Munawar Hafiz (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} munawar) wrote,@ 2008-04-11 00:11:00 |
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Inversion of Control
Blogs are rubbish. They iconify the first sign of degeneration of society. Here are two reasons,
a) Tainted information. Blogs are personal points of view. But who wants to know about my view? And who can trust that my views are sane?
People, with their blogs, have a medium to disseminate all sorts of garbage. Have the readers ever thought why they are reading a view of a person, whom they never knew before and know even little now (see second reason)? This phenomenon is best described by George in the Seinfeld TV series. To a question as to why do people see all the crappy shows on TV, his answer is witty and sharp (very unlike George), "Because it's on TV". Are people reading all the garbage just because they are there on the Internet?
Seriously, how frequently can an above average human being think about something interesting and innovative? Say one innovative thought a month. Then all the blogs produced in between are roughly bogus, they are just to keep the blogger visible.
This democratization of information is sickening because it is undermining scholarly activity. Stephen Colbert coined a term 'Wikiality', the reality created by editors of Wikipedia. At any point of time, a Wikipedia article may be garbage, full of bias of the jerk who edited it.
b) Fake portrayal. The second consequence of the democratization of information is more serious. Blogs enable people to paint their own reality. People cannot but fake in their blogs because the information is public and the bloggers reputation is at stake. If everything written in the blogs were real, we would have seen a horde of good guys around us, because all of us paint ourselves as sensitive, compassionate, godly human beings. In reality, aren't we all just hypocrites?
Finally, here's my point. Blogs could be and should be used differently. The social forum brings new opportunities of innovation, but not through over-productive/self-advertising impulses of human beings exemplified by their blogs. Blogs should be like discussion pools, where people can join an ongoing debate (hence the inversion of control). Conversational approach has always been preferred over a monotonous monologue as a more effective way of creating knowledge. Why are we suddenly denying this?
Note. A new paradigm of social engineering based on conversational approach ?? May be.
Note2. Let me give an example. Suppose there is a debating forum where people are talking about crisis in the US economy. People can bring in their comments/viewpoints. The centralized discussion forum will have more eyeballs, satisfying the ego of the commentators. But people will also have to revise their comments, because they can make a fool of themselves. This does not contradict democratization of information, it only cleans the garbage. On the other hand, it will be easier for readers to get concrete information because the information in the forum is debated and tested. Finally, the information should be presented like a wiki, but not like Wikipedia, which hides history. Because every viewpoint is equally important, each should be represented as is.
Blogs are rubbish. They iconify the first sign of degeneration of society. Here are two reasons,
a) Tainted information. Blogs are personal points of view. But who wants to know about my view? And who can trust that my views are sane?
People, with their blogs, have a medium to disseminate all sorts of garbage. Have the readers ever thought why they are reading a view of a person, whom they never knew before and know even little now (see second reason)? This phenomenon is best described by George in the Seinfeld TV series. To a question as to why do people see all the crappy shows on TV, his answer is witty and sharp (very unlike George), "Because it's on TV". Are people reading all the garbage just because they are there on the Internet?
Seriously, how frequently can an above average human being think about something interesting and innovative? Say one innovative thought a month. Then all the blogs produced in between are roughly bogus, they are just to keep the blogger visible.
This democratization of information is sickening because it is undermining scholarly activity. Stephen Colbert coined a term 'Wikiality', the reality created by editors of Wikipedia. At any point of time, a Wikipedia article may be garbage, full of bias of the jerk who edited it.
b) Fake portrayal. The second consequence of the democratization of information is more serious. Blogs enable people to paint their own reality. People cannot but fake in their blogs because the information is public and the bloggers reputation is at stake. If everything written in the blogs were real, we would have seen a horde of good guys around us, because all of us paint ourselves as sensitive, compassionate, godly human beings. In reality, aren't we all just hypocrites?
Finally, here's my point. Blogs could be and should be used differently. The social forum brings new opportunities of innovation, but not through over-productive/self-advertising impulses of human beings exemplified by their blogs. Blogs should be like discussion pools, where people can join an ongoing debate (hence the inversion of control). Conversational approach has always been preferred over a monotonous monologue as a more effective way of creating knowledge. Why are we suddenly denying this?
Note. A new paradigm of social engineering based on conversational approach ?? May be.
Note2. Let me give an example. Suppose there is a debating forum where people are talking about crisis in the US economy. People can bring in their comments/viewpoints. The centralized discussion forum will have more eyeballs, satisfying the ego of the commentators. But people will also have to revise their comments, because they can make a fool of themselves. This does not contradict democratization of information, it only cleans the garbage. On the other hand, it will be easier for readers to get concrete information because the information in the forum is debated and tested. Finally, the information should be presented like a wiki, but not like Wikipedia, which hides history. Because every viewpoint is equally important, each should be represented as is.
