Check out Jaron’s resume and you’ll see this guy is at the top of his game. Consultant and advisor to some of the biggest businesses south of san jose, regular speaker and visiting scholar at top universities, Jaron, a renaissance technologist of sorts, manages to apply his tech wisdom to fields ranging from medicine to artificial intelligence. But it doesn’t end there, Jaron has a musical career that has put him on stage with the likes of george clinton and vernon ried! Jealous yet? Get this, he is credited with developing the concept of Virtual Reality.
So by most accounts this is the guy you love to hate. Because he has done it all, one would think that he is a fairly confident character, however, when you read his article “Digital Moaism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism” he comes across as horribly insecure about his future as an expert. Jaron believes that when you let everyone into the sandbox (crowd source, open source, flat organizational structure, etc.), the chances of creating something of value declines because those who actually know what they’re doing will have their voices drowned out, which, in turn, dooms us to a future of crap decision making.
Additionally, Jaron believes that products which emerge from the sandbox are for the most part produced by anonymous contributors. For Jaron, the anonymity is a major loss since knowing the creator of a product is an important dimension/context towards understanding the work. If you like, it seems that Jaron is evoking the Benjaminian lamentation of content having lost its aura.
So does he have a point? Does someone as brilliant as Jaron run the risk of being drowned out by a production model that crowd-sources a bunch of sub 140 IQ dummies? Is it really necessary for him to carry the torch on behalf of those people who shape technology and society?
To answer this question, lets break down what Jaron had to say in his interview with andrew keen and his article, “Digital Moaism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism”
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The Interview with Andrew Keen:
-Bothered by peoples perception of the net as an entity, an oracle of sorts. Brings up his fear of individual contributions being anonymized, mashed up into being perceived as a whole rather than consumers seeing the parts that make it up.
-Has a respect for the internet’s capacity to provide a space for people to make cool content. Recognizes the potential for good to occur but is very weary of the bad. The bad being the possibility of people congregating to conduct historically detrimental activities (cites fascism, cultism, and communism as examples of negative group action).
-In line with the examples of negative group activities, the core aspect in them is the capacity for the individual voice to be stripped. This is something that he sees happening already on the internet where content creators go uncited. He finds this to be a problem as knowing the author is a critical component towards establishing some context for the content.
-He likes myspace because at least there people celebrate their individual identity
There are thee motivations that brought him to writing digital maoism.
1) Has a problem with anonymous mobism. Believes that when people are given the option, they will opt to hide in a group and take no responsibility for their actions because they are less vulnerable than if they stood out on their own.
2) Has a problem with the business models that are emerging from the internet. Biggest gripe is with how content space providers are making money off advertising linked to the content that users create for free. Essentially big companies are making money off the little guy.
3) Making a stronger case for his gripe with the anonymity of content and how people seem to regard the internet as becoming its own entity with its own intelligence (as you will see over and over, jaron is not a huge fan of AI), he talks about the turing test, designed to see if an individual can tell the difference between answers given by a computer and a human. Lanier says that humans have a desire for AI because it represents a new mode of psychological denial (religion) that displays a pristine existence. Lanier sees how people view the internet as a space for AI to emerge and that humans contributing their thoughts in an anonymous undifferentiated hive like manner displays this belief that humanity is a stepping stone towards AI, a supreme existence/intelligence. Lanier wants to make sure that the spotlight stays tight and narrow on the individual.
-The ability to achieve a collective existence is much easier with the internet as the internet is able to accomplish implementation based rhetoric. By this he means to contrast the internet with the past collectivist scenarios where hegemony was achieved through books and magazines while now it is achieved through simply implementing the infrastructure within which people communicate.
-Sticking with the theme of anonymized existence, Lanier brings up the issue of how the AI that develops within the internet is a result of algorithms that aggregate human activity and essentially turn human behavior into a meta existence. Because of this he is worried that people who start off seeing the world through aggregated content sites will be more susceptible to mob mentality later on in life.
-Jaron believes in the power of the internet for good, he just sees some issues with it that need to be brought up before they become too big of an issue.
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Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism
I omitted points already mentioned in the interview.
- starts off by talking about how his wikipedia entry pins him as a film maker when in truth he only made one film that did not do so well. something that he would like to erase from his past. yet whenever he edits his own entry he finds that someone always goes back and reverts the edit.
-compares reading WP to reading the bible in that you have faint voices of anonymous contributors
-sees the structure of WP as the problem. That there is a platform that allows for a collective knowledge to emerge is upsetting to him. especially with influence residing at the bottleneck.
-sees online collectivism as different from meritocracy or democracy
-talks about the Nature article that compares britannica to WP and says that the only reason that WP came out ahead is because one, the chosen topics are constantly evolving thus WP is better suited to be most up to date, and two, there are just a bunch of rosy cheeked go getting grad students who want to show off their knowledge. However, if the comparison was based on a controversial article where fact does not fit into the picture, he says that WP would lose out because the nature of fast updating would result in a mess of updates with no coherence whereas the slow and seemingly more deliberate model of britannica would at least provide a more well thought out presentation before needing to be revised.
-points out that the “all things worked out in time” model of wikipedia is reflective of right wing libertarianism or left wing consensus making
-bothered by the fact that many wikipedia articles just rip text from other sites which in turn creates a distance between the content and the original author
-says that all information can be found through google anyways. to have everything aggregated loses the flavor of casual use that people get through searching the internet.
-longs for the voice o the author that is lost through aggregation. Claims that even Britannica even has a voice
-says that Myspace will tell you more about a TV show than wikipedia
-claims that the goal of the internet is to eliminate the scent of the human and make all content seem as if it emerged on its own.
-claims that aggregator sites are not hive like when contributors are given identities
-has issues with aggregator sites like Digg and Reddit because they seem to place importance on issues of little or no social value
-Thinks the hive mind is boring
- He is carrying the torch for individual human intelligence
-”The beauty of the internet is that it connects people. The value is the other people. If we start to believe the internet itself is an entity that has something to say, were devaluing those people and making ourselves into idiots.”
-bothered by the fact that the aggregator companies make more money than the content creators
-not a fan of the reactive writing styles of the internet. likes the slower more deliberative style of writing that has a longer shelf life.
-claims that its hard for pop stars to emerge in the collectivist environment. the only way is for people to emerge through american idol…
-Claims the collectivist obsession has even hit the nytimes since they are seemingly pandering to a wider audience than before.
-makes a case for the collectives ability to be smart by citing the jelly beans in a jar example, whereby a group of people estimate how many jellybeans there are in a jar and more often than not, the average of their estimates is very close to the actual number.
-cites the stock market crash of 2000 as collective stupidity
-Markets work through a dialogue between expert individuals and groups. The role of the expert individual is to provide direction for the collective.
-makes the claim that open source programming works well for back end programming but not for interface design
-collective is good at solving uncontroversial matters. when it comes to taste and judgement, they are a disaster. They can deal in numbers, but not moral values.
-individuals achieve optimal stupidity when they are shielded from taking responsibility for their actions.
-The collective needs heros to lead it. cites woodward and berstein and the uncovering of the watergate scandal.
-The role of the feds (experts) and the market collectives. Feds set the interest rates and the market responds by determining whether the latest decision is optimal for preventing inflation.
-We need the institutions/experts to set the bar, take the lead. The role of the collective is to keep tabs on the decisions of the institution and keep them in check.
-the need to modulate the time domain of collective activity. sometimes a controversial wikipedia article will experience edit wars and the content will experience constant turmoil. What is needed is low pass filtering. This slows down the decision making process so that people don’t jump to conclusions. Says that this is how representative democracy works. Asks us to imagine what society would be like if all laws were written in the way that wikipedia articles are written
- says that structures and constraints speed up the evolution of tech
-does not like the idea that people want education to take place through wiki platforms. fears that it will facilitate the nasty outbursts of hive mind mentality. Sees maoism, fascism, and religious uprisings as examples of these nasty outbursts.
-wants a better feedback loop between the collective and the individual
-wants to make sure that as we move into this realm of collective activity that we always remember to cherish the individual first!
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Responses to Jaron Lanier: The majority of these responses speak from the corner of being fed up with power being abused by the few. All of them are brilliant in their own right and have had success within established institutions, however they realize that the institutional filter of intelligence is no longer the key determiner of who should play in the sandbox.
Douglas Rushkoff: He flips Jaron’s argument on its back by pointing out how the collective can act as the low pass filtering for the experts. Additionally, he cuts to the heart of Jaron’s insecurity by stating that those who fear the meta are those who stand to lose the most in a world were credit is not as important as it used to be. “Most of us who work in or around science and technology understand that our greatest achievements are not personal accomplishments but lucky articulations of collective realizations.”
Quinten Hardy: Points out that while aggregators may miss certain information of importance, the mass media is no better at this. Also, along the lines of Laniers point of getting to know the flavor of the content by knowing who the author is, Hardy points out that Lanier is a consultant to major tech firms that would like nothing more than to co-opt the trend towards collective production.
Benkler: We know that he has a slew of examples to throw at Lanier. The best one he uses is how the collective mobilized to expose the Diebold scheme in a way that traditional mass media experts would not have been able to.
Shirky: He works to dispel the common myth that plagues wikipedia; the idea that because anyone can edit, wikipedia must resemble a free for all. Instead Shirky points out the myriad regulations that support the efficiency of its production. He also points out that Wikipedia includes similar structures of production to that of linux communities, therefor Lanier should not contrast the two communities.
Doctrow: He replies to Lanier’s claim that open source production cannot lay claim to successful UI. Doctrow points out that he rather likes firefox and Ubuntu’s interface. He also takes on Lanier’s fear of the individual flavor being loss by pointing out that to really read a wikipedia article means to look at the discussion page, something that Lanier NEVER refers to in his article.
Kelly: Points out that the constituency of wikipedia is far from hive like. he points out that the WP community is run for the most part by an elite group of administrators and contributors.
Esther Dyson: The benefit of the hive for the masses is that they have the opportunity to sharpen and refine their ideas in collaborative spaces.
Sanger: Brings up the appeal of slashdot as something where people don’t care about it being right, they just care that its equal opportunity. Sanger however sides with Lanier regarding the importance of experts, but says that something like wikipedia should be celebrated in its ability to harness labor on such a large scale. In the style of Benkler, Sanger says that we are experiencing an industrial revolution where it is not the technology that is organized, but mental effort.
Viega: Lanier’s point of wikipedia stripping the style of the individual author is refuted when Viega makes the very simple observation that wikipedia entries are very rich if one is to read the talk pages. “The talk page is where the writers for an article hash out their differences, plan future edits, and come to agreement about tricky rhetorical points. This kind of debate doubtless happens in the New York Times and Britannica as well, but behind the scenes. Wikipedia readers can see it all, and understand how choices were made.”
Wales: Provides a short answer stating that all contributions on wikipedia are a result of individuals exercising their own ideas and judgement.
George Dyson: Parallels the way the brain creates memory/knowledge to the style in which wikipedia entries are created. Says that wikipedia is far more natural than britannica.
Gillmore: Points out that this debate about the hive mind is a stark reminder that people need to update their media literacy skills. Either people believe or disbelieve everything they read. People need to get better at applying a healthy does of skepticism in line with fact checking. Says that sites like wikipedia are not collectives or hives, rather they are communities of production. They are not the problem, the consumers of content are!
Rheingold: Refutes Lanier on the grounds of semantics. “Collective action involves freely chosen self-election (which is almost always coincident with self-interest) and distributed coordination; collectivism involves coercion and centralized control.”
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The 10 Theses are another rant about the issues with the web 2.0 culture. This time we hear about how the supposed decentralization and opportunities for organizing are falling prey to the corporations that have successfully co-opted the technology for their benefit. Additionally, web 2.0 culture has failed to mobilize in ways hoped by most as it has found its way into becoming integrated in peoples lives as a passive activity like television.
From Theses 4 – “Better social networks are organized networks involving better individuals – it’s your responsibility, it’s your time. What is needed is an invention of social network software where everybody is a concept designer. Let’s kill the click and unleash a thousand million tiny tinkerers!”
Theses 5 takes a swipe at Wikipedia’s policy of neutral point of view by saying that in promoting this policy they are supporting a one belief system rather than embracing the multiplicity, something that web 2.0 is supposed to do. [what do they mean by style? do they mean opinion? the concept of NPOV in wikipedia entries is to accommodate the plurality by making sure that all sides are mentioned in an article…this is something distinctly web 2.0]
Theses 7 makes a strong case for ensuring that organizing on the web maintains a strong link to the ground. organizing that stays on the web will falter and the organizational structures that emerge must be based on a web+place hybrid.
Theses 9 points out that the web 2.0 model is not bringing about a revolution in economic models, rather it simply promotes the mindless obsession with growth exhibited by capitalism.
Theses 10 brings up issues with privacy, centralization of ones identity, and freedom. Recognizing that our identities are being harvested on a daily basis, Ippolita,Lovink & Rossiter promote the idea of creating complex user ID’s that are designed to confuse the system that harvests user data. From remixing identities to faking them, the concept is to fight the trend of corporations making money off of what you do for free…that being living your life.
Possibly Relevant Posts:
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17 Comments
Just one point, which is probably a detail that is of little importance here.
It is said that “all information [on Wikipedia] can be found through google anyways”. This is plain and simply not true. It is true that most of the information on Wikipedia is taken from sources online, but not all of it is. More and more information on Wikipedia is taken from books. It makes me sad to see that people seriously believe that everything can be found online. It certainly can’t. The ignorance of some people is worrying me a lot.
there are sooo many things that Jaron says that simply are not true and come from a place of general ignorance to how things work on WP. WP has a strict code that all information must be connected to a published resource which means that there is a good chance that, like you say, the information is not online.
Be sure to check out the replies to jaron’s article on Edge. This might put your mind at ease that people actually know how things work.
I think that Jaron makes valid points – but the points can be refuted because they misrepresent the issues at hand. While reading an aggregated source like wikipedia, an individual’s personality may be muttled, however Wikipedia is not meant to be an op-ed source. It’s simply an oasis of information, and one could also argue that the personality of the collective shines through (Gestalt theorists!).
Response to thesis # 8
“8. Web 2.0 is not for free. ‘Free as in free beer’ is not like ‘free as in freedom’… Our tastes and preferences, our opinions and movements are the market price to pay.”
Certainly true. Just as people are willing to sacrifice freedoms for safety, people sacrifice their individuality for entertainment. Our personal preferences, opinions, etc. have become commodities in Web 2.0. Many of the services that we use are quite helpful and entertaining, but each of us contributes to the value of that service by participating within it. As they say in the article, “These days ‘free’ is just another word for service economies.”
In many cases, the cost of divulging this information is equal to the benefit. For instance, I’m ok with Pandora knowing my musical preferences and using them to make money, further the human genome project, etc. However I’m not ok with services that flood my inbox with pointless ads and spam (or take the Google Earth travelogue for instance; I wouldn’t be willing to install all of google’s programs just so I can draw a house and help them complete their project quicker!). I would like to see a greater public awareness of this; better that people make the informed decision to commodify their personal preferences in exchange for a service than blindly assuming its free in the sense that you do not trade anything in return.
I think the Rushkoff response to Lanier’s article is really interesting – I like how he frames Lanier’s argument as an argument against rising postmodern collectivism. Lanier’s article does seem to be a modernist complaint against diffuse collectivism – he really seems to want and believe we can achieve a “final answer.”
That’s not what Wikipedia is about though, and I think this is illustrated well by using the term “Wikipedia Project” – it’s something ongoing. I also like Rushkoff’s reference to “tension.” At the same time, I think it’s important to note that Wikipedia is not simply a collective “hive mind.” As an organization, it’s grown into a highly structured hierarchy, as documented in this Wired article: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html
As Rushkoff says, “It is an ecology of interdependencies. Take a look at any of these online functioning collective intelligences — from eBay to Slashdot — and you’ll soon get a sense of who has gained status and influence. And in most cases, these reputations have been won through a process much closer to meritocracy, and through a fairer set of filters, than the ones through which we earn our graduate degrees.”
I very much appreciated Dan Gillmor’s response to Lanier’s article. He says, “knowledge is not a static end-point, but rather an ongoing process. New facts and nuances emerge after articles are published.”
This is probably my favorite quality of Wikipedia – the facts that materialize are often very obscure and extremely up-to-date. And while I have never updated Wikipedia myself, there is a comfort (or has Gillmore says, a sense of “community”) in knowing that someone else out there took the time to contribute to an entry that I also care about.
Gillmore also believes we need to update our media literacy, and “need better tools to help us gauge reliability and authenticity of what we find online.” I definitely agree. The amount of information out there is overwhelming – especially the amount of personal opinion, which, as we have learned, can be a dangerous thing. Will the generation right below us (digital natives) be more equipped to deal with this, or worse off? While yes, Wikipedia does have it’s flaws, it’s a strong example of how reliability and authenticity can be created.
“The bottom-up hive mind will always take us much further that seems possible. It keeps surprising us. In this regard, the Wikipedia truly is exhibit A, impure as it is, because it is something that is impossible in theory, and only possible in practice. It proves the dumb thing is smarter than we think. At that same time, the bottom-up hive mind will never take us to our end goal. We are too impatient. So we add design and top down control to get where we want to go.
— Kevin Kelly”
I agree that Lanier did gloss over a lot of the complexities of Wikipedia. There is some level of control, like the fact that they lock public figure pages at time. Discussion pages do exist. (Although I have a feeling that they only people that look at them are the people who create the entry and not the person looking for a quick fact online). Wikipedia is not just a free for all, there are some rules and control.
One thing I do like about Lanier though, is his call for a regulatory system on the collective. Wikipedia already sort of has one, though, and his ignorance of it weakens his argument. But I think Kelly really spoke to me because in fact, Lanier says that collectives are most efficient with top down control, and I agree with that. We have seen what happens to collectives like the free market when the top down control becomes ineffective.
I also really do like his arguments about how anonymity leads to a loss of culpability. I think you can see that as a prevalent theme in digital culture that I find worrisome.
Gabriel-I think you did a good job summarizing this week’s readings and responses.
I think you are projecting Lanier’s argument about the “stupid mass” to an individual level unfairly. In my mind he isn’t making a statement that most people online are stupid. His point is that when individuals lose their voices–including those extremely educated credible folks–the collective can reach dumber conclusions than the individual and in fact we are lowering our standards for what is smart, intelligent content. (The internet sure is making kids ability to write in the English language worse because of the lower standards of online communication.)
When you discuss his motivations for writing Digital Maoism, I think you are misrepresenting what he is saying. He is citing reasons why collectivism online has had such a meteoric rise. I don’t think he has problem with big companies making money off of the little guy. He is simply stating that, surprisingly enough, the web is a difficult space to monetize (let us remember the dot come crash). Therefore advertising is one of the only semi successful business models. But because the culture online is one where content is free, crowd sourcing has become massively prevalent due to the low cost for those people who want advertising dollars. I don’t think he really makes a moral judgment on the companies’ actions.
@lauren: interesting take. I really saw him making the point that the masses need a leader and that they cant hack it on their own. I see him as an elitist, someone who worships the cult of the expert.
I make this statement because he really seems insecure about his future as an expert. If you placed a bunch of people in a room, stripped them of their academic titles, and had them problem solve on a particular issue, there would be no preset hierarchy, it would just emerge on its own which would require for people to prove themselves. I really think Lanier doesnt like the idea of having to live in a world where the expert repeatedly has to prove themselves. But that is what a meritoracy is about, you cant rest on your laurels, and I really get the sense that this is what he wants to do.
Additionally, the point he makes about anonymity makes no sense. While there may be certain communities of production that allow anonymous contributions, the ones that I think of that have a real impact in our day to day lives, like programming communities, wikipedia, online activist hubs, all prefer having an identity, so im not quite sure what he is talking about. It almost seems like he is conflating the anonymity of aggregated news sites like slashdot or Digg with that of the other communities i just mentioned, and that is not a fair comparison.
To, your point that the internet promotes poor grammar. This is something that ties into the culture of instant messaging/texting and not so much with collective action. Additionally, the educational system in this country is to blame. Now that we have broadcast mediums for everybody, its just that much more apparent how bad it is.
Jaron’s critique of collectives/mass minds poses some interesting counterpoints from last weeks readings regarding peer production as well as virtue.
For the critiques of Lanier, Ill stick with Rhinegold. Rhinegold nails my main critique of Lanier’s “Digital Maoism” by stating that
“Collective action involves freely chosen self-election (which is almost always coincident with self-interest) and distributed coordination; collectivism involves coercion and centralized control”
continued..oops.
I think the term Maoism is overreaching and provocative without adding to the overall debate surrounding commons based peer production.
I also think Lanier singles out metasites and Wiki, while devoting mere sentences to Linux and other platforms that are products of directed, organized communal building. The Drupal platform is one of these technologies that go against this argument- an open source software for creating communities that are home to groups of people, and allow for just the type of interactions that he believes are being killed off.
This is certainly a divergence from last week’s open source celebration extravaganza…first off, great summary (and title haha) Gabe. I happen to agree with you on a lot of points, i fear that Lanier may be a little paranoid…in his interview he keeps referring to the Nazis, when in reality something like Wikipedia, even if it does raise questions about hive mentality and anonymity is essentially a site made to give people information (some MORE truthful than he would like it to be, as demonstrated by his desire to conceal his film making past). I think he exaggerates the consequences of learning taking place through Wikis. He seems very afraid that this will lead to some kind of totalitarian politics, and that group creation in this way is undemocratic. I mean, just the fact that he calls it “Maoism” makes it out to be something bad enough that it could lead to something horrifying as the Cultural Revolution…
I happen to thoroughly disagree with him, though i do accept the point that there needs to be some leadership in order for real progress to be made. If anyone has ever worked on a collaborative effort, you definitely know that leadership occurs naturally, depending on ones abilities. I happen to believe in the open source model, even if there are questions yet to be answered and issues yet to be resolved. I am an Benkler’s side on this one…
I enjoyed Jaron’s discussion of the the “hive minds” in the internet. Although I do agree that he doesn’t delve deep enough into the core of how Wikipedia really works. Also, and this is probably due to the time of the piece is a lack of discussion of the wiki model in the business industry. There is a big push recently for business to use the wiki model to create spaces for their employees to collaborate and create within a space that allows everyone access. Even in this model, those in charge of the business have the final say about whether or not the final product is what they want it to be. There really is a hierarchy present within this system, but it’s just not as visible.
Just to throw the conversation in another direction (although still articulated slightly within Jaron’s article), I would like to respond to the Web 2.0 #10 thesis about identity. I really liked their statement, “personal exhibition on web 2.0 social networks resembles the discovery of sexuality,” because I think that this really is what identity has become on the internet, and possible to a better extent what it should be. There are those individuals that do try and re-create their “real” selves on the net, but effectively find themselves continually re-creating that person as they evolve in real life. So why not play with your digital identity versus your “real-life” one? Although they do argue this also to the extent that it should be a way to through of the economy of the data grabbers of the internet, which in the fight for privacy makes sense, but where is their alternative for those who do wish to be used in the system? Even outside of the internet realm, we can only make our products better if we respond to them, give feedback, provide some sort of data to the producers in order to please us as consumers.
Add me to the tiny collective that largely agrees with Lanier, at least on his terms. His argument is solid, and reflects the world I most often see around me. Sanger (and Benkler) provide the best counter-argument, in my opinion, by looking at the network as a new labor power-a different lens from the pitfalls of the cultural hive mind. Both views resonate for me.
I do not read any insecurity in Lanier, but rather a desire to celebrate identity in a way that goes beyond a Wiki name or discussion page. His own bio and the collective control exerted upon it was a perfect example. He does not want to be known as a filmmaker, yet on Wikipedia he has little choice/control over his own identity. He seems to me to be extremely confident, yet humble in his role as expert, although I’m reading from a limited frame.
I think his critique is meant to encourage caution? The Maoism is a label meant to provoke, and get people passionate about his work. Mission accomplished. I think, and perhaps I’m reading too much of myself into this because I am totally this way, Lanier is wary of all “isms.” I think he is genuinely worried about the frenzy he sees in some of his own friends. The mad response he generated only supports this notion.
He admits that the collective IS capable of being smarter than the individual. He’s not smashing the jelly bean jar against the wall, he’s just making the argument that the lower level tasks are better suited for the collective (the way Mushon drew the task ladder on the board for us last week). Mushon’s apparent belief that too many cooks in the kitchen need not be negative is fascinating to me. I certainly did not see this supported at Microsoft. In fact, the fear of making the wrong decision might be the company’s greatest failure and root cause of a turtle pace to market. Perhaps it is a paradox, too big to fail and too big to win. Not the best example, but a definite “ism” to keep an eye on.
Or maybe it is a question of degree? I find Mushon’s attempted, ongoing argument/experiment fascinating because it challenges what most people, including Lanier, think is a given. Design by committee? Don’t be silly. Mushon is challenging another ism, a witticism. A very dangerous kind of common sense, packaged in a cute, repeatable form. I love that kind of research.
And we are all responding to a challenge to respond, as a collective, to the ideas placed in front of us. I’d say, to borrow from Benkler, we are as crappy as Britannica. Score one for the TDMCC collective!
It was hard choosing a response to respond to (Shirky, Rheingold, Benkler, oh my!). But I decided to go with Shirky, because I like how he ephasized how Lanier made generalizations about group action, going as so far as to link Wikipedia with communism (someone is cranky about his Wikipedia page..). I also feel like Lanier looks at Wikipedia from an outside perspective, while Shirky goes deeper and explains how Wikipedia works and how Lanier overlooks this in his argument.
Shirky seems to believe that Lanier’s argument is hindered by his awful examples (American Idol and popurls.com), but the overall idea that we are obsessed with collective action is something worth studying. Lanier just doesn’t do it well.
Another qualm I have about Lanier’s essay is that he’s complaining about something without offering any real solutions. Should we just get rid of collective action all together and go back to an Internet full of personal web pages and read-only material? From what I understand. Web 2.0 was suppose to be an upgrade from 1.0.
One other comment:
“To have a discussion about the plusses and minuses of various forms of group action, though, is going to require discussing the current tools and services as they exist, rather than discussing their caricatures or simply wishing that they would disappear.”
-Clay Shirky
I would call his smack down of television we had to read a caricature, simply wishing that tv would disappear in a poof of networked-participatory glory. Elitism indeed!
And now that I have sufficiently pissed off many of the collective, I will retire from the keyboard and make my way to class to face the hive.
To be honest, I get very involved in paranoid points of view. I’m not saying that Lanier is necessarily paranoid, but some of what he says points to some degree of paranoia. I’m one who tends to think of the collective as a good thing – in some instances. We will always find good examples and bad examples of ‘the collective’ if we look hard enough – maybe even on Wikipeida, haha. And, and I apologize in advance for sounding so “profound”, all things have their good sides and bad sides and we could argue about this unendingly! I will say, however, that I still think Wikipedia is a good thing. I’m not saying it’s the best, but below a certain level of importance or the requirement of credibility, I think it works fine. It depends on what it is used for a source of info.
I do see his point on ‘mob mentality’. As this works in real life, so it works online. If more people are saying something, more people will likely agree and hence the mob. But at the same time, the Internet affords anonymity maybe for this very reason – dissenters will not have to bear the brunt of said mob mentality? I hope I’m making sense!
I really like how Rheingold differentiates between collective action and collectivism – I’d never thought of it like that before and made me think of this whole thing from both those points of view.
In addition, I do think that using a term like Maoist tends to set a negative tone to the piece, and serves to make some readers react badly from the title onwards =)
Highly recommend that people check out Pierre Levy’s book Collective Intelligence. Henry Jenkins cites him often in his book Convergence Cultures.
http://www.amazon.com/Collective-Intelligence-Pierre-Levy/dp/0306456354
@gordita I didn’t give you enough props for your comment on Shirkey being elitist about TV in class, so: awesome.
I agree with those who are saying that Lanier has lots of good points presented in a not very effective manner. There are lots and lots of problems with collective action on the internet. Wikipedia may be one of the only places where that isn’t a problem.
As for a response to one of the theses, I think that #3 deserves more discussion (theoretically; since I’m posting this late I know it won’t be discussed in class). People tout the internet as a big tool for collective action, but I don’t know if organization on a grand scale is feasible in light of the extremely capricious nature of the way internet fashions change. Surely the same groups won’t find each other when the large crowds are moving from MySpace to Facebook to Wave.