The Semantic Web, Syllogisms, and Worldview
http://www.shirky.com/writings/semantic_syllogism.html

The W3C's Semantic Web project has been described in many ways over
the last few years: "an extension of the current web in which
information is given well-defined meaning" [1], "a place where
machines can analyze all the data on the Web" [2], even "a Web in
which machine reasoning will be ubiquitous and devastatingly
powerful." [3] The problem with descriptions this general, however, is
that they don't answer the obvious question: What is the Semantic Web
good for?

The simple answer is this: The Semantic Web is a machine for creating
syllogisms. A syllogism is a form of logic, first described by
Aristotle, where "...certain things being stated, something other than
what is stated follows of necessity from their being so."

The Semantic Web specifies ways of exposing assertions on the Web, so
that third parties can combine them to discover things that are true
but not specified directly. This is the promise of the Semantic Web --
it will improve all the areas of your life where you currently use
syllogisms.

Which is to say, almost nowhere.