An Antonym Engine (or anti-social networks)
We select our social groups based on how well we fit in. Or don’t. As our opinions or influences change, our social groups might change to match our new mindset or world view.
We are continually preaching to the choir to some extent. Our exposure to new ideas is limited by our own actions, intentional or not. We don’t seek experiences, people or situations that challenge our beliefs because this makes us uncomfortable.
People fear that the effect of this self selection may be magnified within social communities. They might be right.
I read recently that del.icio.us is endanger of tag intersection paralysis. That says to me that so many people are saying things that are so similar about the same things that it is becoming more difficult to discern any mean.
I’ve been reading about the problems of open taxonomies since I first encountered the word. (Probably from Christina Wodtke before boxes and arrows.) I’ve experienced some of the problems folksonomies pose, and I’ve felt the positive and negative effect of being in the choir.
Anyone reading this (a blog about something as sexy as context and content) is probably already in my choir. So why don’t some of you software gurus reverse engineer this folksonomy problem by hooking up a thesaurus or two and creating an antonym engine.
Then I can create a nice puffy, white tag cloud and the antonym engine will generate a dark foreboding tag cloud derived from antonyms of my own tags.
I read (and reread) a lot of stuff from differing points of view which reminds me of another phrase: “Know your enemy.”
Help me link to the stuff my enemy is reading!! If we all start reading what our enemies are reading, then we’ll all be reading from the same page. Isn’t that nice thought?
Give me an antonym engine, and I’ll give you vigorous public discourse. (I might need a better spam filter first.)
