[p2p-research] The psychopath as peer? (redirecting to other thread)

[Stan Rhodes]

Paul,

I didn't realize the thread had undergone more branching. My reply to Michel
in the psychopathy email covers most of the points I would include as a
reply to this.  You are correct about me referring to your own personal
blog.  Posterous is certainly the easiest when it comes to email-to-blog
posting.

Technology cannot solve all difficulties in organizing and providing
perspective on a body of information, nor all problems in inter-personal
communication.  Sometimes, the remedy is old-fashioned discipline in
presenting a viewpoint or mental model as concisely as possible.

Many of us probably want "a better stigmergic platform than wikis or emails
or web forums or Google Wave for creating public interlinked knowledge
covering a wide variety of interrelated topics from a wide variety of
perspectives, especially one that is interlinked with things like real time
data acquisition, simulations, and digitized historical records."  However,
by definition, email is not that platform (if it can even exist), and trying
to use email for something beyond its basic strengths invites a lot of
frustration.

I appreciate the desire to have a version history of assumptions, concepts,
and thoughts surrounding a topic.  I actually think it's doable, using
semantic metadata with a starting database of something like Wikipedia or
Zotero.  For example, in my research, I've envisioned an "assumption map"
that links models with their assumptions, and acts as a sort of key for the
jargon of various disciplines in the behavioral sciences.  I expect someone
is already working on something similar to connect assumptions.


Ryan,

Although I like brevity, I like concision more.  Depending on the
dictionary, they are almost synonymous, but I see brevity as focusing on
being brief, and concision expressing a concept or closely-related group of
concepts clearly in a very tight way.  An email on a complex topic may not
be brief even though it's concise.  I certainly lay no claim to skill in
this area, although I work at it.

The obsolescence of RSS seems greatly exaggerated.   Scoble is no stranger
to hyperbole, and he's mostly a tech news junkie.  My RSS is mostly
research-based, and I'm not sure how I would be better served by, say,
Eurekalert tweeting all the time.  I can prioritize what I look at first,
and what I skip, by the reputation of the site and the feed.  I could
probably do that with twitter with the right client and the right settings,
but why bother?  Both could be better, but can't they always?

When it comes to proprietary software, services, and products, people have
to vote with their use, their dollar, and their voice.  Consider them
signals broadcast from a potential market.  You use "corporatist" and
"capitalism" and yet I really am not sure what they are supposed to mean.
Anyway, that's a different conversation, but a good example of what I meant
by brevity versus concision.

-- Stan

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 8:19 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think Twitter solves a lot of these questions, but persistence is an
> issue there.  Stan's desire for brevity and links is certainly solved by
> Twitter.  I agree blogs are the place for bulk.  Even something like the
> mini-blog tools allows someone to say as much as they like without much
> noise.
>
> Research lists of this sort, and Nings for that matter, appear obsolete.
> RSS is even largely replaced by Twitter though I still like my reader.
> People like Robert Scoble are claiming Twitter makes RSS meaningless.
>
> A lot of people dislike services provided by corporations for political
> reasons.  That view hurts others seeking reasonable efficiencies in my view,
> but it is certainly anyone's right to hurt others' efficiencies...for
> example, it is now clear to me that Google Mail is superior to any and all
> competitors...and yet people choose to not use it.  Why?  Who can say.
> Politics I assume.  Why does Yahoo or Bing exist?  No one can find them
> superior.  But one might just as well ask why Chryslers, airbuses, etc.
> exist.  Inferior products will always have political reasons for
> existing.  That's another reason why capitalism really isn't capitalism at
> all, but corporatism...and P2P is as corporatist in its own way as for
> profit is.
>
> Ryan
>
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 8:00 AM, Paul D. Fernhout <
> pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:
>
>> See also the other thread I started here:
>> "[p2p-research] P2P platforms for wide ranging discussions beyond email?
>> (was Re: The psychopath as peer?)"
>>
>> http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005520.html
>>
>> Stan was not saying I should put stuff on the P2P blog' as I read it; he
>> was suggesting I have a separate personal blog. And that is not the first
>> time someone has made that suggestion; there's certainly a lot of truth to
>> what Sam points out, as I write in the above linked post. But in general, as
>> I say there, I think we need even better P2P communications tools than what
>> we have. So, that is a way to take his point "meta" in a topical way. :-)
>>
>> --Paul Fernhout
>>
>
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