Source Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugzwapm2f8lpZJh4bYx4AaABAg
3:33:41 Tell that the existing, working meritocratic or other trustless collaborations that are out there.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugzq0Ib0ExbA3tLnEKd4AaABAg
3:33:06 That's a chicken-and-egg or bootstrapping problem on both the human and tool system side: the website could list skills/experience, you have the deep dives separately without much tool support, and you can't make decisions how to decide and run any of it, which in turn needs tools and human processes in place to have already been decided in order to function and support properly.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugx7S8Zbz__BWVBD66x4AaABAg
3:29:55 OK, could you please explain why you couldn't just have a Drupal site or Microsoft Office Excel sheet for listing your expenses?
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgxoX6LRL-zIrYYk6Wd4AaABAg
3:28:05 But then, what is systemic here, at all?
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgxJ4TRw1cxLMJzwvlB4AaABAg
3:32:09 Wait, I not only waste time and mind share for nothing in return, I'm also supposed to waste even more time in the form of money-equivalent to still get nothing in return? What does need to get paid, the hosting? How much can the data be? Or is it for some licenses and services because you guys have no idea what you're doing there and continue to be confused about value(s)? That proposal only attracts visitors/users who want to support the group regardless if that's for the website or not, they would have donated the same amount without website or website costs if there were another fitting opportunity.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgyvjeMI_SNkLOFjJPR4AaABAg
3:23:00 Yes, let's create that or use the website or a Google Doc or whatever you have as an interim, so we can there discuss/propose how an actual system would need to look like for making/discussing proposals. Douglas Engelbart printed his proposal about the oNLine System on paper, so existing tools bootstrapped the creation of new tools which rendered the old paradigm of doing things obsolete.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgyhgaHccrnPrG0e5bR4AaABAg
3:24:01 I'm personally blocked by unresolved confusion about value(s).
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugyr5P8IT8oHIUTOWVt4AaABAg
3:21:38 As if there's no William Charlton or Sam Hahn, Google Docs? Sure, and Sam just nods and doesn't prevent anybody from using whatever they feel like but knows about the limitations, and there will be another episode with Google Docs, and in the end it will turn out that it quite isn't what you have imagined, and then there will be confusion what happened to the earlier proposals from the earlier Google Docs episodes nobody seems to have cared about.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgwLN62l8kzOC0DbPs14AaABAg
3:16:10 Gratis resources are not necessarily "free". They can cost you a lot as well, just not monetarily.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgwgJsNUmkTtu-hkOPR4AaABAg
3:15:54 The GCC is now forced to pay it somehow, because you accepted the technical dependency, or would you plan to migrate the data manually to another system or develop the tools that allow to do it automatically, if possible at all? If not, you're stuck, with the costs and limitations.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgwnKTjz5YDZONBhm8d4AaABAg
3:14:17 There is no group, so it can't make decisions, nobody has permission, there's no goals to define, so people have to do things on their own on their own risk, and aren't allowed to do even that because it's not content of their own, so somebody else might have an objection. And what happens is that everything gets mixed up, a technical project with no technologist on board or interested, so in my mind the result is fairly good in my mind for what it's worth, but no reason to complain about, it's just that we lack the technical and human tools again that would have made the website action group an effort that's reflecting the interests of the participants, and I assume that the site now exactly reflects the interest or lack thereof of the participants.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugw7-bs8YIlc6sw8kDV4AaABAg
3:14:08 Yep, there's no point in creating a second one of the same, so what you've got now kind of more or less does the job, or some jobs at least. And I remember from listening at the time or recording that it was supposed to be an experiment for a few weeks, to see how far you get, and maybe throw it away and have another try. But with investments by Josh and Glenn going into it as if it were the real, production, live thing, it's too expensive to dump it, but it's also locked in now in a certain way and expensive to move forward.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugzc8q9LAwsaqyoUJUl4AaABAg
2:52:15 But there's a very important distinction between the play- and trainingground for some participants to learn and the live, real-world production instance. The former is there to learn what to do and not to do and therefore less important to loose, but if the main instance gets messed up, content, time, value, functionality, capabilities get lost. It's less that I suggest that both types need to be separated, but conceptually, you have to be very clear what's there and builds up for long-term and what's something you'll throw away as soon as you're done with it, to justify different types of investments (putting in real work/time or encourage playing around and break things). It's not very clear within the GCC, and I have heard that some regard their personal WordPress sites as playground too, so if I comment there with serious intention and less playing with them, you're probably going to not value my investment/attention just as it is quite common on the web, so why should I engage with any of you in the first place? Engelbartian bootstrapping is fine, but I think it assumes that the participants know very well what they're doing (at least the framework), and there's specialized roles like implementer, manager and user, only converging based on skill level (remember, ViewSpecs can come in different expertise levels to offer easy entry up to the full knowledge worker or even system programmer), improving from the best knowledge of the underlying principles, but not inventing the whole thing without a clue about the fundamentals. In the case of the GCC, you didn't build WordPress, so that's not even building something according to your needs, but adjusting an already existing system that's not yours to somewhat make it yours. Sure, the WordPress tool is there to improve on and bootstrap from, to not reinvent everything from scratch, to stand on the shoulders of giants, but what's your dogfooding need you need to solve with it, and how do you get there? If you have trouble with learning it and those who do it right now don't want to do it, and those who learn it don't want to do it either and instead teach others so they hopefully will do it for you -- there's something wrong here, I guess. If you yourselves are the users and have wants/needs, it sounds like there's a shortage on the tool system side to implement what you want. If you can't get some (as they're busy doing other important things), you can learn it yourself and I would love helping with that, but that's not what you want to do either, you want to stay a mere user in a department without implementers, and if you would become implementer, all capacities would be consumed with the hard, difficult technicalities and none left for the things you actually want to do (urgent, complex problem solving, global challenges or being/conversations), and that's exactly what happened to Engelbarts greater vision as well, as our friggin tool systems are still not there or good enough and reality does not comply, and neither you nor humanity wants to do something about it.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgxXXkAYtQF6YbfRCmZ4AaABAg
3:01:23 Classic instance of the smart people problem.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugz7kjrgKMgRBC25-_54AaABAg
2:52:10 Everybody doing the same things would defy collaboration/synergy, not making optimal use of individual capacities. On the other hand, broad, general knowledge helps to avoid the smart people problem and get some more broad, more systemic understanding. The right thing to do is probably to do both in a glocal/micro-macro sense, to insist on individual expertise and getting such recognized, while in other cases looking into completely foreign topics without any particular personal interest in the subject matter, but for systemic analysis and supporting those working within it with an outsiders perspective. A single-focus effort is always better than the described approach, but then in turn is better than any lowest-common-denominator setup, and likely beats any single-focus efforts in the multi-focus context of reality.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgyDUmjL2mxj_pO2spZ4AaABAg
1:02:18 By the way, I can't restore the link myself for several interesting reasons, a minor, less practical one being the way the web works and is designed where the server has total control about what people can find and do, and no decent hypertext system that would allow me and others to discover the forum material as connected, related resources regardless of what you design and are responsible for as a single user experience. If you remove discoverability or the content itself, I'll get angry, and that's because I had to publish it on your site because there's no other way to connect my stuff to your context and have you signalled, so you're forced and expected to run the operation and better do it well, it's because you set it up to have it that way.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugx-Petam9y2ZeiOSrZ4AaABAg
2:51:35 By the way, there's the theoretical chance to introduce some Engelbartian A and B improvement here, but that's not what Sam is interested in as he's exclusively interested in improving operations on the C level (which is perfectly fine, but I claim that any C improvement requires having access to or being involved in A and B activities already, otherwise there's nothing to improve), and for me, it turned out that we don't have any framework in place, don't create and are unable to design one for lack of interest, time, tools and alignment, and the website tries to slowly, expensively, wastefully approximate it, which is better than nothing, coming from nothing and individuals, which is difficult of course. but it's surprising why we don't make it easier. Major deficiencies in human and tool system side and their interplay, lack of a systemic approach, in my opinion.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgwIr2QpdpFk80wmkX54AaABAg
2:50:43 What the heck does Josh want/need?!? I'm not clear on that up to this day. What needs work on the website? Do you have an idea why I can't and don't want work on it? I know the limitations, don't want to waste the time, and no discussion/collaboration could happen, so now we all got what we wanted as a result of our interest/investments. It's just that our interests/investments aren't aligned and we wonder if they ever can or should.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgwIPhhbym6Zi9nJTm54AaABAg
2:46:58 Why not engage in a practical goal, then discover the limitations together (or find out that you don't want to do the same thing), so things are learnt and the contributions become better and more useful? Sure, it wastes some time in contrast to doing it right yourself on your own, but how else can you scale if not in improvement of the participants or improvement of the procedures, ideally both?
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugzlpw5zu0K2P9ihNvp4AaABAg
2:46:33 Problem is: where are they? Problem is: we don't have any of those, have we?
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgzegLAgV_3xRD_4_Lp4AaABAg
2:46:11 If everybody just uses what he/she feels like, we'll end up with a lot of incompatible stuff, won't be able to collaborate and just write bad individual investments we didn't care/value enough to save in the first place off. In a real collaboration, one would discuss the limitations and try to find ways to make it work for everybody, not let others waste their scarce resources/capacities just because they don't know it better.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgywMEKslQGSB_R3Qwx4AaABAg
2:45:22 Yeah, so I should do the same, not engage in them because I too exactly know what the limitations are, and in lack of anything better proposed/constructed, nothing needs to be done.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugwk9dWOfsr5fy1e3eF4AaABAg
2:41:45 One question would be if people need to learn any WordPress or the interface. If there would be a more technological approach, systems could be build who cater to the needs and skill level of the users, so they don't have to do the work themselves on the WordPress site, but could do the aspects they're interested in, and never fiddle with the technicalities themselves, but describe a developer what they want and iterate over the feedback.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=Ugw4YtyoAE0b7AU0jQV4AaABAg
2:43:02 and 2:51:20 One very good way of dealing with it is to do it for yourself, and if there's synergies with others, fine, but the main point being personal use. Now, sure, there can be blocks like non-cooperating entities on the network, copyright, "sabotage", and personal activities tend to be rather different from collaborative activities, so the former probably don't contribute much to solving global challenges, but they're at least less annoying and always work because there's at least one person with the demand/interest.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgzjVf7RpHM_OHmEUEN4AaABAg
2:42:32 Where is Sam's tool, what is it? Descriptions of it are hard to find nor not publicly available, and there's no chance to talk to Sam, so what can one be expected to do other than ignore it? And then: what project to use it for, apply it to?
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgxaGYZ0PFb-JjVkfd14AaABAg
2:25:11 One thing is that a lot of places would need to be checked almost every day in lack of decent "signaling" (some technology work like a RSS revival), then my comment wasn't "meaningful" because if I'm going to spend the time to write about my other considerations on the theme, I wonder as well who would find and engage with it (not that I feel it's necessary, producing accounts of progress or writing to become more clear has value for me in itself even without any readers, but I could save the time and keep the learning for myself, especially as it's on a different track than Harry is on, can't expect that anyone from the GCC has enough of my context to have an idea where it fits in my topics), and then I tend to think that my thinking tends to be incredibly stupid and it would be much more useful to do something practical, useful instead. It's important to do conversations as well, but practical and theoretical work should be balanced, not only doing theory.
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgwIyAaafcWj9pt54th4AaABAg
1:04:09 Donald Knuth's "premature optimization" and Douglas Engelbart's "premature organization", which one was first and is it a reference?
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgwtXW_qEfdnEJbTLQ94AaABAg
27:14 But then, what isn't an illusion?
Comment Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjzhByBJrL8&lc=UgzOLKUbe3wQpssWuNV4AaABAg
3:48:58 Movement is one thing, direction(s) another.