lrudo...@meganet.net wrote at 03/26/2012 02:08 PM:
> I said that you're not *necessarily* concluding that the FRIAM forum
> (in particular) is *irremediably* flawed (you do, after all, continue
> to participate non-trivially). But you might think it is, so I ask
> you, do you? If not, how might it be remediated (practically or
> impractically)?
I definitely do NOT think abstracted media like e-mail lists and web
forums are irredeemably flawed. (FWIW, I don't know why you said
"irremediably" ... I'm still working on that.) To try to one-up your
meta 8^), I'll further assert that I receive benefits beyond my
contribution from most fora in which I participate ... and even some
where I just lurk. But that's not the real issue. The real issue is
whether such fora can assist with "valid-in-context" sentences.
My claim is that abstracted media (including but not limited to journal
articles and e-mail) are valuable precisely _because_ they prevent the
sender from creating a closure. It's literally easy to have a happy go
lucky, in-context conversation face-to-face. Any moron can do that. ;-)
What's difficult is to have an in-context conversation under harsh
conditions. These abstracted media _force_ us to read with empathy ...
run little simulations in our heads imagining what the other party could
possibly mean by their ridiculous assertions. That's what, in my
opinion, remedies both journals and e-mail lists.
Personally, I am usually frustrated with the face-to-face conversations
I have. Everyone comes away from those claiming that I'm so precise in
my language and, seemingly, have thought about whatever the arbitrary
topic is beforehand. In reality, I just say whatever comes to my head
and am astonished if/when it comes out coherent at all. I chalk it up
to having a yankee dad and a cajun mom ... they canceled each other out
nicely to create the mediocrity that defines me.
The "remedy" for this coercion can only be for each participant to
remember that a complex adaptive system lies at the other end of the
wire. What you get out may be woefully tiny compared to what you put in
_or_ what you get out might show a fantastic ROI. Those of us used to
thinking linearly (e.g. my motorcycle will perform in proportion to the
effort I spend maintaining it) will likely be disappointed until they
abandon that linearity and embrace it as a complex system.
> One reason, by the way, that I think "mailing lists", "e-mail", and
> newsgroups (e.g., Usenet--but not Google Groups, god forbid) actually
> are *more* "conducive...to rigorous conversation" than many "face-to-
> face" fora is their asynchronicity. ("Chat", by contrast, has all
> the disadvantages of "face-to-face"ness without any of its
> advantages, for me. There's nothing about the "online"ness that
> makes them work--for me; an exchange of paper letters, if it could be
> done at the speed that used to be normal in London, with two
> deliveries a day, would be just as good. And phone calls are teh
> sux0r.)
I agree with you. But I think the value lies in their inability to
create a cognitive closure ... to carry adequate context for validity or
invalidity to be obvious in any sense. Asynchronicity is part of this
context-breaking, but not all of it. There's also lack of tone, lack of
body language, etc. That lack of context is what stimulates our
imaginations. Small people tend to insult others when their
imaginations fail them lacking context. Large people tend to give
others the benefit of the doubt because their imaginations fill in the
blanks ... part of the "Dunning-Kruger effect", I suspect.
--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com
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