Clay Shirky
Clay Shirky
Clay Shirkyis an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
agreement people needs
The more people are involved in a given task, the more potential agreements need to be negotiated to do anything, and the greater the transaction costs.
tools use bees
The tools that a society uses to create and maintain itself are as central to human life as a hive is to bee life. Though the hive is not part of any individual bee, it is part of the colony, both shaped by and shaping the lives of its inhabitants.
designed designers good intended people piece software
You know you've got a good piece of software when people use it for purposes for which the designers never intended or designed for.
clinical critical exchange open technical using
We demonstrated the exchange of clinical information, by using a critical set of common, open technical standards.
addicted changes changing hesitate historical moderation negative science strikes taken
I would not hesitate to say I was addicted to the Internet in the first two years. It can be addictive, and things not taken in moderation have negative effects. But the alarmism around 'Facebook is changing our brains' strikes me as a kind of historical trick. Because we now know from brain science that everything changes our brains.
air urban
Carpooling is important for urban density, air pollution and other reasons, but carpooling is not the kind of thing that actually changes the energy equation.
access cafe printing public radio television tower
You used to have to own a radio tower or television tower or printing press. Now all you have to have is access to an Internet cafe or a public library, and you can put your thoughts out in public.
angeles centered cities english fifty group landscape los people period relatively stable talking three unusually
One of the problems with any kind of talking about the media landscape is that we've just been through an unusually stable period in which, for fifty years, English language media was centered in three cities - London, New York, and Los Angeles - around a very stable group of people working in a relatively stable set of media.
age extremely globally google great growing name rhymes turkey unique
Growing up with a name that rhymes with turkey - and jerky - was no great fun. But, as an adult, I tell you, being globally unique in the age of Google can be extremely helpful.
academic academy almost assumes certainly intended stable
I certainly never intended for myself an academic career and, were the academy to suffer, I'd just go do something else. I don't have a commitment to it or to really, frankly, almost any institution that assumes that it has to be stable forever.
democratic literally opens power quite word
The web's democratic in one way and distinctly undemocratic in another way. And I think a lot of the confusion about the political ramifications have to do with that one word having so many meanings. So, it's democratic in that it quite literally delivers power to the people; it, it essentially opens up participation in the public's mind.
change chasm crack crossed giant gulf
There is a giant gulf between doing something and doing nothing. And someone who makes a lolcat and uploads it - even if only to crack their friends up - has already crossed that chasm to doing something. That's the sea change, and you can see it even with the cute cats.
editing public putting reserved role
When I say 'publishing is the new literacy,' I don't mean there's no role for curation, for improving material, for editing material, for fact-checking material. I mean literally, the act of putting something out in public used to be reserved in the same way.
guy whether
Whether it's long-form journalism or investigative journalism, it's no fun to just be the guy diagnosing the problem.