I just wrote this in a comment to Kevin Tomlinson, but it’s important, so I want to address it in the larger arena:
On the internet, everything is Kevlar.
This is for real, and it’s a lesson people are slowly learning all over the globe:
- Muscle power accumulates, brain power does not. A group of people is no smarter than its smartest member, and the sclerosis imposed by group decision-making will tend to make a typical group seem to behave as though it were dumber than its dumbest member.
- Groups cannot interdict the flow of information, so there is no longer any way to prevent most of the people on earth from discovering anything they wish to know. The middle-men who have been disintermediated first were the people who wanted to prevent the other members of their groups from gaining free access to the truth.
- Even when they manage to cohere, groups have no power where they cannot amass muscles or accumulate weapons.
- In consequence, any competent individual can take on and defeat any group of people on the internet, no matter how large it might be.
Ergo, on the internet, Socrates would have lived.
This is the triumph of the Greek ideal, an amazing, world-changing accomplishment.
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, technology
Kevin Tomlinson says:
May I have a back-link?
February 25, 2008 — 10:00 pm
Greg Swann says:
> May I have a back-link?
Why not. You earned it, and salesmanship is all about the ask. Good on ya.
Now… If you go tell all the A-listers what a brilliant idea this is, the power of that link will soar for both of us.
February 25, 2008 — 10:04 pm
Todd Carpenter says:
I was convinced to blog after seeing exactly what a group could accomplish. It was during the 2004 Presidential election. 60 Minutes ran a story that suggested President Bush did not fulfill his national guard duty.
Within 24 hours, bloggers from across the net were questioning, and poking holes in the story.
One had an understanding of the military, and understood that the damning documents would not have been typed by the person 60 minutes said typed them.
One was smart enough to retype the article in MS Word, only to see it was a match.
One was a typewriter repairman who proved it was impossible for an appropriate era typewriter to produce the document.
Lawyers, family members, military experts.. they all jumped in to prove 60 minutes wrong by adding to what others had begun. None of them could have done so on their own.
I understand the premise that you make, but while intelligence may not accumulate, experience does. And intelligence means little without experience. Just my take.
February 25, 2008 — 10:11 pm
Brian Brady says:
“In consequence, any competent individual can take on and defeat any group of people on the internet, no matter how large it might be.”
Web 2.0 is empowering the individual practitioner. The future I see allows consumers to connect directly without the power of the group (or in this case, the Company).
Expertise can be displayed. Reputation can be established. Testimonials can be garnered. Networks are virtual and connections are real.
Bank of America is a group; I am an individual. I can get my information in the right hands as efficiently as they can.
This is my weapon.
February 25, 2008 — 10:15 pm
Kevin Tomlinson says:
I’m working on it, big time!
February 25, 2008 — 10:21 pm
Greg Swann says:
Todd, you’re right, except the people who exposed Dan Rather were not a group, but simply an accumulation of discrete individuals, each making his own unique contribution in sequence.
I was a foot soldier in that “Army of Davids,” for what it’s worth. I wrote about my own experience and Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs linked to me and clobbered the file server I was running on.
By a group, I mean something with a command structure and a shared identity: A government, an army, a mafia, a street gang, an ad hoc mob. The commanders in the latter case? The jerks shouting, “C’mon, let’s get ’em!”
Had Charles Johnson or anyone else tried to command the individuals who exposed the Killian Memos as fakes, they all would have told him to go pound sand.
I wrote more about the Dan Rather episode and the power of weblogging at Real Estate Weblogging 101.
February 25, 2008 — 10:31 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Bank of America is a group; I am an individual. I can get my information in the right hands as efficiently as they can.
And possessing the same information, you can be far more nimble with it. This is a whole marketing curriculum by itself.
February 25, 2008 — 10:40 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
@Brian,Todd, and Greg- (and @ the Dan Rather episode)…Like you Todd, that one instant galvanized my love for blogging. Hugh Hewitt got me started and intrigued, but seeing the power of the individual to ACTUALLY, (for a change),matter. And individuals forming an “Army of Davids” so quickly was truly a sight to witness.
In short, I was hooked.
The fascinating piece of that for me was the speed of the connection and communication. It rendered the traditional news media helpless. There was no antidote, armor, or defense for the 5 smooth stones and the sling. Their news cycles crumbled and no doubt that did crush your servers then, Greg. (grin)
Well written, gentlemen. Kudos.
Eric
February 26, 2008 — 2:51 am
Todd Carpenter says:
Greg,
I guess it’s all in how you define a group. An example of an organization would be NASA. Apollo 13 is a favorite movie of mine because nerds are the heroes. I met Jack Swaggart as a child and heard the tale from him.
In this case an organized group was forced to work their way through a myriad of problems. It took the brain power of dozens of people to pull the whole thing off. One man, even the smartest one, could not have done so.
You can make the same argument that they were “an accumulation of discrete individuals, each making his own unique contribution in sequence”. But I think the difference between your definition of group and mine is a matter of organization, or the ability to work effectively.
February 26, 2008 — 6:03 am
Greg Swann says:
You’re right, because “group” is too nebulous a word for what I’m talking about.
Start with the mob who persecuted Socrates.
Move up to a street gang.
Move up to the hierarchical structure of many businesses.
Move up to an authoritarian political political party.
Move up to many of the armies in history, often on the losing side.
Move up to a government, especially a monarchy or dictatorship.
Give that type of organization a name.
That’s what I’m talking about.
February 26, 2008 — 9:01 am
Greg Swann says:
More, from my mail:
Not to test your patience, I just think this is important.
Socrates lives, yes, but a stand-alone loan broker can be more nimble than Bank of America. An investor with a solid network can outmaneuver Solomon Brothers. On the internet, Leonidas alone is more than enough to take on all of Persia.
For all of human history, people have sought power by accumulation — of muscles, of weapons, of armaments, of fixed capital.
All of that is over.
I think this is an important state change. Am I being obtuse?
February 26, 2008 — 9:25 am
DB says:
Greg: Just to let you know, I nicknamed you Pericles!
February 26, 2008 — 1:08 pm
DB says:
Darn, do you have something installed on here that keeps changing my spelling?
February 26, 2008 — 1:10 pm
Greg Swann says:
I fixed it.
February 26, 2008 — 1:12 pm