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We systematically overestimate the value of access to information and underestimate the value of access to each other.

Clay Shirky

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Clay Shirky
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: January 1
Academic
Scientist
Technology Evangelist
Writer
Columbia
Missouri
Information
Values
Overestimate
Systematically
Underestimate
Access
Value

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Time Warner has called and they want us all back on the couch, just consuming - not producing, not sharing - and we should say, 'No.'
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The whole, 'Is the internet a good thing or a bad thing'? We're done with that. It's just a thing. How to maximise its civic value, its public good - that's the really big challenge.
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The loss of control you fear is already in the past.
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If what you're doing is valuable for people, they will find a way to pay you to keep doing it.
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Any system described by a power law [...] has several curious effects. The first is that, by definition, most participants are below average.
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If someone around you is multitasking, you pick up distraction like second-hand smoke.
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The tools that a society uses to create and maintain itself are as central to human life as a hive is to bee life. Though the hive is not part of any individual bee, it is part of the colony, both shaped by and shaping the lives of its inhabitants.
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Egalitarianism is possible only in small social systems. Once a medium gets past a certain size fame is a forced move.
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Our social tools are not an improvement to modern society, they are a challenge to it.
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It is possible to think that the Internet will be a net positive for society while admitting that there are significant downsides - after all, it's not a revolution if nobody loses.
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Upgrading one's imagination about what is possible is always a leap of faith.
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Curation comes up when people realize that it isn’t just about information seeking, it’s also about synchronizing a community.
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We're not good at thinking fast. We are good at feeling fast.
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Wikipedia [...] is the product not of collectivism but of unending argumentation.
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Behavior is motivation filtered through opportunity.
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Collaboration is not an absolute good.
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Unlike sharing, where the group is mainly an aggregate of participants, cooperating creates group identity.
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A firm is successful when the costs of directing employee effort are lower than the potential gain from directing.
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Publishing isn't a job anymore. It's a button.
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When you adopt a tool you adopt the management philosophy embedded in that tool.
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