[Industrialblog,
October 30, 2006]
Another reason I began to blog
I started to blog way back in the dark ages, oh, say 2002. One reason: I am a professional writer, and I was concerned about becoming obsolete if I ignored this technology. Since then, I've failed to remain on the cutting edge of blogging, but what are you gonna do? I rarely post pictures, much less YouTube and Podcasting, whatever that is. Perhaps some day ...
On the other hand, I've gotten to know people who are cutting edge. I no longer see blogging as a threat to my profession in the short term -- long term, all bets are off.
On the other hand, I've gotten to know people who are cutting edge. I no longer see blogging as a threat to my profession in the short term -- long term, all bets are off.
I dunno, I enjoy blogging, but mostly as a hobby... you know, about on a par with stamp collecting or building model airplanes. It's a blessed relief to know that nothing I do on my blog is going to change the world, whether for better or for worse.
As for the blogosphere, I think it has a certain undeniable public value, as witness Rathergate. But I continue to be put off, as I have been from the very beginning, by the sheer mudwrestling aspect of so much of it. There are a lot of wonderful people out there, blogging and commenting. But my informal observation is that the blogosphere draws far more than its share of nutcases, jerks, haters, the emotionally damaged, the socially marginal, and outright sociopaths. Which I suspect drives a lot of good, decent, sane people away, precisely because they are good, decent, and sane (or at least it keeps them silently lurking). Sort of like an analog to Gresham's Law.
Perhaps that's inevitable with such a thoroughly democratic medium, and I know it can be controlled, somewhat, with a heavier moderatorial hand. Still, four years after I first stumbled into the blogosphere, I see it as generating far more heat than light, whether considered in its own right, or whether compared to print media such as magazines or books.
No idea where blogging is going to head over the long term. New angles keep emerging. I've posted several YouTube videos on my blog, it's sort of a hoot. Photos are easy too, if you've got a digital camera and webspace to burn. New angles keep emerging all the time in cyberspace. I'm still recovering from my recent discovery of Lulu.com, and the world of self-publishing. I haven't yet had the nerve to check out the interactive world of Second Life.
Give it another 10 or 20 years, we'll be in Neuromancer territory. In Matrix territory. Maybe there'll even be AIs that will have their own blogs. ;-)
I haven't heard of lulu.com or second life, but i'll give it a shot. tks for the heads-up.
I don't believe there will ever be AI as we imagine it, a sentinent being a la Data on ST.
It would probably also call for putting that "something pretty much identical to the human body" through its paces in a real-world social environment, for years on end. There's no substitute, even in theory, for experience.
Still, as the saying goes, "In cyberspace no one knows that you're a dog..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racter
Harry: Fascinating tidbit there, thanks.