4 ms·

Is this guy a conspiracy nut? He goes off the deep end in that last paragraph, and his whole blog is rife with 9/11 inside job rhetoric and new world order nut

Is this guy a conspiracy nut? He goes off the deep end in that last paragraph, and his whole blog is rife with 9/11 inside job rhetoric and new world order nuttery. He uses the phrase "conspiracy factualist" in another post. Please lets not get taken over by the 911 truth nutters like reddit.

jacoblyles 18y ago
I thought he had an interesting point about how you can increase your user's trust in your social network platform by specifying the rules more clearly, having a constitution of sorts for your users. But then, yeah, last paragraph - totally off the deep end. It's not that I'm opposed to his views, they just don't need to be inserted as a non-sequitur into unrelated conversations. Then again, maybe he thinks social network platforms should print their own money, in which case the experience of US govcorp is informative.
- DLWormwood 18y ago
  Then again, maybe he thinks social network platforms should print their own money, in which case the experience of US govcorp is informative. He thinks that platforms will take the place of both governments and corporations. http://www.kidmercuryblog.com/t1689/* http://www.kidmercuryblog.com/t1689/* A few years ago, this type would have been a believer in the upcoming "singularity."
  - mindslight 18y ago
    > A few years ago, this type would have been a believer in the upcoming "singularity." The belief that technology will usurp governments is more than "a few years old" (the cyphernomicon was written in 1994).
    - DLWormwood 18y ago
      > The belief that technology will usurp governments is more than "a few years old" What the article writer is talking about is not technology per se, but a new social structure. Which is just the same "nothing new under the sun" phenomenon if you look back in history. The printing press (another disrupting technology) helped usher in modern democracy and eventually the corporation, but they still suffered the same ills prior organizational structures like the church or the kingdom did. "Platforms" will not make the bad parts of human nature go away.
- dkarl 18y ago
  "a constitution of sorts for your users" When your users are trying to build businesses, they'll eventually realize they need demand a binding statement of reasonable terms, i.e., a contract. The system only scales if all the users accept one contract, or minor variations on a single contract. Therefore, a constitution is a brilliant idea. The idea will encounter resistance because it contradicts two related biases that were ingrained during the early years of the web. First, the contract accepted by all users is a EULA (which eliminates all rights and guarantees no matter what the consumer thinks), not a contract (which attempts to specify a reasonable relationship acceptable to both parties). Second, people using a web site are consumers (who must be screwed blatantly and thoroughly) rather than business partners (who must be screwed subtly, if at all). I would love to see these two assumptions challenged.
  - mindslight 18y ago
    For those building business, there's money changing hands, and I think equitable contracts will spring up sooner - Google's recent snafus come to mind as examples of what happens when income streams are subject to "as-is" terms. But for free services, "as-is" agreements will always reign supreme. The ability to sue a company for violating said agreement is not worth much to a user, while creating a huge aggregate liability for the company. The way to give users rights is through technical means - export functionality and interoperability create well-defined capabilities that users can easily understand and exercise.
dasil003 18y ago
It's crazy how fast he went from making an interesting argument to completely cuckoo. It was like Woody Woodpecker dressing up in a lab coat and playing it serious, only to bust out at the end and peck a short bald man on the nose. I have to admit though, the idea that the revolution will be fueled by social networking platforms is a new twist.
mindslight 18y ago
Are you an anti-conspiracy nut? Please, let's not get taken over by (equally fact-free) official story nutters like reddit. Certainly "discussions" about the events of sep11 are pointless sparring - like politics in general, people have deep-rooted beliefs and emotionally argue about something that is inherently unprovable. But this has nothing to do with the linked article - you are starting a political argument based on other things the author has written (but not submitted).
kidmercury 18y ago
i am a conspiracy nut, though the purpose of the post was to illustrate that web platforms need to develop their own legal system that will challenge the nation-state in order to grow. so the political nature of the last paragraph was wholly relevant to the thesis of the post.

jacoblyles 18y ago

I thought he had an interesting point about how you can increase your user's trust in your social network platform by specifying the rules more clearly, having a constitution of sorts for your users. But then, yeah, last paragraph - totally off the deep end. It's not that I'm opposed to his views, they just don't need to be inserted as a non-sequitur into unrelated conversations. Then again, maybe he thinks social network platforms should print their own money, in which case the experience of US govcorp is informative.

DLWormwood 18y ago
Then again, maybe he thinks social network platforms should print their own money, in which case the experience of US govcorp is informative. He thinks that platforms will take the place of both governments and corporations. http://www.kidmercuryblog.com/t1689/* http://www.kidmercuryblog.com/t1689/* A few years ago, this type would have been a believer in the upcoming "singularity."
- mindslight 18y ago
  > A few years ago, this type would have been a believer in the upcoming "singularity." The belief that technology will usurp governments is more than "a few years old" (the cyphernomicon was written in 1994).
  - DLWormwood 18y ago
    > The belief that technology will usurp governments is more than "a few years old" What the article writer is talking about is not technology per se, but a new social structure. Which is just the same "nothing new under the sun" phenomenon if you look back in history. The printing press (another disrupting technology) helped usher in modern democracy and eventually the corporation, but they still suffered the same ills prior organizational structures like the church or the kingdom did. "Platforms" will not make the bad parts of human nature go away.
dkarl 18y ago
"a constitution of sorts for your users" When your users are trying to build businesses, they'll eventually realize they need demand a binding statement of reasonable terms, i.e., a contract. The system only scales if all the users accept one contract, or minor variations on a single contract. Therefore, a constitution is a brilliant idea. The idea will encounter resistance because it contradicts two related biases that were ingrained during the early years of the web. First, the contract accepted by all users is a EULA (which eliminates all rights and guarantees no matter what the consumer thinks), not a contract (which attempts to specify a reasonable relationship acceptable to both parties). Second, people using a web site are consumers (who must be screwed blatantly and thoroughly) rather than business partners (who must be screwed subtly, if at all). I would love to see these two assumptions challenged.
- mindslight 18y ago
  For those building business, there's money changing hands, and I think equitable contracts will spring up sooner - Google's recent snafus come to mind as examples of what happens when income streams are subject to "as-is" terms. But for free services, "as-is" agreements will always reign supreme. The ability to sue a company for violating said agreement is not worth much to a user, while creating a huge aggregate liability for the company. The way to give users rights is through technical means - export functionality and interoperability create well-defined capabilities that users can easily understand and exercise.

dasil003 18y ago

It's crazy how fast he went from making an interesting argument to completely cuckoo. It was like Woody Woodpecker dressing up in a lab coat and playing it serious, only to bust out at the end and peck a short bald man on the nose. I have to admit though, the idea that the revolution will be fueled by social networking platforms is a new twist.

mindslight 18y ago

Are you an anti-conspiracy nut? Please, let's not get taken over by (equally fact-free) official story nutters like reddit. Certainly "discussions" about the events of sep11 are pointless sparring - like politics in general, people have deep-rooted beliefs and emotionally argue about something that is inherently unprovable. But this has nothing to do with the linked article - you are starting a political argument based on other things the author has written (but not submitted).

kidmercury 18y ago

i am a conspiracy nut, though the purpose of the post was to illustrate that web platforms need to develop their own legal system that will challenge the nation-state in order to grow. so the political nature of the last paragraph was wholly relevant to the thesis of the post.