Hm--

The Internet's primary effect on how we think will only reveal itself when it affects the cultural milieu of thought, not just the behavior of individual users. The members of the Invisible College did not live to see the full flowering of the scientific method, and we will not live to see what use humanity makes of a medium for sharing that is cheap, instant, and global (both in the sense of 'comes from everyone' and 'goes everywhere.') We are, however, the people who are setting the earliest patterns for this medium. Our fate won't matter much, but the norms we set will.

-Clay Shirky, "The Shock Of Inclusion"

Actually, I'm putting this up here as sort of a note to myself because I'm kind of interested in thinking about the implications of this and some of Shirky's other observations in the same essay. First, I started to text it to myself, then e-mail it instead, then I thought about making a Writer's Café journal note, then I thought this was a place I'd be likely to see it and hey, maybe some of you would find it interesting, too.

Feel free to comment on it, or not. Like I said, I'm kind of sticking it here where I'll see it through the week and not so much to make any particular observations about it myself. Sort of an online corkboard, kind of.