re: The blogosphere--a reality check
You can't vet opinions
Never said you could. The subtopic's the notion that blogging will replace journalism, which is (in theory) the realm of fact. You can vet facts.
Robert: "What fascinates so many people about the blogosphere, I think, is just that you can always find a blog that agrees with you...and for most people, that's the definition of "truth". Or "fair and balanced"... what seems so revolutionary is, most often, just the novelty of seeing your own views presented as gospel truth."
GB: Can we test this? Point to a blog that agrees with you.
Personally I know of none.
Well, you have the advantage of me, because, since I'm not one of those people dazzled by the "blogosphere", I've never been at all motivated to go find a blog that agrees with me.
That observation comes, first, from simple logic, based on the number of blogs out there and the statistical probability of finding a like-minded blog. It also comes from noting that Zoners who cite blogs never have any difficulty finding one that agrees with whatever point they want to make.
Maybe you should exclude some posters, for instance, I would probably write mostly about pipelaunchers or something like that:)
Not at all. The very point of adding blogs is that the social BBS environment may stifle discussion of a person's unique interest if it's not shared widely; blogs in tandem with BBSes counter the tendency to groupthink and preserve diversity.
So you are saying the blogs are very similar to BBS, yet you are dismissing them?
Not at all. I'm dismissing the hype about blogs that misleadingly characterizes them as unique and revolutionary. Such artificial distinctions aren't useful--if you acknowledge the similarities between blogs and BBSes, your knowledge of one helps makes the other comprehensible. "New!" and especially "Revolutionary!" generally impede understanding--they prejudice you by saying "you can't really understand this because you have no existing referents". I'm saying that blogs are comprehensible and that their commonality with BBSes mean they may have a place at the Zone.
This may be Flame, but unfortunately (in Flame terms) the thread has devolved (in Flame terms) into reasonableness: I'm not fighting blogs, I'm not defending BBSes against the "threat" of blogs. I'm looking to usefully integrate them. I'm curious whether the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.