Sat, 07 Jun 2003 19:16:21 GMT

Social vaporware. Bill Thompson wants a little less conversation about social software (and presumably, a little more action):

This lack of awareness about what has been done before means that, by and large, the ongoing debate about social software is generally uninteresting, intellectually shallow and largely irrelevant.

It is a shame, because the people having the discussions are intelligent and write well, and… [kottke.org]

It is a shame, because as I was reading last night in an old political theory reader, some of the key points of fascism are anti-intellectualism, a will to end rational discussion, and to just do things. This seems to me to be quite a problem, because lots of people don't want to figure things out before doing them, they just want to do them and damn the consequences when they realize they've done something wrong… well, lets sit back and think a bit before we 'just do it', lets have some open and rational discussion, and then when we figure out whether something is worth doing, then do it, but don't go out there assuming that because it is built it will be good for whatever you intended it to be good for. communities, people, whatever, don't just build it, think, discuss, think again, then act, etc. etc.