Comments on: ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA,RISK AND INNOVATION

By: Bernie Walp

Bernie Walp — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 02:18:09 +0000

“Internet tools and culture . . . make it easy for us to hook up only to the information and people we already identify with, and consequently they propagate a Us v. Them mentality.”

So well put, such an important point. Birds of a particular feather now can more easily do what they’re programmed to do–hook up. Many credit new networking methods (faxes, BBSes, 300-baud sunction-cup modems, etc.) not only with accelerating the fall of the Berlin Wall but with the rise of Islamic terrorism. Both are “global village” phenomena, I fear.

By: Gabriel Harp

Gabriel Harp — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 18:33:08 +0000

…like heading to the library stacks for something specific and turning around only to discover a book or topic you never could have found had you looked for it…

-or (thinking like a chromosome)-

…trying to recombine highly similar genes during meiosis, only to have something else “hitchhike” along the way and drive the evolution of new functions.

By: Peter Borst

Peter Borst — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 11:20:37 +0000

Greetings
I have used the internet continually since first learning of it in 1991. During that time I have seen its usefulness blossom and I have watched in horror as persons with various motives have parasitized it. For example, this page I am writing on has various ads in the margin, most of which have nothing to do with what we are discussing. So-called intelligent advertising as promulgated by Google, is a shame. Examples:

“Pimp your blogger profile.” “Free celebrity quiz.”

Usually, when I am searching for information, all the non-relevant matter is nothing more than an annoyance. So, “tools that bang people into information they aren’t looking for” simply wouldn’t interest most people. It is already frustrating to search for specific items and have to separate out the 95% negative results. An example: Once I was studying the role of nature in religion. I searched with the terms “holy nature” and ended up at a nudist web site. Amusing, but not what I was looking for. You get my point.