Literature and Media

Culture

In this chapter Shirky pontificates the values of sharing through the internet and how our culture defines that sharing. He talks about how rewards and punishments for behavior, such as the day care  and Soma experiment affect how we approach and perceive the cognitive surplus we give to the world.

Shirky makes very valid point, although seemingly obvious in todays tech driven society, that sharing and collaboration are great byproducts of the internet age. Its great to have a place where one can talk and contribute anonymously because it may allow people to say things they would not likely want to talk about if attached to their identity, such as the patientslikeme.com website. We also know that it is nice to check out a couple reviews from other consumers like us on amazon.com or yelp.com when shopping for a new digital camera or looking for reviews on a new hamburger joint. Sometimes it is better, as Shirky ads, to seek out the opinion of a professional. If your thing is to dine at esoteric and expensive restaurants than professional restaurant reviewers are for you and you should compensate those individuals for that service, but if you just want a few simple words from a fellow digital camera buyer or burger lover, then free reviews are perfect. While Shirky tries to ad some negative sides to this chapter with the facebook study group he fails to mention our culture does not attach any negative stigma on downloading pirated software. It is probably a blessing to the entertainment industry that downloading is a hair slightly more complicated than the majority of computer users can take on, but maybe this will force the consumption of music to return to the live setting. Who knows, but for sure our culture and economic decisions are going to dictate where the culture of collaboration and sharing go.