Cyberspace Sociology

Cyborganic and Social Change: The Power and Limits of Community(Chapter 7 PDF) The story of Cyborganic is a story about the productive power of community, in particular, of intentional communities mobilized in conscious projects of self-creation. But it is also a story of constraints and limitations on this power vis-à-vis larger social structures and cultural forces. In this chapter, I situate Cyborganic in the history of utopian experiments and exemplary communities in the United States. Within this history, Langdon Winner (1986) identifies and critiques a dominant cultural narrative of social transformation through technology. Identifying this narrative in Cyborganic and the wider community of Net geeks and Web heads of which it was a part shows it is neither as new nor as revolutionary as commonly conceived. More significantly, it shows up the structural limitations of community as a social form and demonstration models of the good life as a tactic for realizing social change. While Cyborganic's project was innovative in imaging and building new, influential forms of techno-sociality, in terms of constituting social subjects, it was politics by other means, argument by example, by technology. It was also supremely bourgeois and bohemian in creating a new style of life, rooted in a calling and countercultural status identity. It was a project for life in a social order dominated by work.

the ability to annotate any page on the Internet with commentary and additional information

So I’ve learned the hard way, over and over again, that it’s most wise to talk to journalists the way you’d talk to the police: ideally, don’t.

refuse to talk to journalists because they know better than to give arbitrary weapons to be used against them

If quote approval results in higher accuracy of what’s published and gets more sources to willingly talk to journalists, that’s probably a net improvement

that’s about as useful as when a developer says, “It worked on my machine.”

As an open source leader, you’re like a doctor or a teacher. If you’re doing a good job, then your community needs you less and less.

That's the sign of healthy peer collaboration.

Likewise, virtual or in-person meetups—like IRC office hours, weekend-long hackfests, all give people a time and date to show up and work on a specific problem.