Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Invention Opportunity: Creating a Shared Reality

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I think Tom Vander Ark touches the mark in the identification of a problem but completely misses it in his analysis. The problem, he says, is "information gullies that have widened into canyons of difference with competing facts interpreted through tribal logic models and resulting in distinctly different realities." There's a point here. But he says "the fundamental problem is one of communication," and what we need is a "shared consensus view of reality, and to acknowledge basic facts," specifically, shared facts, shared values, and shared models. Not. Going. To Happen. The stakes are too high. The fundamental problem isn't communication, it's trust, and specifically, the lack of it. If we are to work together to form a society (and really, we should) then we need to secure our foundations with trust-free mechanisms to establish such basic elements as who said what, who owns what, and what happened.

Today: 1 Total: 1091 [Direct link] [Share]


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

Copyright 2024
Last Updated: Apr 18, 2024 06:49 a.m.

Canadian Flag Creative Commons License.

Force:yes