>From the CZ blog (http://tinyurl.com/6zuf4h):
An exercise for the reader: compare and contrast the radical, dystopian, Internet-inspired futures imagined by <http://blog.citizendium.org/2008/07/29/the-internet-and-the-future-of-civil ization/> Clay Shirky (though I admit I might have gotten Clay's actual position wrong) and <http://blog.citizendium.org/2008/07/29/mark-pesce-on-the-impending-anti-dem ocratic-revolution/> Mark Pesce. Note some subtle rhetorical similarities: the notion of historical inevitability; the failure to describe fully the features and virtues of the brave new world the theorist evidently desires; the gaping holes in logic and the use of very loose analogies; the subtle suggestion that any disagreement with their position indicates backwardness, conservatism, Luddism, unhipness, and the like; and last but certainly not least, the outrageous and absurd suggestion that the futures envisioned - one entailing the collapse of liberal education and many of the basic documents of civilization, the other entailing the collapse of democracy - are actually somehow to be hoped for. Fascinating. (Yeah, maybe I should have been doing CZ work when writing these essays recently, but sometimes, a post online really calls out for a reply...) --Larry
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