Gin, Television, and Social Surplus - Here Comes Everybody
"The way you explore complex ecosystems is you just try lots and lots and lots of things, and you hope that everybody who fails fails informatively so that you can at least find a skull on a pikestaff near where you're going. That's the phase we're in now."
Posted Apr 26, 2008
Jim Cowie
Responses to this thread:
Jim Cowie:
Arkansan:
I really like this essay, too. The pleasure of reading it reminded me of how I felt now and then when I used to have to go to those awful academic conferences (love retirement)and listen to dreadful, dull papers. Then I'd happen upon a grad student with fresh ideas. Neat. Thanks for the post.
todd:
OK, y'all's comments finally made me read the essay, despite a deep antagonism towards Shirky. I'm sorry to have to report, it is good. But there's a cop-out:"And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn't posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. Now I had an ironclad excuse for not doing those things, which is none of those things existed then. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. "
Nonsense. He wasn't forced into not being productive, and constructing the valid use of time only with respect to the information media is silly.
smckenzie23:
"Here's something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken."
smckenzie23:
Funny. In her daycare, (my daughter is almost 3) they have a computer. Part of the time the kids get to play some simple little game that has puppies. The other night when I was putting her to sleep, Eliza said "some day, I'm going to jump into the computer and be with all the puppies."
smckenzie23:
"(NOTE 4/27: Comments aren't working right -- working to figure out the problem -clay@shirky.com)"
