Final instalment from Clay Shirky today.
Chapter 11 Successful social tools have a complex interaction of promise (why), tools (how) and bargain (rules). There are various ways in which the promise can be attractive and workable. The tools must fit the job and what people want, so need not be the latest technology. The bargain may be offered initially by one side, but modified by the users.
Dilemmas often centre on whether and how much governance is put in place. Do we use contracts, for example?
Do we have a tendency in the church to jump to governance before going through the other stages?
Epilogue The new tools don’t create new motivations, they amplify existing motivations. Once people have used them in extremis, they will use them in ordinary day to day life. They are adopted one person at a time.
Activists who have tended only to protest rather than be constructive may need a form of ‘incorporation’ (embodiment) that is different from current corporate law, by allowing gatherings in the virtual world, not just face to face.
The future belongs to those who work with the present, where these changes have happened.
If this is the new and coming reality, how serious are we about adapting to it in a Gospel way?
Big Circumstance 