 8, 2003