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How-to Dean

6 comments on How-to Dean

How-to Dean
: John Robb is thinking aloud (I love it when bloggers do that) in two posts (so far) about what Dean has done right, setting up a network with a hub and spokes that allow the whole to operate without apparent authoritarianism but also without anarchy. What’s he’s writing about is not true of weblogs in general — which are individual and anarchistic, forming ad hoc and bottoms-up networks. He’s writing about using weblogs and networks to meet a goal of the whole:

My guess is that the Dean network is composed of relatively isolated clusters of nodes that rely on high throughput conduit nodes for connectivity. If this is true, then the Dean hub and software strategy is correct. It is using the hub weblog to pump information to the high-throughput conduit weblogs using RSS (which strengthens them).

Of course, not only the Dean campaign is using the power of Internet enabled small-world networks. Groups across the world are doing the same, including terrorists. Terrorists? Yes. The rise of both the Internet and the first global terrorist organization (that could challenge the world’s only remaining superpower) is closely linked.

6 responses to “How-to Dean”

  1. O' Avatar
    O’

    Oooooooooh Golly! — I knewed thar was sumpin’ weird aboud that Deen feller! Why his group is opperatin’jus lik thems TERRORISTS! Oh, my Stars’n’Bars! Yep! That’s it. That Deeeeeeen an’ al’a hiz babies are like the TERRORISTS tryin’ to bring down us an’ our Only-Remaining-Superpower-In-The-World status!! Git them torches, Mae! This monster must be stopped!

  2. Tom Cohoe Avatar
    Tom Cohoe

    Anarchistic? You’ve got to be kidding. Individual weblogs are less anarchistic than newspapers. Furthermore, no one gets a link from a weblog unless the owner chooses to insert it, so the network is not anarchistic either. Weblogs work because they are not anarchistic. If you want an internet model for anarchy, try unmoderated discussion groups.
    The only thing that approaches anarchy in the world of weblogs (sorry, blogosphere)is that anyone can choose to start one.

  3. JorgXMcKie Avatar
    JorgXMcKie

    Uh, only under your definition of anarchy, Tom. There are others, you know. Strictly speaking, anarchy does not mean without order. It means without government (a whole ‘nother definition problem). I have taught courses where students work on developing an “orderly anarchy” as opposed to chaos. (Think Amish.) They almost always come up with a set of “rules” (unenforced and unenforcable, so I don’t know if they should be called rules), which always includes the right for individual exit and/or exclusion but with one’s own “property.” Sounds like blogdom to me. Linking, de-linking, blogrolling, moderated vs. unmoderated chatrooms or comments.
    The only problem my students routinely run into is how to get from “here” (the here-and-now) to their “orderly anarchy” because there exist no obvious mechanisms for a transition from govt to no govt (most govts want *intensely* to continue to control things). Maybe the blogosphere will help.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    How do you know what my definition of anarchy is? You speak of ‘rules’ in the context of ‘orderly anarchy’. This is utopian nonsense. Are these ‘rules’ going to descend from heaven? Because if not, they will be imposed by a government. You know – rules, ruler. The rule is that people form ordered societies.
    Irregardless of the root of ‘anarchy’, it is a word so loaded with modern context in the form of real movements that that is where it gets its meaning. Anarchists are people who are against the current order, with no overt replacement that makes sense. They are people with an agenda. What they want is far from real anarchy, which is impossible, except for a brief moment. That brief moment, when the old rules are destroyed, is revolution time, when a new set of rules, undoubtedly far worse, will be imposed after an ugly struggle. The French Revolution is a good example of a ‘brief moment’ of anarchy.
    Your classroom, of course, is a model of tyranny.

  5. AST Avatar
    AST

    So anarchy is the free market, the invisible hand? I might agree with that if government weren’t necessary to create the field in which markets operate.
    As for blogs, they don’t have government, but they depend on the news media to have much to comment on. Otherwise, all blogs would be limited to recipes and pets. They have had an impact because there are a lot of non-journalists who can write and think and because a lot of journalists are interested in them.
    Time will tell if the Internet can really make a difference in politics. My guess is that it won’t help Dean much beyond the primaries. Maybe when people can use it without having to know how to type, spell and read. . . Until then, TV ads are where it’s at, and that means money will be more and more important.
    I’m sick of the coverage of the Democratic primaries, but it will be fun to watch if the misgivings within the beltway about Dean start to bubble in earnest.

  6. Tom Cohoe Avatar
    Tom Cohoe

    You can’t have property rights without government, just warlords, seizure, and then feudalism, which is primitive government.
    The linked network of weblogs is more like a country club with sponsored entry. You get in if someone who is already in lets you in. Of course anyone can start a weblog, but without influential links, and more important, citations from the bigs, it ain’t gonna be much more than a glorified home page.
    A clear heirarchy in weblogdom has already emerged. Sorry to those who think otherwise, but this isn’t even close to anarchy. It is a fearsome development for the lords of traditional media, and that is only good, but we ain’t looking at the withering away here.