
Shirky: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy - ColinWright
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
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buff-a
Great, informative read. Have to complain about this bit tho:

 _But learning from experience is the worst possible way to learn something.
Learning from experience is one up from remembering. That's not great. The
best way to learn something is when someone else figures it out and tells you:
"Don't go in that swamp. There are alligators in there."_

Works great for avoiding alligators. Fails miserably for riding bikes.

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bhousel
I dunno about that. I think it's probably easier to learn to ride a bike with
someone experienced helping you.

If someone sets up the seat for you and explains how to shift and brake and
rides with you a little bit, I'm sure learning would go much faster than if
you were just left in a driveway with a bike and told to figure it out.

~~~
noahc
When learning to ride a bike brakes and shifters are really irrelevant. You're
going to crash anyway.

As for how I learned to ride, my dad took me to a hill, sat me on the bike and
pushed me down. I learned how to ride pretty quick...well until I hit a small
stump hidden by the grass.

After that I was mostly fine and learned to ride pretty quick.

~~~
buff-a
Indeed.

If you want a kid to learn to ride a bike, remove the fear of failure. Do it
on a gently sloping grassy hill that levels out, for example.

When I first learned to ice skate I learned that falling on ice fucking hurts.
I didn't learn to ice skate. I learned to not fall over. Then my friend
dressed me up in his team's goalie's pads - I pretty much bounced back up
again if I fell over. By the end of an hour I could do the sprint exercises
with the team and keep up (over short distances anyway!).

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alttag
Yes, it's a good read, but it's eight years old (not that old is bad, just
that it's not "news") and this essay has appeared in many places over the
years, including the book "Best of Software Writing I", edited by Joel
Spolsky.

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IvarTJ
LambdaMOO is a fascinating virtual world. Users are allowed to expand the
virtual world by building areas, and users with the Programmer Bit are also
allowed to program new objects and areas.

~~~
StavrosK
Is there any MUD/MUSH/MOO where this _doesn't_ happen? SMAUG allows you to do
that as well.

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jorangreef
A recklessness on the part of the author within an otherwise thought-provoking
set of ideas: his analogy concerning Calvinism and the "Book of Revelations"
limps badly for a strawman. Evidently, not much time was spent reading John
Calvin's "Brève Instruction chrétienne" (Brief Outline of the Christian Faith)
nor "Revelation" (singular).

~~~
pnathan
Mind expanding your thoughts there?

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Robin_Message
Thanks for that, the full text is a much better read than Jeff's cut down
version.

