RoR: Forum

I think Democracy's ability to ‘track the truth’ is much like the dogs ability to chase it's tail. It won't lead the dog into new territory, and what is caught is only what it had to start with.

In this modern Western, blog-rich political environment, would one say that the truth we've tracked is Obama? Or that the dog grows puzzled, having put out that wondrous energy and only ended up with a mouth full of hair?

I'm sure that there are many fine study points to be made on the mechanics of political communication in our digital era, but they still start and end with the individual's grasp of political principles, mental clarity, and personal psychology. This is a whole that will never stray far from the sum of those parts.

Post 2

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 - 4:11pm

Here is a very interesting essay, Digital Maoism by Jaron Lanier, whom I know as a contributor to Discover Magazine. Do ignore the headshot which makes him look like a Berkeley student off his meds. It is worth the read.

The hive mind is for the most part stupid and boring. Why pay attention to it?

The problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous.

Post 3

Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 8:36am

Nothing has contributed more to the concept of 'the egalitarianism of ideas' than the digital revolution.

We all now have the means to expose our ID to each other on an hourly basis, and call it argument, and do so with ever increasing volume, at least.

But the signal to noise ratio is next to nil. It's still all about picking the few peanuts out of the mountains of crap.

Noise isn't information. Noise hides information.

It would be nice to regard this place as a little oasis of quiet in an ocean of noise. I'm not sure it is true, but it would be nice to think so.

Alas, at sea, the noise clearly has the day.

Post 4

Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 8:47am

Well, isn't one of the worst problems of the internet that people are constantly exposing their id to each other? Some reasoned self-restraint might be preferable to instant gratification of animal desire.

Post 5

Friday, July 3, 2009 - 9:17am

Ted:

Yes, I agree. I think the medium encourages it.
Instead of IP addresses, we should all now have ID addresses.

Science Fiction? Imagine in the future that there was a magic technological glass pane, 19 inches in diagonal, that permitted you to see into the ID of not so perfect strangers all over the world. Too late, it's here.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson exchanged letters. The Duty Cycle was long and thought out and reasoned. Thoughts weren't expressed often, they were expressed well.

And, centuries later, folks still read those exchanges.

Scan ahead to Twitter. "Don't you just hate waiting in line at McDonalds for a lousy yogurt parfait?" ... brought to your attention as fast as all of modern technology can arrange it. Times 400 billion and counting... 400 billion times 140 zeros is still zero...

Thank God, Bing now gleans bon mots from Twitter.

Imagine if we were all limited to one post a week. Would we make it a damned good one? And if once a week brought that discipline, then what would once a month do?

When it comes to content, the in-ter-net is heavy on frequency and quantity and cut and paste argument, because that is what the technology enables. It does little to encourage either quality or original thought.

Here, I'll prove it: Google 'original thought.'

(Don't do it. That's a joke.)

regards,
Fred

Post 6

Saturday, July 4, 2009 - 8:52am

"There ought to be a law..."

Post 7

Sunday, July 5, 2009 - 4:16am

There ought to be judgement and reason.

In retail exchanges, we are sprinting towards the reality of 'consonants' becoming totally pointless. Why are they still included on modern keyboards?

Imagine 99.99999% of internet bandwidth without consonants; any sense of loss? It would have to be imagined.

Post 8

Tuesday, July 7, 2009 - 6:43pm

Bill Dwyer and I and some others who no longer post here, Roger Bissell, Robert Bidinotto, and many others posted to Kirez Korgan's e-list out of Cornell University in the Nineties. One post a day by email, moderated with quality control. It was wonderful. I am unaware of any moderated lists worth participating in nowadays, but I would value one.

Post 9

Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - 6:20pm