A surprising wake up call coming from the digerati camp. The “emergentist” party, which claimed that the best the net has to offer will come out of undirected, “random” interactions of the many (see wikipedia…) has gone too far. Now, according to Lanier, there is no wisdom in the crowds. The mantra of yesterday is reason for excomunication today. Unfortunatelly, although it is now clear for everyone that the whole ideology of communitarianism was just that, an ideology, its social and historical roots are still ignored (or missed). The wish to be “collective” is not something invented yesterday, is the old communal project of the sixities and of the countercultures of all times. That is of finding oneself by losing his or her ego first….
Resources
Carr’s blog Rough Type discusses the death of Wikipedia (or of its dream…)
Martin Fowler resonates the whole discussion from a CS perspective