Clay seems to be illustrating that explicit and intentional public sharing of information can create great value. Dana’s point seems to be that casual conversations / connections between people don’t need to (and shouldn’t) be promoted and publicly indexed without consent – that privacy still has a place.

In my mind, those aren’t mutually exclusive proposals.

Since Joseph Campbell observed in the 90s that an era had ended, and the mythologies that supported it were shattered (he called it the terminal moraine of myths) we have been looking for a way of being in the world that is sustainable.

Sustainability for humans is physical, psychological,and existential/spiritual. We have to belong, be connected to, serve, and be affirmed by something greater than ourselves.

What we are seeing now is the beginning of the new mythology. Avatar was was striking in its weaving of human themes from the last century into a global vision that audiences had the opportunity to participate in.

Here is what is particularly striking to me about Rosen’s comment that, “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution:” Free markets are fundamentally predicated on scarcity. Without the assumption of scarcity there is no need for a market as we know it.

Unregulated free markets have routinely led us to the kind of economic scenario we are now living through. As everyone knows, there have been no changes of any significance in the banking industry.

Questions: Is there a point at which unregulated free markets become unsustainable? Does that point have to do as much with the recasting of the assumption of scarcity as it does with economic theory of whichever school?

So, so true and applies to many aspects of modern culture. You always need to examine motivations and incentives when gauging individuals’/institutions’behavior.