Joho the Blog
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Sometimes the converations move so fast you misspell a word in the title of your post.

It could have been much worse. I could have dropped the "l" from the first word.

(I fixed it. I'd written "converations." Thanks, Britt.)

This is very pre-Cluetrainian of me and I apologize for the minor heresy, but not all interactivity and communication is conversational. Heck, not even all markets are conversations. (And I can defend that, but not now, not here - defense has to do with commodities...). Sometimes we have to attenuate our communication if we don't want to run into the unsound barrier.

I love your idea of a singularity at the Unsound Barrier: not a time when AI emerges, but rather a moment when everything becomes just as stupid as everything else. Forever.

David,
I agree that this particular conversation got difficult. Comments-upon-comments-upon-responses-to-responses and all that--it starts feeling very strange and cluttered and incoherent. And then saying anything more becomes really difficult, as you're pointing out.
To which I'd add, just like in real life. We've all been in (sometimes incredibly interesting) conversations where staying in the flow first becomes difficult, then impossible.
In this case it's also relevant that we were all wrestling with a set of ideas around anonymity and pseudonymity that aren't fully formed for anyone. We are, roughly speaking, trying to map a tricky little discourse, and it don't come easy, as the song says.
And then there is what we might call the network effect, the online parameter of the conversation, as it were. For me it's the sense of calling into a large space and hearing echoes of your own and other voices coming back, delayed and distorted.
You know, we're just monkeys trying to work this shit. So thanks for hanging in there.

Tom, it's worse and better than in real life, and for just the same reason. Pre-Net I wouldn't have been able to hear what you, Eric, Kim, et al. think about anonymity, unless you got published. Now I can. But, as we agree, it's messy. I'm not complaining. What could be better?

Well, one thing could be better. It'd be nice if we had a way of visualizing these gnarled spider webs of conversation. But it's a tough challenge.

Im not sure about that

I often add something to a conversation, a post, and then look at it after it's posted and realize I didn't really have anything to say; I just wanted to participate. See, just like this.