Thinkpieces, Redundancy, and Having Conversations Online

At the exact moment that I’m writing this, someone else could be writing about the exact same thing, with or without a slightly different slant.

Another person could have already written and posted it due to their time zone.

And after I post, someone else will post theirs.

It doesn’t actually matter what the subject is, either.

I love the internet for many reasons, but one of the strongest is all the “meta” that can go on. The discussions that crop up when someone puts forth a query or idea, or just wants to lay bare a thought for others to see, acknowledge, defend, or rebut.

I’m talking about the conversations that don’t devolve to name-calling or political attacks, mind you–and yes, they do exist. Back in my Livejournal days, I found a lot of them.

It was great. It made me realize that yes, there is hope, yes, we can solve things, we could solve anything, really–we just have to keep the lines of communication open, and be willing to listen to other points of view without taking it as a personal attack.

Of course, we also have to be strong enough to shut down all attempts at derailing by those whose sole talent is spouting ad hominem attacks, among other things.

Anyway. All this came about because I read “Out Of Cite: Internet writers are standing on each others’ shoulders just so they can be first.”

It’s a good read that will take you about 8 minutes or less. But beyond the necessity of citation, which is worth its own discussion, there’s another point being made that made me think of all this:

It doesn’t matter who’s first. Not for the discussions worth having. Go ahead and write your piece, even if someone else or a lot of someone elses already have.

Right now, we could use more redundancy. We could use more messages getting through.