RoR: Forum

Thanks Joe for this instructional piece!

It is nice to know that the more "timeless" essays I tend to write are appreciated!

Cheers!

Ed

Post 1

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 4:43pm

Joe, you say of "the 'blog' phenomena... I view them as the opposite of the capital accumulation idea. This isn't to say they aren't worth doing, or they aren't effective. They certainly can be effective in terms of activism. But they violate the principle of not consuming all your time in maintenance."

I don't agree. I have to say, I think this shows a fundamental misconception of the nature of blogs. It really depends on the blog and what you wish to do with it.

First of all, if you have a blog and you're doing it properly, a blog takes no more work than it takes Tibor, for example, to write a piece a day - and in fact the process of regularly writing a piece a day helps automatise both the skill and the habit of writing. The more you write, the better at it you become; blogs give you a strong incentive to get better, and to write more. Producing a daily article or three becomes easier the more you do it.

So blogs help produce writing that would otherwise not exist.

But you're not really accumulating 'capital,' you say? Well, you are if you're doing it right, say I. Over time, as you write pieces and commentary on daily events, you build up a valuable resource that can be and is drawn on for later pieces. No point in saying something anew when you can simply quote what you said on a similar topic previously. And the more you write, the more you can quote.
In fact, the more you write, the more 'capital' you have to 'categorise' and 'tag.' Once you begin 'tagging' your writing by subject heading, and even collecting together all your own writing across the web on the basis of its subject heading, it doesn't take long before you build up a nest-egg of pieces on a range of topics.

For instance, the Categories that collect the writing from my own blog 'Not PC' now boast 108 posts on Architecture and Urban Design, 15 on Common Law, 103 on Property Rights, 63 on Education and 107 on or related to Economics -- and even 136 pieces on or related to Objectivism! -- and all produced since I began the blog last April as a way of intellectual activism ideally suited to the Objectivist activist in New Zealand: the communication of passionate art and rational ideas to those who desperately need them.

So there's an enormous amount of 'capital' right there already, right?

And once categorised and collected,whose to say what these pieces might be used for later? Even on the net as they are already they're a wonderful example of 'capital accumulation' with nary any maintenance whatever, there to be used and referred to regularly. But this is 'capital' that can be invested in future projects, for even more 'capital accumulation.'

The collection of pieces on 'Cue Card Libertarianism' for instance, begun by Lindsay Perigo back in 1993 and progressively updated at my blog, cry out to be collected in book form once the updating is completed, perhaps supplemented with any one of the 257 pieces I've written since April on the subject of or related to Libertarianism.

So I just don't understand this idea that blogs are somehow profligate wastes of time and energy. If you're doing it right, nothing could be further from the truth.

To say that writing and producing blogs posts is inefficacious as a form of activism or of 'capital accumulation' is like saying Rand's own articles for the The Objectivist and the Objectivist Newsletter were inefficacious, since there was no capital accumulation, and the value of the effort diminished over time. This on its face wold be ludicrous, and would ignore the enormous pay-off from her investment, not just in the greatly expanded clarity of her own thinking in writing these many wonderful pieces, but also, for example, in providing the material for the many collections of these non-fiction essay that we all now enjoy.

Tibor's own articles provide another example of good capital investment: many of Tibor's best articles can be found collected and lightly edited in many of his own books -- his investment in writing his regular articles pays off by producing material and ideas he can then publish in book form.

"How about maintenance?" you say. "[Blogs] certainly can be effective in terms of activism. But they violate the principle of not consuming all your time in maintenance."

As I said above, if you do it right this is just not so. And you yourself "admit the [RoR] site requires a lot of maintenance work." A blog, if you're doing it right, requires little more maintenance than writing something for the front page of SOLO or RoR. And I doubt that you'd call that a waste of time.

Post 2

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 10:42pm

Ed, thank you. And yes, your articles are a good example of timeless pieces, and they provide a valuable resource.

Peter, interesting comments. Before continuing, it looks to me that you agree with the substance of my article and you're disagreeing with my generalization of blogs. Am I misreading this?

Now, on to blogs. Your first argument is that by writing a lot, you get better at it and more in the habit of it. No disagreements there. I would add that there are potentially a number of benefits derived from blogging, not least of which is the actual activism (for blogs that actually accomplish anything...I think most are vanity sites...activism is secondary).

Your next argument is that occasionally you write a piece that's timeless, or near enough to it, on your blog. When that happens, you do have capital accumulation. But are you arguing that most writing on blogs meets that criteria? Certainly they could be, but it's also harder to write timeless pieces than it is to comment on current events. I'm curious here because you seem to dismiss my point entirely, which would mean every entry in a blog is an embodiment of capital accumulation. Really? Here I am arguing that the best efforts are those that stick around and don't require maintenance, and you think blogs fit that description?

Well, I can agree that to the extent a blogger writes timeless pieces (such as the cue card libertarianism), it's efficient. The point of my article is that if we want to be efficient with our activism, capital accumulation is a bigger benefit than mere activism, and maintenance costs are a drain on future productivity. I think blogs produce very little capital for the effort expended, and the maintenance costs are quite high. Is it worth it? That depends on other factors.

As for Rand, I think her better pieces were her timeless pieces, which made up the bulk of her published books. Her social commentaries were interesting, primarily because she was a genius and most of what she said was interesting, but not at the same level. Which are the essays you go back to over and over?

And finally, you suggest blogging takes little more work that writing something for the front of RoR. If I had to write every day (or even close), it would be a huge burden. If I did, the quality of my articles would plummet, or I'd make them far less timeless/universal. In other words, I'd have to cut back seriously on the capital accumulation. And actually, I would call that a waste of time.

Post 3

Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 2:49am

Joe - the timeless pieces I have seen on PC's blog come after he has noted down many small things on the topic over a period of time. I'm thinking of his recent piece on the psychology of town planners which tied together insights from previous posts and links outside his blog that he'd used elsewhere. The timeless piece takes out the essential wisdom in the tidbits and ties them together, building on them. In this way, PC uses his blog as Rand used her journals - by writing daily about concretes, he refines his thinking on these topics bit by bit over a period of time - and we get the advantage of reading his mullings on a daily basis, rather than having to wait for a PCI to edit and release them posthumously. That said, while I do look back at previous posts once I'm there, you're right that I wouldn't visit the blog as much if it wasn't updated frequently.
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I'd like to add another point that derives from economics. Remember the speech Joe gave at SOLOC2? (The one where he applied another economic principle, that of whether you're a borrower or a lender being set by the intensity of your preference for consumption now over consumption later and current interest rates.) He said that you should set your intermediate goals according to your tolerance for the delay in seeing the finished product of your work.

Perhaps Joe is prepared to wait longer. PC gets to reflect on the development of his blog as soon as the comments appear the next day whereas Joe has to wait ages for a new website to get to a release point. Similarly, look at their careers. I imagine the cycle PC goes through in designing a new house involves visiting the site once if not a few times, getting photos through 2*pi radians (360 degrees ;-) from where he intends to put the house and placing these in his office, thinking about what he wants for the owner while considering zoning, time & budget constraints before getting to work with his ArchiCAD software and drawing up the plans, all the while referencing materials spec sheets. His first "ah, there it is" moment comes earlier, I imagine, than Joe's in designing a full microprocessor SOC. (I'll admit this is a guess and the development cycles depend on the complexity of the circuitry, the grandiosity of the house, and - according to Ken - whether the Libz are coming up to an election ;-)).

Another lesson from economics is that consumer goods have different durabilities (and there are different manufacturers of both - division of labour). Consider housing (lasting 50+ years) and cars (lasting 10-15 years, say). While Joe, an engineer, is capable of putting together the great software for the websites he lists (the houses), PC (clever though he is) is not. But he can make great cars. He best puts himself to use creating one of the most widely read NZ blogs and/or content for Objectivist websites. Joe's (and Jeff's) achievement may become a main asset in the fight to spread our ideas, may last longer and may require less daily maintenance but PC's blog is still an asset that will last and give us great benefit.

Alternatively, you could think of their achievements as capital goods with Joe's being a higher order capital good. Joe's capital good increases the production of other capital goods (it's easy for PC and Tibor to post to SOLO and readily make their articles available to a large Objectivism-focussed audience) but it relies on there being content providers (lower order capital goods producers, if you will) that find the software useful.

So what's the point of all my analogies? Pro-Objectivist achievements that require little maintenance are great, but we shouldn't dismiss pro-Objectivist achievements because they require a fair bit of maintenance, especially when the person doing so is prepared to (or enjoys) put(ting) in the work and is well suited to it.

PS Your categories didn't appear to be working when I tried to visit them tonight, PC. Hopefully it's just a server problem as I remember you put a fair bit of time into categorising your archives.

Post 4

Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 11:07pm