Glenn Reynolds on Bottom-up Knowledge. Get Real: Stowe Boyd's Soapbox

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December 24, 2005

Glenn Reynolds on Bottom-up Knowledge

Posted by Stowe Boyd

Glenn Reynolds coins a term as part of a long range prediction:

[from Horizontal Knowledge]

There are two lessons here. One is that the skeptics, despite all their reasonable-sounding objections, would have been utterly wrong about the future of the Web, a mere ten years after it first appeared. And the second is why they would have been wrong: because they didn't appreciate what lots of smart people, loosely coordinating their actions with each other, are capable of accomplishing. It's the power of horizontal, as opposed to vertical knowledge. As the world grows more interconnected, more and more people have access to knowledge and coordination. Yet we continue to underestimate the revolutionary potential of this simple fact.

I think he means bottom-up when he says horizontal: its the aggregated value of the hundreds of millions of individual acts -- creating web pages, linking to others, making comments -- that have build the web and now are creating Universe 2.0. This worldwide activity is not centrally planned or controlled, it is profoundly counter to top-down approaches that in principle could have been directed toward the same aims, and, thankfully, weren't.

But the central thrust of Reynolds obeservation is dead on: we continue to underestimate the potential of a world where we are more interconnected, and hence smarter. The world is getting smarter, as we create these neurons connecting one bit of thought to another. Yes, there are still inequities, disease, poverty, hate, and war. But I believe that the emergence of the web, and its proliferation, is the greatest hope for the planet, and our collective future.

Merry Xmax.

[Pointer from Seth Godin]

tags: glenn+reynolds, vertical+knowledge, bottom+up+knowledge, universe+2.0

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December 24, 2005

Glenn Reynolds on Bottom-up Knowledge

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