http://madisonian.net/2005/11/03/google-print-and-the-ultimate-network/ a blog about law, tech, culture, and related things Thu, 10 May 2012 20:32:56 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://madisonian.net/2005/11/03/google-print-and-the-ultimate-network/comment-page-1/#comment-126676 The (Group) Think Method at madisonian.net: law, technology, society Fri, 29 Dec 2006 01:20:05 +0000 http://madisonian.net/?p=417#comment-126676 [...] Collective consciousness? I’ve heard that said before, and I’ve even heard it said about Google. But Amazon.com and Google aren’t the enemy; as Ed Felten points out in response to Nick Carr’s “sharecropping” post, it’s a mistake to conclude that users of MySpace and Google and so forth aren’t already getting significant value out of these sites and services. “Collective consciousness” isn’t missing; because it isn’t necessarily monetized, it exists in a form that society has difficulty recognizing.  Put differently, I don’t think that the collective has a “will”; we’ve been trying to valorize that sort of collective consciousness for a long time, and it has a history of failure. Example:  Given the recent passing of Gerald Ford, my mind immediately thought of the most memorable policy initiative of his administration: The Whip Inflation Now — or “WIN” campaign. In a manner of speaking, Ford wanted to use the distributed intelligence of the American public to reduce inflation. We were supposed to think our way to slower price growth. It didn’t work, of course. The problem was the concept, though, not the tools. If society really wants to harness the collective consciousness of a group, should it find a way to tie monetary policy to videogames? Wii are the one? Sounds silly, and it is. [...] [...] Collective consciousness? I’ve heard that said before, and I’ve even heard it said about Google. But Amazon.com and Google aren’t the enemy; as Ed Felten points out in response to Nick Carr’s “sharecropping” post, it’s a mistake to conclude that users of MySpace and Google and so forth aren’t already getting significant value out of these sites and services. “Collective consciousness” isn’t missing; because it isn’t necessarily monetized, it exists in a form that society has difficulty recognizing.  Put differently, I don’t think that the collective has a “will”; we’ve been trying to valorize that sort of collective consciousness for a long time, and it has a history of failure. Example:  Given the recent passing of Gerald Ford, my mind immediately thought of the most memorable policy initiative of his administration: The Whip Inflation Now — or “WIN” campaign. In a manner of speaking, Ford wanted to use the distributed intelligence of the American public to reduce inflation. We were supposed to think our way to slower price growth. It didn’t work, of course. The problem was the concept, though, not the tools. If society really wants to harness the collective consciousness of a group, should it find a way to tie monetary policy to videogames? Wii are the one? Sounds silly, and it is. [...]

]]> http://madisonian.net/2005/11/03/google-print-and-the-ultimate-network/comment-page-1/#comment-20406 madisonian.net » Sat, 05 Nov 2005 00:52:13 +0000 http://madisonian.net/?p=417#comment-20406 [...] Nicholas Carr makes the connection with a Dyson essay different from the one that Mike discussed earlier. He also points to Philipp Lenssen’s March 25, 2005 post, entitled “CHI, a Collaborative Human Interpreter,” which describes the CHI as “a programming language to query a human brain.” Mr. Carr pulls just the right nugget from Dyson … namely: “Operating systems make it easier for human beings to operate computers. They also make it easier for computers to operate human beings.” Trackback URL: http://madisonian.net/archives/2005/11/04/419/trackback/ [...] [...] Nicholas Carr makes the connection with a Dyson essay different from the one that Mike discussed earlier. He also points to Philipp Lenssen’s March 25, 2005 post, entitled “CHI, a Collaborative Human Interpreter,” which describes the CHI as “a programming language to query a human brain.” Mr. Carr pulls just the right nugget from Dyson … namely: “Operating systems make it easier for human beings to operate computers. They also make it easier for computers to operate human beings.” Trackback URL: http://madisonian.net/archives/2005/11/04/419/trackback/ [...]

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