More on the state of discourse these days. While we're at it, a couple of other observations on the state of discourse.
1.
If someone is critical of a group, a company, a gathering, a
conference, any kind of association, and you are a member of that
group, or were at the gathering, etc, it does not follow that the
criticism is personal. If I say Apple is really fucking the bloggers,
that doesn't mean if you work there that you are. If I don't
know you, how could I possibly make a statement about you? Now you're
welcome to take it personally, it seems everyone always will take
everything personally, but that doesn't mean it was meant to be
personal. No doubt someone here is thinking I'm talking about them
right now, but please, believe me, if your name doesn't appear here, it
isn't about you.
2. This bit is about Doc Searls. As I've
come to know Doc over close to 20 years, I've come to know that he's
extremely conflict-averse. But this itself seems to put Doc in
conflict, with himself, because he has strong beliefs, and they're
basically sound ones, intelligent, intuitively correct, and often
courageous. But if he has a chance to make friends with someone, I've
seen Doc throw his principles out the window, with passion, as
evidenced in his defense of Evan Williams, who is violating every rule
of Doc's own manifesto.
3.
This bit is about me, Dave Winer. Now, me, I'm not conflict-averse. I
think conflict gives us human beings a chance to explore alternate
views of the world. And we've got some serious problems, like global
warming and in the US, the declining value of the dollar, and tunnels
under the US border with Mexico, just to name three. If we don't listen
to some foreign ideas, and consider that they might help us solve some
of our problems, we're just going to drift into oblivion. [Scripting News]
11:06:31 AM 
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