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15 May 07

Mobiles, Micro Content and Personal Learning Environment ~ Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes

  • I personally think that community as such is vastly overrated - community (group) implies a sort of conformity with which I am not comfortable. But content is also vastly overrated, so Leinonen. What do I think should be emphasized? Choice. Control. Autonomy.

Dave'S Top 10 Musings On the Encouragement of Community in Multi-User Virtual Environments ~ Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes

  • "
    There should be shared or mutually supported goals," for example (why do people always insist on shared goals? meaning, of course, their own goals, that everyone should share).
    >
14 Jan 07

Collective Intelligence vs. Crowd Dumbness

  • it is differences that clarify, challenge, and expand our thinking. Groups, or crowds, can stifle thinking and creativity, while collective networks can facilitate learning.
  • It's the sharp edges, gaps, and differences in individual knowledge that make the wisdom of crowds work, yet the trendy (and misinterpreted) vision of Web 2.0 is just the opposite--get us all collborating and communicating and conversing all together as one big happy collborating, communicating, conversing thing until our individual differences become superficial.
23 Oct 06

Half an Hour: That Group Feeling

  • There comes a certain point where our group identity becomes more of a burden than a blessing. Different people might draw this line at different points. Some draw the line at religious, ethnic and nationalist fanaticism, the sort of mass mania that can lead to fascism, war and mass murder. We all know the stories. Others draw the line at anti-social behaviour closer to home: the cults and the gangs, the terrorist organizations, the cartels and warlords, the motorcycle clubs.

    So where is that dividing line? Where functional and healthy becomes dysfunctional, obviously. Somewhere between (most) football teams and the Symbionese Liberation Army. Somewhere between family bonding and wiping out your neighbours with machetes.

    In my books, that line is the line between reason and emotion. To put it most simply, groups are based on passion while networks are based on reason. Groups meet our need to belong and to survive, while networks meet our need to connect and learn and to know. In a group, passion drowns out reason, in a network, reason drowns out passion. In places where passion and emotion should not prevail – when building bridges, say, or launching space shuttles – groups should not prevail. In places where passion should prevail and is even an asset – in team sports, in family bonding - groups should prevail.
  • Being constantly on the move. Recitation of the group mantra. The suffering of hardship together. These bind a few loosely connected humans into a group – it works nearly every time, and if there are some misfits that need to be dealt with harshly, well, that simply gives the group something to bond over.
23 Sep 06

Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes ~

  • Interesting observation of the relationship of freedom and groups vs. freedom and networks. - mikeheth on 2006-09-23
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