Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
"We're shifting from a Gaussian world to a Paretian world," writes John Hhgel, "with profound implications for business." The Gaussian world is the world of the bell curve - of averages, the golden mean, the rule of the middle. The Paretian world is the world of the power law, of a few extreme events and the everyday scattered in the long tail.

The thing with this discussion is, the two types of woprlds are being described as if they are natural phenomena, as though they are patterns that we just fall into. I don't agree with that reading - I think these are patterns we create through the design of our networks and systems. Is this how we want to organize society? I have argued in the past that we want a world that is neither Gaussian or Paretian - a world where neither the golden mean nor the extreme event swallow all else, a world where the graph represents, as much as possible, a horizontal line, a world of balance and harmony.

Today: 1058 Total: 1098 [Direct link] [Share]

Image from the website


Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

Copyright 2024
Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 02:27 a.m.

Canadian Flag Creative Commons License.

Force:yes