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I’m in the process of moving house, and have packed and physically moved half of my books so far (which isn’t bad!). My books are lined up alphabetically on the shelves, meaning that all my Card books are now unavailable to me. This again means that I can’t find out when Enders Game was first released. But I remember that upon reading the book, I thought Card had been rather perceptive in “predicting” the importance of the Internet, so I gather it was some time before internet actually became a big deal.
I also remember thinking that he didn’t hit spot on regarding its role in social life and how most people would use it. Being a member of this forum has made me reflect a little bit over this. Until recently I’ve been thinking that where Card mostly missed in his “prediction” was in the power of single contributors on the web. Internet as we know it is (way) more commercial than it seems Card has constructed his web in the book(s). But with the appearance of bloggers, I begin to see parallels. There is a huge and increasing number of web logs inviting debate, and some of them are read by quite a lot of people. During the war in Iraq, we saw that web logs could also start news in the media rather than merely reflect and comment upon them.
Do you see the same parallels? Or am I just reaching? Many of us receive our daily dose of news through newspapers (paper or digital). Sometimes they report what’s going on in the most important/controversial web logs, but most often they don’t. In my experience, TV and radio never do. Despite this, do you think that one or more bloggers could come to have the influence of Demosthenes and Locke? Or to lower the bar: just some tiny influence on world events? Do you even have bloggers that you check out regularly?
Please don’t misunderstand my use of the words predict and prediction. I don’t really believe that Card intended to give an accurate picture of things to be – I‘d just like to explore possible parallels.
Posts: 99 | Registered: Apr 2003
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What kind of too deep? I think it's an interesting issue, because some bloggers are becoming rather powerful. Don't you think there are similarities between this and Enders Game?
Posts: 99 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Because in order to be important on the internet, I personally believe one has to be important in real life first. The thing is, people are actually pretty dumb. They only pay attention to what marketers tell them to pay attention to. Someone being incredibly intelligent is not going to get them a following on the web.
Oh, I forgot about StrongBad. I take it all back. The Brother's Chapps are the only folks so cool that for them to perform with T.M.B.G. is considered selling out.
But bloggers suck. They are just another clique in the middle school of life. As an example, the waffles googlebomb. Googlebombing in general dumbs down the internet.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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An accurate portrayal of forum interaction is central to the novel Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. This is not science fiction, however, and does not extrapolate.
Posts: 2506 | Registered: Jul 2003
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So you think that the scenario with Demosthenes and Locke lack real life possibility? The reason I brougth the papers into this was that I thought they might eventually provide build-up in such a case.
Unfortunately I don't have the cultural background to understand your last two paragraphs (Except "bloggers suck". That I understand )
Posts: 99 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Drudge was an unknown before the Net, and now he follows only the NewYorkTimes and the BBC as an opinion maker
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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There are several bloggers I follow intermittently (most of whom don't do political commentary, but I don't think that's entirely relevant), and I have no idea who they are IRL.
In fact, one simply goes by the name of "She."
I agree with the parallel Trondheim is making. Especially if you consider the speed at which things spread on the Net. If some politically-oriented blogger was making consistently accurate predictions and/or noticeably altering public perception, I think they would become widely-read pretty quickly.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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The only time I saw Drudge was the attempted John Kerry Intern affair scoop. It doesn't seem like that went anywhere. Someone else linked to it one time, but I'm not sure what it was about.
But I guess if a lot of Hatrackers (including OSC) are getting their opinions from him, I might be getting some second hand smoke.
I think it would take a special kind of maniacal genius to manipulate people without them knowing you were manipulating them, especially by telling them the opposite of what you want them to think sometimes. I dunno. Maybe the bloggers responsible for making the google "I'm feeling lucky" link for "waffles" be Bush's white house are a counter strike to bolster my confidence in Bush. What do you think?
I was pretty impressed by Google's circumvention of the spam tailoring objections by setting up the invite scheme. Now people are waiting in line to have their emails spied upon.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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pooka, Gmail doesn't spy on email anymore than ALL email is already spied upon. Anyone who thinks their "private" emails are truly private is deluding themselves.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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do you think that one or more bloggers could come to have the influence of Demosthenes and Locke?
I think Rivka was right on this - the blogger would have to be very good at predictions to generate enough attention to make a difference. It would surprise me if OSC wasn't doing this already - he could be posting anywhere under a surname, probably including here on Hatrack.
Do you even have bloggers that you check out regularly?
I've become addicted. How do you people find the time to keep up on it and post frequently? I read Hatrack (I've been lurking for years - this is my first post!) and Ornery and Dean Nation and Daily Kos and Kautilyan (econ. for Dean) and cnn.com. I was checking out a left-leaning blog by Demosthenes called "Shadow of the Hegemon" today - I bet the author of that blog is a hatracker.
Posts: 7 | Registered: Apr 2004
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OSC's tendency to leave out even relatively basic fact checking would expose him and/or limit his influence.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote: Because in order to be important on the internet, I personally believe one has to be important in real life first.
I agree to a certain extent with what pooka said, but if someone was anonymously predicting major events before they happened, then people would start to assume that the blogger was important in real life, even if they were just a couple of child prodigies with uncanny foresight and manipulative powers. There was something in Ender's Game about how "everyone starts equal on the net". That's certainly true today, even on a forum like Hatrack. You are judged solely by your posts, and nothing else. You can create a personality (or multiple ones!) that you would not be able to pull off in real life.
Posts: 107 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Jaime, "Blog" is simply short for "weblog," so a "blogger" is one who keeps a running journal on their webpage. These blogs can be news reports (usually with a decided left or right lean to them) or simply editorial comments on current topics.
I'm probably not the best person to answer your question, since I just figured it out myself fairly recently. I've read the Drudge Report a few times, but I didn't realize he was a "blogger" until fairly recently.
Posts: 107 | Registered: Jan 2004
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