Re:On blog templates: designing is thinking; every detail de...
by Alex3917 on Monday March 05, 2007 @12:21AM
(#2280)
I agree with you on point one.
As for point two, I suppose you never know what each individual is thinking. However, the aggregated wisdom tends to be fairly stable over time for any given topic.
For example, if the topic of Apple comes up on Digg then I pretty much know what the comments are going to say without having to click on them. If one person posts an especially insightful comment, and others recognize it as such, then chances are someone else will repost that comment in future threads about Apple. More and more people come to believe whatever is said, until someone else comes up with a new paradigm for Apple worship. So the discourse evolves, but slowly and in predictable patterns.
Certainly any given individual's opinions are constantly in flux, but what matters isn't the ideas of each individual brings to the system, but rather the range of diversity and novelty of thought present in the system as a whole.
As for point two, I suppose you never know what each individual is thinking. However, the aggregated wisdom tends to be fairly stable over time for any given topic.
For example, if the topic of Apple comes up on Digg then I pretty much know what the comments are going to say without having to click on them. If one person posts an especially insightful comment, and others recognize it as such, then chances are someone else will repost that comment in future threads about Apple. More and more people come to believe whatever is said, until someone else comes up with a new paradigm for Apple worship. So the discourse evolves, but slowly and in predictable patterns.
Certainly any given individual's opinions are constantly in flux, but what matters isn't the ideas of each individual brings to the system, but rather the range of diversity and novelty of thought present in the system as a whole.