There’s a story by Jorge Luís Borges called “The Library of Babel.” It
describes a fantastical library composed of an apparently infinite
number of identical rooms. Each room contains 1,050 books. Printed on
the pages are words whose lettering and order are apparently random.
Because the library is complete, among the gibberish it also contains
every book that is possible, every book that could ever be written. It
also contains every imaginable variation of every book possible,
whether that variation is off by thousands of letters or by a single
comma. Borges adds that it must contain, somewhere, a book that
explains the meaning and origin of the library itself – just as it
contains thousands of variations of that book, true and false. He
writes, “When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books,
the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt
themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure…As was
natural, this inordinate hope was followed by an excessive depression.” The internet – with its glut not only of information but of
misinformation, and of information that is only slightly correct, or
only slightly incorrect – fills me with this same weird mixture of
happiness and depression.