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The change we are in the middle of isn't minor and it isn't optional.

Clay Shirky

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Clay Shirky
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: January 1
Academic
Scientist
Technology Evangelist
Writer
Columbia
Missouri
Optional
Minor
Minors
Middle
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Knowledge, unlike information, is a human characteristic there can be information no one knows, but there can't be knowledge no one knows.
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There is no larger collective-action problem than the environment. The three biggest lies of the environmental movement is that every little bit helps, you can do your part, and together we can do it.
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If someone around you is multitasking, you pick up distraction like second-hand smoke.
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The future presented by the internet is the mass amateurization of publishing and a switch from 'Why publish this?' to 'Why not?
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When we change the way we communicate, we change society.
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Anybody who predicts the death of cities has already met his spouse.
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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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We are moving from sharing to cooperation to collective action.
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One of the best ways to know you're completely wrong, is to behave as if you're complete right.
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Amateur production, the result of all this new capability, means that the category of ‘consumer’ is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity
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The more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are for any individual to disagree with. More media always means more arguing.
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When you make the claim that something on the Internet is going to be good for democracy, you often [hear], 'Are you talking about the thing with the singing cats?'
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Upgrading one's imagination about what is possible is always a leap of faith.
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A Wikipedia article is a process, not a product.
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[T]he ways in which the information we give off about our selves, in photos and e-mails and MySpace pages and all the rest of it, has dramatically increased our social visibility and made it easier for us to find each other but also to be scrutinized in public.
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To have a discussion about the plusses and minuses of various forms of group action, though, is going to require discussing the current tools and services as they exist, rather than discussing their caricatures or simply wishing that they would disappear.
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When you got a cell phone you stopped making plans. 'I'll call you when I get there.'
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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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Fame is simply an imbalance between inbound and outbound attention.
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Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.
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