Worries
Worries might be too strong a word. Some things that I wonder about with Weblogs: 1) Is more speech necessarily better (think also about what Habermas, Sunstein, Michelman et al. have said about similar questions)? 2) Is more speech of the sort that blogs enables necessarily better? 3) Can people who use the Net really sort through all this information that we’re putting out there? 4) Are lots of people who publish blogs just wasting their time, which could better be spent on more productive activities of various sorts? 5) Is there really a material jump forward with these technologies over things like slashdot, usenet, other forms of news aggregation, or is this just a slightly better form of stuff we’ve had before — and if so, what does that material jump forward enable? 6) What are historians going to do with *so much* information to sift through? 7) Can we really make sense of what’s happening on a Net that’s truly global and unitary, if such a thing were to emerge, if speech is so fragmented with so many publishers (i.e., does this emerging architecture make sense?)?
Wendy
March 27, 2003 @ 10:48 am
Interesting questions, John. I imagine I could be doing more productive things than writing in my blog, but would those things, just because they are more productive, necessarily be a *better* use of my time? Also, I am of the mind that more writing is better, not necessarily personally, but in general – the more we can see what people are thinking, and what they are capable of imagining, the broader our own minds can become.
John Palfrey
March 27, 2003 @ 1:29 pm
In your case, I can’t imagine what would be more productive (or better) use of your time than blogging!
Roger
March 28, 2003 @ 5:15 am
Hi John
I tried to answer number 4 in my latest post. Well, I don’t know if it is convincing and if my answers are targeted enough.
Best
Roger
PS: One thing that I forgot to mention: how would I have heard about the many interesting things which Donna writes about, without her blog.
Roger
April 5, 2003 @ 2:36 pm
Sam Ruby had the answer:
http://www.intertwingly.net/stories/2002/03/13/manufacturedSerendipity.html