July 25, 2001

JOHO'S SUMMER VACATION (If Only) I'm quite wrapped up in the book that's due into the publisher sooner than I think, so issues of JOHO are going to be far between this summer. Sorry, but I'm sure you understand. And if you don't, well, tough darts. I have, however, begun a weekly column for Darwin Magazine's online version. Here are two recents ones. (The general URL for the column is: http://www.darwinmag.com/read/swiftkick/index.html. ) I will work on a normal super-sized, too-big-to- read-it-all issue as soon as the book learns to sleep through the night. Soon, I hope. Soon.

 

Small Pieces Alert My book-in-progress is actually making progress. I continue to post drafts at http://www.smallpieces.com/. The first two chapters are probably actually pretty much done, and the next five are in varying states of done-ness. Any comments you have would help me; we're heading towards the last chance before the critics get to savage me. So, dew drop inn.  Small Pieces Alert!          Be notified by email when there's a significant update to this page (once every couple of weeks maybe).

The Database and the Joke

www.darwinmag.com/read/swiftkick/column.html?ArticleID=135

There are two basic forms of information on the Web: databases and jokes. Databases think about information the way a paper form does. Each form represents one record, whether it's a record of a doctor's visit, an inning of a Little League game, or a new employee hire. The database, in a form-like fashion, gives you a number of standard fields to fill in, such as employee name and starting salary. But, unlike paper forms, once the information is entered, the database enables you to retrieve the information and organize it in ways that are difficult for humans. For example, you can easily ask a database of baseball innings to show you who was at bat the most, who had the best batting average, etc.

The Web is great for that sort of information. When you're talking to Amazon.com, for example, you're retrieving forms about books. And when you're doing research on digital-to-analog converters at National Semiconductor (www.nsc.com), you're retrieving forms about electronic components. Convenient, yes. Powerful, yes. But that isn't enough to explain the popularity of the Web, much less its social impact.

While the Web gives everyone the capability of becoming a database jockey and information retrieval specialist, the world in the mid-90s didn't decide that retrieving information is just the coolest thing ever and we have to wire the entire globe so everyone can do it. It took the other form of information: the joke.

Jokes, as everybody knows, aren't just funny. Jokes reveal some unexpected insight or relationship -- a link, if you will, that you didn't know was there. The joke form of information isn't confined just to jokes. While a database lets you find what you know is there, jokes are about discovering what you didn't expect. If we were only looking up what we know is there, we wouldn't be so excited about the Web. It's the discovery promised in jokes that gives the Web its charge.

The difference in the two forms isn't just in whether the information is expected or not. Databases contain very thin information while jokes are fat with context. Jokes are expressed in a human voice -- you have to know how to tell a joke, you don't have to know how to tell a database, at least not in the same way. Jokes shine a sudden light on the world. Databases help us; they're efficient. Jokes delight us.

The joke form of information -- discovery of links, human voices telling stories to delight one another -- draws us to the Web like a fire on a cold night. Without the joking form of information, the Web would just be a database.

The Cause of Incipient Online A-Holism

www.darwinmag.com/read/swiftkick/column.html?ArticleID=122
Note: I've taken the opportunity to return "jerk" to its pre-sanitized version.

Why are we such a-holes online? No, not all of us. Well, okay all of us at some time or another. And some of us most of the time. We get a headful of steam about something, and off we go, spreading the gospel of Truth and Goodness while sneering at the pitiful mortals who have the audacity to say something with which we disagree. Or we overstate a position that, taken down a few notches might actually be quite reasonable. Or we make lame jokes at the expense of others. Or we assume a shared point of view, a type of false camaraderie undergirded by arrogance. (For a complete catalog, go to the "Fray" section of www.slate.com, where you'll find every message-posting sin concentrated within one-quarter hectare of Web real estate.)

The obvious explanation is that the anonymity of the Web lets us shed the shackles of conventionality so that our true selves can finally emerge. The only problem with this theory is that it assumes, nay asserts, that beneath it all, people are a-holes. And while I may be willing to make an exception in your case, I actually don't believe that.

Sure, we're capable of being a-holes, but are our primal natures -- if there is such a thing -- stamped irrevocably "Contents: One (1) jerkface"? Again, leaving room for certain exceptions (you know who you are), nah.

I think it has to do with the fact that we can't see the people we're talking with and about, but not simply because it's easier to drop bombs from a B-52 than to fight on the ground. The fact that we can't see the faces of the people we're hurting is an important contributing cause but not the only one. It has to do with the nature of groups on the Web.

If I'm at the real-world monthly meeting of the Emily Dickinson Appreciation Society, I monitor the room when I begin to address a topic. I notice that while Frieda is leaning forward and nodding, Jorge seems more interested in using his tongue to retrieve the last of his tea biscuit from his moustache, and Gus is shaking his head and making that little grimace that makes him look like Stalin with a wedgie.

If the overall response from the room indicates disagreement, disrespect and/or disinterest, I will gracefully back off the topic, usually by pretending my cellphone is vibrating. ("Sorry," I say, "Only four people have this number, and one of them is Trent Lott.")

On the Web, however, matters might proceed differently. When I post my stupid idea to the Dickinson mailing list, I can't see how people are taking it. So, I turn up the volume. Still no response? Better pump up the invective another couple of notches. In order to get any response at all, I learn to become quite obnoxious. And so another jerk is born.

Don't get me wrong. I love mailing lists. I just don't like watching myself join the Legion of A- Holes. ("America's Fastest-Growing Social Club.") At least not on purpose. How to avoid it? Recognize that if no one has responded to the reasonable points you made, it's probably not because they're boneheads.

It may be a sign that this particular group happens not to share your interest on this one point. Or it may be that you wrote it badly. Or it may be that they're too busy this week to spend the time responding, which may mean that your message, through bad luck, will fall forever out of their circle of attention.

Yelling isn't going to help, and calling them stupid freakin' a-holes probably isn't going to direct their minds to your issues. So, take your finger off the caps lock and back away slowly before you become an even bigger jerk than you began as this morning.

Editorial Lint

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