Liberty's Blog

Dvorak Misses the Boat

I have been Reading Dvorak since at least 25 years. He has been a pretty good soothsayer and outspoken critic of the industry. He explained, before it was obvious to most of us, the demise of rise and fall of IBM in the PC business. He predicted explained the domination of Microsoft while IBM was was still scratching its head. I've learned to respect him on his prognostications until I found The Zeros vs. the Ones:

After witnessing the latest Presidential election process, it's apparent to me that the Internet is turning into a bad dream. Nobody wants to admit it, but the Web's natural ability to remove normal interpersonal structures that prevent society from falling into chaos is not a benefit to anyone. Information revolution notwithstanding, the Internet will prove to be the undoing of society and civilization as we know it. It may not happen today, but it will happen sooner than we think.

This is a pretty strong statement! It seems that the Dvorak believes that the online bickering and polarization found online and on blogs in particular is cause for his concern.

Just look at politics. Thanks to the Net and the so-called New Media, the entire political scene has become one massive virtual Hyde Park corner filled with kvetching, squabbling bores. In the process, the dichotomous nature of binary communication has imposed itself on the public, forming two collectives with opposing and very rigid viewpoints. Call them the Ones and the Zeros: the conservatives and the liberals. Because of the Internet, these two crowds—or mobs—are each growing in size and becoming increasingly intolerant of the other. Since none of the purely liberal or conservative political parties are taken seriously in the U.S., these mobs have latched on to the major parties and hijacked them.

The best example of this is the recent sniping over the fabled George Bush memos in which he was told to take a military physical in 1972. It seemed as if the letter could not have been written on a 1972 typewriter but was some sort of hoax. The two political beehives swarmed over this, making all sorts of accusations against anyone who even suggested that their side might be wrong. The untenable Democratic position (which was the weaker) managed to save face by accusing Karl Rove of setting them up. As I was reading all this, I thought to myself, "So he was asked to take a physical. Who cares?" There were other documents, of course, but it was an eye roller to everyone except the Zeros and Ones, whose ranks continue to grow.

What Dvorak is missing is that the "new media" isn't all just about opinions, its also about facts. The Rathergate issue was not about subjective opinions, but about facts and the source of supporting documention. The leftist did what they were supposed to. They held the right to a high degree of proof, and they helped enforce the issue to be all about the facts.

Dvorak is concerned about the polorization of the New Media. Folks will gravitate to where opinions will match their own. I find it interesting that Instapundit, one of the major blogs involved with Rathergate, isn't very far to the right and assumes a few moderate and leftist positions. The biggest strength of blogs is their ability to highlite, unique perspectives. We as voters are not only more informed, but have more opportunuty to flesh out our perpectives and opinions.

posted by Liberty @ 7:42 AM