The wisdom of human beings

Below is a thoughtful taxonomy of the differences between Internet optimists and pessimists from a libertarian group called the The Technology Liberation Front. I particularly like the distinction between the value of "mass collaboration" versus that of "individual effort". While the optimists (I would also include James The Wisdom of Crowds Surowiecki here, of course, and perhaps Jeff Crowdsourcing Howe) have written about the intelligence of the crowd, my team hasn't responded with a book about the intelligence of individuals.

Time, perhaps, for a book about the wisdom of human beings?

Internet Optimists	Internet Pessimists
Yochai   Benkler, The   Wealth of Networks	Andrew   Keen, The   Cult of the Amateur
Chris   Anderson, The   Long Tail and “Free!”	Lee   Siegel, Against   the Machine
Clay   Shirky, Here   Comes Everybody	Nick   Carr, The   Big Switch
Cass   Sunstein, Infotopia	Cass   Sunstein, Republic.com
Don   Tapscott, Wikinomics	Todd   Gitlin, Media   Unlimited
Kevin Kelly & Wired mag in general	Alex   Iskold, “The   Danger of Free”
Mike Masnick   & TechDirt blog	Mark   Cuban

 

Beliefs / Themes

Internet Optimists	Internet Pessimists
Culture / Social
Net is Participatory	Net is Polarizing
Net   yields Personalization	Net   yields Fragmentation
a “Global village”	Balkanization
Heterogeneity / Diversity of Thought	Homogeneity / Close-mindedness
Net   breeds pro-democratic tendencies	Net   breeds anti-democratic tendencies
Tool of liberation & empowerment	Tool of frequent   misuse & abuse
Economics / Business
Benefits of “free” (“Free” = future of media /   business)	Costs of “free” (“Free” = end of media /   business)
Increasing   importance of “Gift economy”	Continuing   importance of property rights, profits,   firms
“Wiki”   model = wisdom of crowds; power of   collective intelligence	“Wiki”   model = stupidity of crowds;   errors of collective intelligence
Mass collaboration	Individual effort

Comments

[michael]

Thank you. I've been chewing on these issues for years, to the dismay of senior management and employees (digital media exec that I am.)

The reason that most amateurs are not professionals is that they don't do what they do well enough for anyone to pay them to do it. Now we have an avalanche of bad work...not even good enough to be called "hack"...displacing competence and the incentives that lead to excellence.

I just ordered your book.

[Stephen Smoliar]

There is an interesting "datum for the professionals" in the latest NEW YORK REVIEW. It concerns the five articles that Tom Lasseter wrote for McClatchy under the theme, GUANTANAMO: BEYOND THE LAW. Writing about these articles, Anthony Lewis observed that they were the result of eight months of investigation. He followed this with the following observation (in parentheses): "That is a reminder that bloggers, who we are sometimes told are the future of journalism, are not likely ever to have the time and resources to look into serious official wrongdoing as newspapers at their best do." I would suggest that amateurism is not just a matter of time and resources; it is also a matter of INCLINATION. Can you conceive of a "citizen journalist" even WANTING to do the kind of "heavy lifting" that Lasseter did due, at least in part, to his respect for his own professional responsibility?

[Stanton]

This is a good comparison, and I thought of one more.

Marketing: Permission Marketing (Seth Godin) vs. Ad Driven Marketing

[Ted]

-- Can you conceive of a "citizen journalist" even WANTING to do the kind of "heavy lifting" that Lasseter did due, at least in part, to his respect for his own professional responsibility?

Yes, amateurs can indeed put extensive, prolonged effort into a surprising range of endeavors. Amateur watchmakers are one example; see the video please "Fabrication d'une Lampe Triode" also. I would also suggest I.F. Stone, closer to the topic at hand, as a muckraking amateur.

[Stephen Smoliar]

Ted, have you ever read a biography (or biographical sketch) of I. F. Stone? The one on Wikipedia is not bad:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._F._Stone

The guy was NEVER an amateur. By the time he started I. F. STONE'S WEEKLY, he had built up at least twenty years of professional chops! That included plenty of "heavy lifting" experience, which served him well when he decided to be his own boss! I do not think an amateur watchmaker makes for a good analogy!

[Ted]

Stephen, Of course I read the Wiki entry before posting my comment. I.F. Stone did not have the "professional" credentials one might expect (Columbia journalism, etc) -- he was a drop-out. Instead, he was sui generis, the way some brilliant amateurs can be (you can probably tell me stories of physicists centuries ago like that). You say he was NEVER an amateur (thanks for yelling, otherwise I'd have missed the point). Therefore I take it that he was born a professional. Interesting, that's something I'd not considered.

[Stephen Smoliar]

Ted, that is an interesting way to pick a nit! I am willing to grant that the newspaper Stone started as a high school sophomore was an amateur effort. Having not seen any copies of that paper, I cannot tell if this was what you had in mind when called him a "muckraking amateur." However, once he started working (presumably for some kind of salary) for newspapers in New Jersey and Philadelphia, he crossed the line into professionalism. Back in those days professionalism had more to do with what you did and who you did it for than academic credentials. (As late as 1963, the head of Electrical Engineering at MIT never held a Ph.D.) Izzy Stone embodied professionalism at its best and should be taken as a role model by anyone purporting to be a "citizen journalist."