Yesterday I run across the blog All Embrasing… by an author calling himself horansome:
A Philosophy Blog (Patent Pending) on, about, around and devoted to the discussion of Conspiracy Theories. ‘All Embracing But Underwhelming’ is the author’s blog-of-progress (TM) detailing his travails, troubles and pleasures whilst working on his PhD project wherein he seeks to sort out Conspiracy Theories, mark out fallacies and generally have a good time. If you’d like to also have a good time with the author why not e-mail him at horansome-at-episto-dot-org.
I don’t think it’s possible to skip the field of conspiracy theory all together if you’re doing research about social knowledge and web 2.0. I’m not sure if 2.0 properties undermine or makes conspiracies easier to create or maintain. Probably both since 2.0 is a general boost of the possibilities for communication. Both conspiracy theory and 2.0 thinking problematizes the agency between ordinary people and authorities.
My unreflected reaction is that 2.0 knowledge properties counteract conspiracies since conspiracies grew in rather secluded thought realms. In this sense perhaps you could say that secluded social services like Facebook might be a better scene for conspiracies than the open realm of the blogosphere. In a blog you can always make your point - if the comment isn’t removed by the author - so the chance for a balanced view might be greater than in more secluded systems.
Issuu is a service for creating and sharing publications based on pdf-files. The publication above, I made in Impress (Powerpoint of Open Office) and exported to pdf and uploaded to Issuu. From Issuu I got a piece of code I pasted into this blog post. The embed code from Issuu can be emedded on practically all kinds of web pages.
Click on the arrow to use the mini reader or click somewhere else to read in a bigger reader.
The document Uncertainty and the Ghost of Plato is a kind of brainstorming text, and I used Impress to structure it. The presentation form can also be handy in future conversations and conferences.
Jeff De Cagna at principledinnovation.com argues that “Web 2.0 is precisely the generative force associations need to embrace to enable the creation of new value in the 21st century”. Well spoken. 2.0 processes could be a generative force in more in more situations than we normally give it credit for. Why are we so scared of this force when it could raise the quality in most knowledge processes? Is it only about loosing control, loosing the power over people? Loosing our selves in the crowd?
But if my knowledge- and communication processes could be boosted by 2.0, why wouldn’t I embrace it? Are we so eager to have control and accumulate power that we are willing to sell out things like knowledge- and communication quality.
Is it self-evident that 2.0 processes will lead to higher quality regarding knowledge processes and communication. No, not at all. It is not possible to generalise a question like this. But a large amount of the hierarchical, closed processes we normally engage in, would benefit from a 2.0 perspective.
Wikiversity is a a “wiki website where you are invited to explore your learning goals and participate in active learning projects. Everyone is welcome to help create and develop learning resources.”
Are collaborative learning communities the future of learning? I checked out Wikiversity, which is quite interesting but feels more cold than hot to me. I fear that traditional structures is transferred into these new possibilities, which probably leads to nothing, because 2.0-minded people are not prepared to invest in old structures. Learning 2.0 is more about non-hierarchical, long-tailish processes than moving the traditional learning structures into a transparent layer of collaboration. Wikiversity is a good effort but it might take some time for it to mature into something really interesting.
Of course, this discussion calls for some kind of action. I should probably join the one of the teams at Wikiversity or create my own, instead of whining about it (well, i’m not really whining… or am I…?). Change needs action.
By the way, as an example of what I am wining about, you could check out the School of Sociology at Wikiversity.
This is the brand new research blog of Peter Giger. I blog about social knowledge- and research processes including tips about technology in relation to reserch.
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