On Rheingold’s point about users vs consumers: it seems there should be a whole continuum, or rather a whole dynamic process in which user-consumers interact with technologies. Perhaps it’s just a matter of how explicitly this is done, with how much conscious agency. This is kind of a domestication of technology term.

Lanier’s essay was also interesting, although I am often a little wary of people worrying about losing a “flavor” or “scent.” It too often is a reactionary kind of rhetorical move, something where “well, jeez, we just don’t like it, so it must be bad,” like heliocentrism, or interrupting the Great Chain of Being. Also that our world is already full of quite sufficiently desiccated mission-speak and marketese, as the Cluetrain folks were happy to point out.

But he does raise the important question of “merit” vs. “consensus.” This is always, always a difficult and interesting question for me. Can you trust “average people” to choose what is good for them, and on the other hand can you trust Philosopher Kings to rule wisely, or rather find a process that will always choose wise Philosopher Kings? This is a question for us as the technological and intellectual elite of a wealthy society–what is our role in the universe?

For me, having some meta sites is not nearly as scary as the corporatization of everything. Why? Because I am not stuck with just a single metasearch/aggregator–I can read websites individually, follow links, subscribe to emails or RSS feeds for favorites, and freely move between aggregators. But what isn’t owned by Google/Microsoft/Ebay these days? Similarly, the restriction of net neutrality is, to my mind, much more scary than the idea of having some ranking sites out there, keeping in mind that they are not more perfect than other voting and market systems. I hope I’m not the only one who’s heard too much lately about the manipulations prediction markets may be prone to.

I am put in mind that Jenny Preece’s “Online Communities” gives equal weight to both usability and sociability. The importance of social structures to support connection, rather than technological structures alone, is often overlooked. Reputation, identities, evaluation of information, etc., are often overlooked. Suzette Haden Elgin recently commented that maybe one reason that the “respect for your elders” meme is fading is that it used to be that your elders were the best authority you had for a fast reference on a wide range of topics. I am put in mind of the fact that in elementary school, we had to write reports that referred to two or three encyclopedias; in high school papers, we had to cite ten or fifteen books; and now, in grad school, how many dozens of articles have I read? Things I read online are often even less distilled; how do we enable critical thought, say Hegelian analysis and synthesis, in the general population? Especially when hypertext can seem so fragmentary and 90% of the population does not get the training and experience that we all do at this level?

Both the articles were really good. Rheingold’s notion that ‘the government agencies are seeking to re-impose the regime of the broadcast era in which the customers of technology will be deprived of the power to CREATE and left only with the power to CONSUME’ is worth pondering. I recently had a similar experience with the ‘smart mob’ or shall I say, the ‘smart directed mob’. There was a recent fuel hike in Nepal which was anticipated as the price difference in Nepal and India was uneven. There was a shortage of fuel so driving car was not a good option (unless one’s not shy waiting in a line for 3 hours at the gas station!!). I was in a taxi and the driver received a text message and told me that the ‘road was going to be shut for 2 hours’. I had to walk back home, a half hour walk and later found out that the protest was to show dissatisfaction for the recent fuel price hike!! The next day was a complete riot – a complete shut down! So, yeah … the people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities. As Rheingold further says, ‘there are dangers as well as opportunities concerning smart mobs’. Technology like mass notification system has been proven to work really well in university where they have to notify students during emergencies but the same technology if readily available and unchecked for can create havoc if students gather masses to protest for their requirements.

As far as Lainer’s article is concerned, I agree with what he mentioned in the article. It was certainly an insightful essay and I particularly like the title – ‘Digital Maoism’. I guess he’s basically concerned with 1) loss of individuality/responsibility which I agree with him and 2) Dissatisfaction on how the meta-filters work and effort to build business model around them in which I disagree with him. Network based distributed production both individual and collective offers new challenges and opportunities. There’s a bad in every good there is. In conclusion, I agree with Lainer about the rise in collectivism and subsequent loss in taking responsibility but I disagree with him about the issues with meta-search and wiki’s. I think there are great possibilities for these technologies in the future – and that too for our own betterment.

Random thoughts:
it strikes me as I read these websites how the language seems to take on a negative connotation with the use of technology: smart mobs, flash mobs, terroist activities, etc.

I notice that it is almost a standard now that when you google something trying to find out information that wikipedia is one of the first sites that pops up with definitions and links to many resources.

I am curious if a collective conscious increases our need for more information or if we tend to become mired down in information; in the latter do we accept information as credible and relevant without even questioning where it came from.