On Mon, 16 Mar 2009, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 01:06:35AM -0700, Paul Ferguson wrote:
>> I already have a blog, which allows me to publish content in more than 140
>> characters.
>>
>> What is the allure? Please, tell me.
>
> Ah, it appeals directly to the "sound bite" crowd -- those who prefer
> information (including news) delivered to them in snippets, easily digested
> with the smallest cognitive effort. These are people who reduce politics
Alright, I choose to accept your premise for the sake of discussion and
continue from that point on, even though I believe you are doing what you
accuse twitter users of doing. Gross mis-representation of the subject to
ridiculous levels showing it to be a small portion of what it truly is.
Many would claim, and indeed claimed in the past, that a large part of the
world's population is not very smart, or to put it differently, stupid.
Further, in the course of the last century, to quote Lawrence Lessig,
beginning all the way back to the first days of the Radio, we've become a
culture of RO rather than RW (if computer terminology for file
permissions are to be used in analogy).
Since we assume twitter delivers to this specific crowd, which is the
majority--it provides this majority and the people who would like to
influence it with psoitive matter, encouraging thinking, a direct and
easier way of doing so.
Ideas can be quickly shared across the entire community and discussed in
thousands of "threads", showing examples, counter-examples, and new
arguments. In fact, it takes the macro level in which we conduct our
arguments and forces us to examine each argument on its own merit. From
the evidence supporting it, through the inference (causality) and the
warrant showing it to be valid, to the claim--the slogan which you believe
twitter is about.
Twitter is a stream of thought, forced to be put into writing, and concise
if you want to get your point across. I see it as a very positive change
in the current way we handle slogans with this majority, which is start
with the claim, the slogan, and stop there.
I still believe your premise is wrong, but as you can see even if we
accept it, while your argument speaks to me personally it has no relevant
to how twitter factually functions.
> to slogans and philosophy to bumper stickers. They're largely incapable
> and/or unwilling of reading -- let alone writing -- anything substantive,
> cogent and nuanced. These are the people for whom "Headline News" equates
> to "serious journalism", and whose attention span is so short that they
> require an "executive summary" for a one page document.
>
> And these are the people whose bloated egos are such that they imagine
While I accepted this line in an earlier reply, I am unsure why using one
medium over another is any indication of a bloated ego, my bloated ego
aside.
This is an ad hominem attack, which takes away from your earlier argument
showing you have a personal dislike here. If it is indeed a matter of
like, you are free to stay out of twitter, but I expected more.
> the rest of world is actually interested in their off-the-cuff random
> remarks. Oh, there *are* a few -- very few -- people whose wit and
> intelligence are such that their odd musings are possibly of interest;
> but most of those people have the humility to realize that even their
> prose usually requires care in composition and editing before publication.
And Do you really believe that getting an idea across in 140 characters of
less (or a continual message stream of 140 characters of less EACH) can
get through and be concise enough to start a discussion and/or gather
followers (or "friends" in other social networks) if it isn't well
written?
It is today's best tutor of the English language for the masses, and boy,
what we had so far has not really been working.
Gadi.
>
> ---Rsk
> _______________________________________________
> Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
> https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
> Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
>
_______________________________________________
Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
