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March 9, 2006
The Experimental Wing of Political Philsophy
Posted by Ross Mayfield
Clay may end up posting something about pattern languages for moderations systems here, but Nat has great notes from his talk at Etech and I couldn’t help but lift this quote:
This is the direction that the conversation around social software is taking. Hobbes would say that Dave had the right and all was good. Rousseau would reply, “no he didn’t, software systems that don’t allow the users to fight back are immoral.”
Social software is the experimental wing of political philsophy, a discipline that doesn’t realize it has an experimental wing. We are literally encoding the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of expression in our tools. We need to have conversations about the explicit goals of what it is that we’re supporting and what we are trying to do, because that conversation matters. Because we have short-term goals and the cliff-face of annoyance comes in quickly when we let users talk to each other. But we also need to get it right in the long term because society needs us to get it right. I think having the language to talk about this is the right place to start.
Then again, Plato argued in the Seventh Letter that only philosophers are fit to rule.
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1. Bill Anderson on March 9, 2006 3:43 PM writes...
All very interesting and thought provoking ... that's good. But why do we think that there are only two philosophers (Rousseau and Hobbes) out there that have anything to say about social structure and dynamics?
C. Fred Alford in Group Psychology & Political Theory provides a perspective on humans in groups that questions both Rousseau and Hobbes. We're going to have to take responsibility for our own lived experiences in groups before we make much progress, no matter what tools we use. Clay is right; this is a seriously needed conversation.
Finally, "Calvin" is the kid and "Hobbes" is the stuffed animal, right?
Permalink to Comment2. Anonymous on April 10, 2006 8:03 AM writes...
" literally encoding the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of expression in our tools. We need to have conversations about the explicit goals of what it is that we’re supporting and what we are trying to do, because that conversation matters."
Yup. Read this: a ruleset that came out of many such conversations over about five years of experience with use of these technologies in politics
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