4 ms·

Edge.org presents things as 'conversations' but they are generally just essays, with no possibility for other edge members to leave comments. Thats not a conver

Edge.org presents things as 'conversations' but they are generally just essays, with no possibility for other edge members to leave comments. Thats not a conversation. There's no dialogue, nothing anyone says is challenged. None of these 'great minds' at Edge are actually presented talking to each other. Consequently although Edge.org says its all about conversation and advancing knowledge, I suspect its really just about selling pop-science books. It would be a much better site if it was a proper forum (for the 'great minds' that are members) and we could all watch the discussion, disagreements, flameouts and ragequits. Seriously.

glenstein 13y ago
Well I'm looking at the front page story, "A Conversation with Lee Smolin." It leads with a monologue from Smolin followed by a response from Arnold Trehub, followed by a response from Sean Carroll, followed by an entry from Lee Smolin responding to Carroll's response. Bruce Sterling enters the conversation to express sympathy with ideas Smolin as raised then Trehub comes back with another response and finally Amanda Gefter gives a reply to Smolin. This event is put under the site's conversations section, and a quick perusal of this section reveals tons of similar conversations with multiple contributors all responding to each other, and they've been doing this for years.
- codeulike 13y ago
  Hmm, I looked before and didn't find much, but you're right. Still, on page 1 of the list of 'conversations' there only seem to be 9 that are genuine dialogues, the other 41 are just singular essays or people all answering an open question. But yeah, thats a bit more like it. Still some way to go before it becomes a bubbling forum of discourse though.
toasterlovin 13y ago
I'm just guessing here, but the video for a lot of the "conversations" seem to be a conversation between the subject and the camera person that was edited down to make a more cohesive video. The videos are fairly well transcribed though, so I don't think this comes across in the text. Maybe this is the conversation being referred to.

glenstein 13y ago

Well I'm looking at the front page story, "A Conversation with Lee Smolin." It leads with a monologue from Smolin followed by a response from Arnold Trehub, followed by a response from Sean Carroll, followed by an entry from Lee Smolin responding to Carroll's response. Bruce Sterling enters the conversation to express sympathy with ideas Smolin as raised then Trehub comes back with another response and finally Amanda Gefter gives a reply to Smolin. This event is put under the site's conversations section, and a quick perusal of this section reveals tons of similar conversations with multiple contributors all responding to each other, and they've been doing this for years.

codeulike 13y ago
Hmm, I looked before and didn't find much, but you're right. Still, on page 1 of the list of 'conversations' there only seem to be 9 that are genuine dialogues, the other 41 are just singular essays or people all answering an open question. But yeah, thats a bit more like it. Still some way to go before it becomes a bubbling forum of discourse though.

toasterlovin 13y ago

I'm just guessing here, but the video for a lot of the "conversations" seem to be a conversation between the subject and the camera person that was edited down to make a more cohesive video. The videos are fairly well transcribed though, so I don't think this comes across in the text. Maybe this is the conversation being referred to.