Social Networks and all this Chaotic Intertwingularity and Interconnectedness

A brief snapshot of my social networks: my LinkedIn number is 404; my Orkut number is 188; and my Friendster number is 110. (Aside: If Christopher's post is any indication, then my high LinkedIn number compared with my Orkut number is unusual. The only explanation I can think of is that I've been using LinkedIn for a year, and Orkut for only a week.) (Another aside: I like this handy guide to interpreting social network photos.)

I now flow back and forth between these social networks so seamlessly that I often forget which service it is I am using for any given communication. (Doesn't it always come back to email anyway?) Let's face it: which service is less important than the fact that, as Danyel Fisher points out in his new blog,

[Social networking is important because it is] made out of people.

So far I've made an effort not to get hung up on the "web of trust" issues (Orkut flaws in particular are given an articulate flogging in Christopher Allen's blog Life With Alacrity's Orkut followup and Danah Boyd's blog Apophenia's contempt for Orkut); as David Weinberger points out,

You can only build a real social network by overcoming clarity and precision. Groups form by creating messy darkness. A team 'bonds' as the relationships among the members become so tangly and ambiguous that the members can no longer sum one another up in a few words, much less by reference to their official roles.

Reading this reminded me of what Kevin Werbach wrote about the fabric of the blogosphere,

As David Weinberger taught us in Small Pieces Loosely Joined, the Net has deep metaphysical implications for our conception of the world. We're all used to thinking of the Web as the revolutionary development, and it certainly was. But while the Web dramatically lowered the cost of publishing and accessing information, it kept the static and impersonal page metaphor of older media. Weblogs, aided by syndication mechanisms, remove that crutch. Some day we may look back and identify the rise of blogs, not the Web, as the decisive development that changed our relationship to information... and to each other.

Last night I took Kevin's and David's observations and crossed them with my philosophy that some of us were put on this world to create, some of us were put on this world to destroy, and some of use were put on this world to obstruct. Last night I was feeling more like The Creator than The Destroyer or The Obstructor, so I went to my local bookstore in search of the meaning of all this chaotic intertwingularity and interconnectedness that is now in my face on a daily basis thanks to Friendster, LinkedIn, Orkut, Google, and the Blogosphere. (Aside: can you imagine anyone uttering that last sentence ten years ago? Me neither.)

I found myself three recent reissues-as-paperbacks:

• David Weinberger's Small Pieces Loosely Joined,
• Albert-László Barabási's Linked, and
• Duncan J Watts' Six Degrees.

I don't know that these books will help me find some of the answers I seek -- or even the right questions to ask -- as far as how to manage the chaotic intertwingularity in my life, but I figure if Pierre can be courageous and self-assured enough to declare "don't cut my taxes, please" then I owe it to myself to be courageous and self-assured enough to try to find profound understanding in my life.

Put another way -- if, like Dirk Gently, I "believe in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things", what are the metaphysical implications of that statement, are the implications themselves fundamentally interconnected, and how are we as mere mortals supposed to manage all of the interconnections in life, the universe, and everything?

Comments

Not all my posts are flogging Orkut ;-)

You might be interested in my latest blog posting "Advice to Social Networking Services" at http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/02/my_advice_to_so.html

[Emy]

Hey, I linked to your blog from mind, and Elizabeth Malone told me that she's the blonde in the purple shirt in this picture. Which sort of goes to intertwingularity, I would think.... ;)

[Adam]

Christopher, that "Advice to Social Networking Services" is awesome -- and very constructive, too! Kudos!!

Emy, I haven't seen Elizabeth Malone in years, but that is indeed her in that picture, which was taken in Nawlins during Mardi Gras 1996. It's a small world after all...

[Derek L.]

You might enjoy listening to a talk Deepak Chopra gave at the Commonwealth Club of CA late last year:

http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/03/03-11chopra-audio.html

In it he discusses "coincidence" and the metaphysical and scientific underpinnings of his belief that all things are indeed interconnected, drawing from his recent book "The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire" (which I haven't read, btw). He's also just plain funny with great stories. I'm really glad I stumbled across it on the radio that day.

Cory Doctorow's latest book, "Eastern Standard Tribe" (available freely on the web) also seems to fit well with this overall topic. Now if only I had the time to _read_...

-d.d-

[Adam]

Thanks for the pointers, Derek, I will look into these...

I also enjoyed the line

"Do not think that you can get away with eating a quarter of a jar of sauerkraut an hour before your 90-minute spinning class at the gym. You can't. Not cleanly, anyway."

from your daybook

http://balrog.genericdomain.net/archives/000242.html