Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Conversation continues... Cross examination. In Emergence Fantasies, Richard Bennett challenges Joi Ito's Emergent Democracy essay (which Joi continues to redraft). Richard begins, One of the things I like about geeks is our charming belief in the inherent goodness of human nature; this is also one of the things that annoys me about geeks. I like to make fun of the geeks who believe that some new widget is going to end world hunger, liberate the human spirit, and usher in a new era of utopia. Not that technology doesn't improve and extend human life in all sorts of ways, but there's always some element of self-deception in the most extreme of these utopian fantasies. Interestingly, the self-deception generally rests on the assumption that the great mass of humans are basically just as clever and just as compassionate, sensitive, and generous as the nerds engaging in the utopian exercise. As errors go, this is an especially interesting one to make, sort of a false humility to the max, only maybe it's not false. The latest and clearest example of nerdly utopianism is Joi Ito's essay on Emergent Democracy. I'm not exactly sure what Emergent Democracy is, even after reading the paper, since he doesn't exactly bother to define it, but it seems to have something to do with ant colonies, blogs, and the excitation of columns of brain cells by these things called "thoughts", which turn into "understandings" when enough of them are set in motion... And he concludes, So I'd like to suggest an exercise for our utopian technologists: show how your technology can affect the passage of a legislative bill on a measure close to your heart; then try to make it happen in real life, and analyze why your expected result didn't materialize. Then let's talk about world hunger. Richard and others also weigh in with comments at Joi's blog. [The Doc Searls Weblog] comment [] 10:00:52 AM

A clip for explaining Weblogs For those who care to read this site, you may wonder why I just drop in clips from folks talking about why they weblog.  Well, I have an interest (almost academic) in any tool that enables folks to feel involved and to express their thoughts.  This debate about whether bloggers are journalists, while amusing, really doesn't begin to focus on what the true power of blogs may become -- a mass blender of conversations that sways opinion and finally policy.  You don't have to be an expert to have an opinion -- a fact that probably irritates many "journalists" and mass advertisers who want you to follow rather than lead, or God forbid, think independently. Why weblogs are cool. Imagine a News.Com or NY Times article about the deal we're talking about. I might be able to get a sound bite in there, but that would be it. There would likely be a transcription error, so maybe I'd be quoted saying something I don't agree with, and it would also likely not be my best quote. But most important, people reading the article would not likely find out what I really think. And if new information was revealed over time, or for some reason my perspective shifted, that would not be part of the article because they only do one article about any given news event. Because I have a weblog, I can write about it at length, several times. I can write until I'm finished. If you don't care, that's cool too, you can hit the Back button. But I get to say what I want, and I can get it right, and if I don't there's a fresh empty page tomorrow that I'm going to fill, Murphy-willing of course. [Scripting News] comment [] 9:59:37 AM

Sell what?. What I love about blogging is the way we inform each other. As a knowledge-expansion system, it scales like nothing else in the world. But that's not what we always do. Sometimes we flame as hard as any Usenet group. Hate to say it, but that's what Steve MacLaughlin does in Blogger Sells Out. In his first paragraph, Steve says, Who knows what plans Google has for the company, or more importantly the over 1 million registered users of the service. In the next he says, It's just one company deciding they can take out the little guy for some printed paper, and the little guy gets released from his silicon handcuffs. It's just another company that you thought was different proving that they're just like all the other sell outs. Then he compares the sale of Pyra to Google with Ben & Jerry's $326 million sale to Unilever — an Xtreme analogy at best. While Steve disclaims his post by closing with This moment of sarcasm has been brought to you by the letter "B", I'm still reminded of the truth behind what Burningbird wrote two days ago in Google is not God, Webloggers are not capital-j journalists, the only thing emerging is my fear of war, and a headache. Sez she: When it comes to world news and opinion, he or she who gets the most links, wins in the world of weblogging. Those with the pareto charts and your esoteric algorithims of popularity tend to prove this out. According to the charts, rather than a new form of connectivity, we're really just another instance typical of medieval community: with the indifferent, smug supremacy of the elite at the top and rule by the mob at the bottom (we know about the viablity of mob rule for fair and ethical treatment of either person or subject). Within this view, occasionally the mob and the elite might join forces, briefly, and we might help with a story, such as Trent Lott and his big mouth. For the most part, though, we're a bunch of editorialists without much concern for research, fact checking, or accuracy. That's okay, though, because I didn't start writing this to become yet another journalist-wanna be. Nor an elite. Nor part of a mob. I happen to think we have neither elites nor mobs here, esoteric research notwithstanding. But I agree with BB that our conclusions should follow some facts. The "who knows" in Steve's first paragraph does not support all the supposition that follows. We know approximately nothing about the Google-Pyra deal. In fact, we know less than nothing, in a way, since Ev has sadly stopped blogging for awhile. Sez he, I'm a little busy right now, retooling for a different life. So I've taken the blog offline to clear my head. If Google fucks up Blogger, or screws over its users, they'll get plenty of well-deserved shit from all directions — including mine. But, as far as I know, Google hasn't done anything significant yet, stupid or otherwise. Until they do, what should our response to Ev and Google's silence be? Hey, I'd love it if they'd think out loud about what to do next. That would be the Blogging Way. But it's easy to understand why they're not ready for that yet — and won't be until the honeymoon is over. Until then, I say take the lead from Ev. Give the subject a rest until we know more. Or at least confine our editorializing to thanks for the good work Pyra has done and suggestions for the better work we'd like to see Google start doing. They'll need them. [The Doc Searls Weblog] comment [] 7:34:13 AM