I think he's pretty much spot on about information overload (right?). We all have to filter our information input to get both a manageable quantity and acceptable quality (right?). One way we do that is to browse around and find web sites/blogs/etc. that we like and then keep going back there under the assumption that since the quality was good before it will stay that way (right?).

OK, I'll stop making fun of him. I think he was nervous at the start of the speech. He stopped saying "right" at the end of every sentence after a while.

Anyway, we obviously can't read every web site/blog/etc. on the Internet so we all face the filtering challenge every day. Most of us manage OK. So "information overload" is a pretty bogus concept.

Of course due to the huge volume of information created every day, chances are we all miss something we'd be interested in. Better filters are always desirable.

As for his privacy example regarding Facebook, I find it comical. I have a privacy policy which works very well with regard to Facebook and it's call "don't use Facebook".

If a friend or family member wants to know my status they can pick up a telephone or drop an e-mail. Is it really that hard? It's nice to talk to friends/family once in a while anyway isn't it? I find things like Facebook dehumanising. The fact that it's slightly inconvenient to catch up with a friend means that if you actually bother, they mean something to you.

Someone wrote that Erasmus was the last human being who mastered all of the available learning of his time. (Other people claim that Aristotle was the last, but whatever.)

Of course, "learning" is not synonymous with "information"; it's the tiny precipitate of the infinite deluge of information that has always existed, and which has always been out of the control of any individual. I think that distinction gets kind of blurry these days.

I realize that a lot of highly intelligent people spend a lot of time formulating these things, but all this talk about "information" is like Heidegger talking about nothing (by which he means something). A pain in the butt is information, a cat puking in the next room is information. Grand Mal seizures are information. I'm glad somebody gets paid to "manage" this stuff, but shouldn't somebody be managing the orbits of electrons, too?

Is this just a semantic quibble?

Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to watch video at work, and I haven't been home much this week (and leaving town friday), so I won't be able to finish it.

However, I wanted to tangent off what Nicholas said:

Of course due to the huge volume of information created every day, chances are we all miss something we'd be interested in.

As this is a political blog, I would argue that "information overload" plays a big role in politics today. Namely that there is so much information out there (and so many different spins on that information) it becomes easy to intentionally pick misleading data, or to grab enough points so that coincidences appear like diabolical plots.

What we need in this country is an honest debate (and understanding) over what we need to do going forward. However, A conversation or debate requires that we acknowledge or refute opposing arguments. Since the "facts" that Group A is exposed too are completely seperate from the "facts" acknowledge by Group B, this debate doesn't exist in this system. We now have two sides that are arguing PAST EACH OTHER, assuming that the opposing arguments have already been deemed invalid.

This results in much of the cultural ramparts that are growing today.

Shirky diverts into privacy a lot, so it's illuminating to consider the military example, especially as it applies to social networking. Because what the military teaches us is, it isn't just about the filters of your own that you want to preserve.

It's also sometimes about the filters you deliberately want to break.

The mainstream media has been very pleased with their filter for some time, as it has ensured their status. The military has been very pleased with its filters around Operational Security, many of which rely on the inconvenience or outright danger of getting close enough to troops to listen in on them, or talk to them.

The military now confronts a situation where its OpSec models are taking hits, because a certain kind of hassle has been removed. Facing concerted hostility from a media that are antagonists for reasons of both politics and social class, however, it must weigh damage to its own filters, and its ability to control that, with damage that the same phenomenon does to a hostile filter - and their adversary's ability to control that.

On balance, that equation is looking pretty positive. But we have to expect that as this realization dawns, it's going to spur moves and countermoves in spheres that reach beyond technology and design.

As this is a political blog, I would argue that "information overload" plays a big role in politics today. Namely that there is so much information out there (and so many different spins on that information) it becomes easy to intentionally pick misleading data, or to grab enough points so that coincidences appear like diabolical plots.

Quite so. For the same reason it's possible to miss the evidence pointing to a terrorist plot, even when in hindsight it's clear that the information was in the hands of the right agencies but they failed to make the connections.