Day: Mar 24

By Paul Ford

1 interval from 24 Mar 2001 (Chinks Definitional Lawlessness)

10:33 am

Ever day I remind myself that punditry is the road to intellectual ruin. There's a half-written unpublished dialogue between myself and Scott Rahin where Scott ties me to a chair and asks me questions about the Web and techno-culture, and when I start responding in pundit-fashion, he electrocutes me.

  "So, Paul, what do you think about Napster?"

  "Well, the whole P2P thing really shows us some essential BRRHRHZZZZT AUUUGH."

  "Paul?"

  "Uh, uh, honestly, I don't know. Our relationship with technology springs from basic, elemental human motives, and we don't really understand /those/ yet, so it's stupid to pontificate on peer-to-peer. It's all just instinct until we do our homework."

  "Good. And how about Open Source?"

  "Well, Open Source, that's really had quite a--ZZZZZZLLLT oh oh augh. Okay, okay. To understand Open Source requires a much more cogent and complete understanding of the macro-economics related to intellectual property than I possess."

  "Much better."

  And on and on....