Slashdot Mirror
Science Fiction and Smart Mobs
Roland Piquepaille writes "Henry Jenkins is director of the Program in Comparative Media Studies at the MIT. In this article, he compares the new science fiction comic book from Warren Ellis, Global Frequency and the more serious book from Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs. 'It is almost as though Ellis was illustrating arguments that Howard Rheingold makes in his new book, Smart Mobs.' As Rheingold explains, 'Smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don't know each other. The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities.... Groups of people using these tools will gain new forms of social power.' Check this column for some excerpts or read the original article for more details. More information about topics discussed in Howard Rheingold's last book can be found at the Smart Mobs weblog." T. adds: Here's Curtis Frye's review of Smart Mobs .
TURN YOUR TV ON!
Frok Pok.
People are sick
third post? maybe?
slow as heck
The worst disaster in NASA just happened not four hours ago, and all you people can talk about are duplicate stories???? GET SOME PRIORITIES, PEOPLE!
--sdem
Sound like Counter-Strike.
But I still think that only the authors (and their significant others) read them.
For an alternative perspective on mob behavior, see this article in Wired.
Nooface
In Search of the Post-PC Interface
Can't the internet and it's constituents be considered a "smart mob"?
I'm posting here so as to not get lost in the zillions of posts in the disaster thread below. Yes, this is totally off topic and I've never done this before, but I think it's worth a try to see if I can get this message through.
/. is being /.ed, There's another problem that just reared it's head:
/code could be modified to do same automatically when a thread builds so quickly.
Besides the fact that right now
There are not sufficient total mod points available to deal with a thread as gigantic as the one about the Space Shuttle disintegrating.
There are lots of comments that need to be modded both up and down, but no more folks with points left to do it.
I'd suggest for the moment that the editors give all mods some points.
And then in the future perhaps the
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Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
well in 20 seconds I got modded down as a troll. whatever.
ROFLMO
Excellent suggestion.
from Theodore Sturgeon, is a classic science fiction tale where all get connected and sound a lot like this, but more integrated with us than using external devices.
- A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
).Are these the new "Africanized" Smart Mobs I've been hearing about on the news?
He wrote several short stories that dealt with the effects of technology on mobs. Although in his universe, it was teleportation that created the problem, it's certainly relevent with today's technology (just look at the /. effect)
I know that they are included in several collections, the titles are...
- Flash Crowd
- The Last Days Of The Permanent Floating Riot Club
Actually, some of his best writing is that which deals with the psychology of new technologies, such as teleportation. So I would highly recommend that those interested check his work out.
Larry Nives is lovin' this, I betcha.
Two words: Flash Crowds
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It's when you get distracted by the politickers that they sideline you. The tireless work that you perform keeping the system clean and building is what provides the platform for the obsessives and the prima donnas to have their moments in the sun. In the end, we need you all; in order to go forwards we must first avoid going backwards.
To the paranoid conspiracy theorists - yes, I work for Apple too. No, my resignation wasn't on Steve's direct orders, or in any way related to work I'm doing, may do, may not do, or indeed what was in the tea I had at lunchtime today. It's about real problems that the project faces, real problems that the project has brought upon itself. You can't escape them by inventing excuses about outside influence, the problem stems from within.
To the politically obsessed - give it a break, if you can. No, the project isn't a lemonade stand anymore, but it's not a world-spanning corporate juggernaut either and some of the more grandiose visions going around are in need of a solid dose of reality. Keep it simple, stupid.
To the grandstanders, the prima donnas, and anyone that thinks that they can hold the project to ransom for their own agenda - give it a break, if you can. When the current core were elected, we took a conscious stand against vigorous sanctions, and some of you have exploited that. A new core is going to have to decide whether to repeat this mistake or get tough. I hope they learn from our errors.
Future
I started work on FreeBSD because it was fun. If I'm going to continue, it has to be fun again. There are things I still feel obligated to do, and with any luck I'll find the time to meet those obligations.
However I don't feel an obligation to get involved in the political mess the project is in right now. I tried, I burnt out. I don't feel that my efforts were worthwhile. So I won't be standing for election, I won't be shouting from the sidelines, and I probably won't vote in the next round of ballots.
You could say I'm packing up my toys. I'm not going home just yet, but I'm not going to play unless you can work out how to make the project somewhere fun to be again.
= Mike
--
Smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don't know each other. The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities....
;-)
Sounds a whole lot like how OSS projects are developed-- and we communicate and collaborate through devices with computing capabilities known usually as personal computers
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
There is currently a system available to anonymize web transactions . The legal implications of this are worth considering, with the current spat of court cases holding service providers responsible for the actions of their users.
I remember the story that if all one billion Chinese people jumped at the same instance, something terrible would happen (like a tidal wave would be created that would destroy Los Angeles).
Of course, this is the same logic used to 'flush all the toilets on campus'.
Now that there are smart mobs, maybe we can test these theories...
Ready, set, JUMP!
My father is a blogger.
In that case they are mentioning how an unkown org was able to get a group of people to distroy a bank. (they were using a system of mod points) I believe we will see a lot of tech from that book in real life.
nomad phones for one need to be built. I am looking into it.(contact mph at home . nyc . ny in the US domain. )
building physical things by location would be neat does not sound to unreasonable.
A lab storing genetic materials sounds like what passed over my desk years ago by the name of Seeds of Change but looks like many more organizations are doing that now in the organic communities
Who's there?
Dead Astronauts! HAHAHAHHAHAHA
There is an everquest joke to be made here...
Survey founds young Americans are the smartest
Since no link was provided in the post, here they are: Global Frequency and Warren Ellis with a deep link to his GF page.
That would be N^N which is faster than exponential
http://www.epublicrelations.org/Reedlaw.html
Dr. David P. Reed, former vice president and chief scientist for Lotus Development Corporation, has developed the idea of Group Forming Networks to explain the enormous power of the internet to facilitate the formation of networked groups. These groups could include the numerous special interest groups, which are attacking the biotech industry. The Group Forming Law (or, Reed?s Law) calculates the number of groups of two or more people which can be formed a single group.
More interesting statements @For example, how many groups of two or more people can be formed with an initial group of three? According to Reed?s Law is 2^N-N-1 Substituting 3 for N the answer is 4. Not a very impressive number. However, the answer grows dramatically as N grow. For example, how many groups of two or more people can be formed in a classroom of 20 students? The answer? 1,048,555!!!
http://www.epublicrelations.org/Reedlaw.html
Reed notes:
"As the internet continues to expand, investments in Group-Forming Networks are likely to produce the biggest returns. As the scale increases, what important also shifts?When the Group-Forming Law takes hold, communities are king."
Also:
"The obvious conclusion is that whoever forms the biggest, most robust communities will win."
These statements are surprisingly similar to those made by RAND in its discussion of netwars.
RAND notes:
"Whoever masters the network form first and best will gain major advantages."
Also:
"The information revolution favors and strengthens networks, while it erodes hierarchies."
"Hierarchies have a difficult time fighting networks."
"It takes networks to fight networks."
Finally, RAND states:
"Today, those who want to defend against netwar will, increasingly, have to adopt weapons, strategies, and organization designs like those of their adversaries. This does not mean mirroring the adversary, but rather learning how to draw on the same design principles that he has already learned about the rise of network from in the information age. These principles depend to some extent upon technological breakthroughs, but mainly on a willingness to innovate organizationally."
Distraction, as an event that was discussed in the novel, where a random mob suddenly comes together to completely destroy a bank in under two minutes.
A short story in A Good Old Fashioned Future where a computer mediates between people doing almost random favors for each other that result in great things being accomplished.
The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities....
Is this the start of a Borg society?
Offtopic, but during this time of tragedy, , I have uploaded a couple of clips of space shuttle breaking up for /. readers:
e ak ingUp_1of2.rm
e ak ingUp_2of2.rm
PLEASE SAVE THESE (right click and select "Save Target As" on IE) AND CREATE MIRRORS:
Shuttle breaking up (clip 1 of 2)
huttle breaking up (clip 2 of 2)
Hourly Bandwidth limited Mirror:
http://www.geocities.com/koodakabaada/ShuttleBr
http://www.geocities.com/koodakabaada/ShuttleBr
I remember reading about severe soccer related riots in Rotterdam in '99. The police had great trouble containing the riots because people were calling on their mobile phones detailing the position of the police agents.
I always wondered why they did not shut down the cellular antennas that day. There is probably a law that forbids the police to do that.
How can you control rioteers if they have this communications advantage?
Yes, OSS development shares two key characteristics with smart mobs: the OSS community engages in a form of collective action, and they use online media to communicate and coordinate. Smart Mobs specifically looks at the new kinds of social impacts afforded by the combination of mobile communication, pervasive computation, and collective action. When OSS developers start using the Net and mobile devices to coordinate their activities, they will be smart mobby.
Jenkins article was about the art and science of writing about the future in a way that would encourage discourse. I believe that we can have more influence on events if we understand the driving forces and critical uncertainties raised by the intersection of society and technology -- and if we have intelligent discussions about the implications. Anyone interested?
Even better, give ME some mod points. I'd mod up all the First Post posts and the YOU FAIL IT posts and the IN SOVIET RUSSIA posts, because they sure beat the annoying poetry posts already present in that monstrous thread.
Trolls are the BEST. Bow down to them.
The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities.... Groups of people using these tools will gain new forms of social power.
.... If data from the past is any foresight for the future, i'm not so sure how "smart" the mobs will be...
If you keep out the "carry" and change it into "own"... you have the internet... And what is it used for by most people.... Download mp3, porn and troll on newgroups
Maybe technology will become smarter, people however will probably stay the same.
'Blue light special on Western Digital drives.' Masses of ebayers rush to Kmart.
Am I the only one who's getting sick of the Anti-Globalization movement's pointless existence?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
...features a "smart mob" of people bound together in a secret society where each person is required to undertake tasks without understanding the motives behind the tasks. All members were also required to wear bracelets rigged with explosives to ensure their compliance.
In a sense the "drummers" in Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" were also a smart mob, with individuals playing the part of components of a large computer.
"The old forget, the young don't know" --Japanese Proverb
So if I want to read these things, what exactly do I have to do? The comics aren't in Amazon. DC's unnavigatable page seems to have nothing more than the Sneak Peak from months ago. Shouldn't Warren's site have a link to his baby?
I don't read comics, I don't know where to buy these things! Here I am, out on the Internet, money burning a hole in my pocket and nobody is willing to take it from me. :(
None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary
to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one
ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a
job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing
forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient
he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a
state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the
"expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible.
-- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work"
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