The Great Man Theory Promotes Misunderstanding of History

The Great Man theory is the notion that behind every great innovation is a single individual -- usually a man. It attempts to write a simple story about every innovation. But Ford didn't invent the automobile, Edison didn't invent the light bulb, and the Wright brothers didn't invent the airplane. The simple story strips away all the other people with whom that person worked, both before and afterwards, and their critical contributions to the innovation process. It also perpetuates the notion...

 The Net is a Playground of Entropy

It may be fun to surf the Net and follow things randomly, but there's value in structure. The Net is a playground of entropy--the structurelessness that occurs when energy dissipates from a system. Yes, the Net also fosters self-organization, when individuals apply their energy, selectng and filtering information for others (aided by search and filtering tools). But there's rarely uch internal structure to what's selected; the structures created by links are usually webs of cross-references r...