| A second view is in terms of clutter and complexity. Information overload is often described as the basic problem of the post-industrial society. In the industrial society, we had too little energy; in the post-industrial society, we have too much information. However, this is like surveying a huge sm–rg”sbord and complaining about overload because we can not eat it all. In our outside-in education, in which being educated is viewed as stuffing oneself full of facts, we are overwhelmed by the fact that we could not even assimilate the contents of our local library in our lifetime. The inside-out teacher, who views education as growing from the inside out, welcomes our enriched environment. One of the few conclusions we psychologists have reached is that so-called stupid people grow up in impoverished environments and so-called smart people grow up in enriched environments. Beneath the pseudo-problem of information overload, however, there lurks a real problem of management of complexity. Our enriched objective world enables us to build a subtle, sophisticated subjective map of it. However, true complexity must be distinguished from mere clutter. The siliclone can be viewed as a means of removing the clutter of content so that one can see more clearly.
A third view is in terms of means and ends. The 'sili' in siliclone was originally seen as referring, of course, to silicon. However, it is beginning to carry an additional 'meaning'. We are all familiar with people who are not so much stupid as silly. Silliness refers to ends whereas stupidity refers to means. Silly people use perfectly good means to trivial ends. The Siliclone is 'silly' in this sense. It has powerful means but no worthy ends. The capacity for meaningful ends is the domain of natural intelligence. We should subsume means to ends by sub-contracting out means to our respective siliclones.
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