Glen writes: < I disagree. These tools are personal (I'm OK if you'd prefer a different term... "local" perhaps, "concrete"?) and are definitely not abstract. When you put your life (as you know it) at risk submitting classified information to Wikileaks, that's personal. When you spend 1/2 your day futzing with dependencies so you can use open source tools to edit the ROM on your phone, that 1/2 day is personal. And when you spend hours reading through really boring e-mails from and to someone like Podesta or some banker in the Cook Islands, that's personal. >
These local representations are not necessarily the same or even similar and interesting insights come about from the simple act of distribution. Assange is arrogant, but he is not so arrogant to think that someone else may be able to profoundly contextualize the documents he distributes. Similarly, anyone that has worked with component-oriented software has had the experience of discovering a new unintended use for an artifact. Whether any given distribution act is constructive or destructive is arguable, but there are certainly examples where millions of people would agree that it was constructive, e.g. the Linux kernel. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
