our sovereign territory

Joan Westenberg promotes the idea of POSSE (publish on your own site & syndicate elsewhere) or what I have called social media’s home base — blogs. This may be just another blog, but it’s mine. Westenberg also promotes real simple syndication (RSS). So do I. Therefore, the idea that, “curation is the last hope of intelligent discourse” resonated with me.

As algorithms churn out vast quantities of information with varying degrees of accuracy and quality, the discerning judgment of human curators is the only defence against the tide of misinformation and mediocrity. Human curators bring nuanced understanding, contextual awareness, and ethical judgment to the table—qualities that AI, in its current state, is fundamentally unable to replicate.

Human curators can distinguish between nuanced arguments, recognise cultural subtleties, and evaluate the credibility of sources in ways that algorithms cannot. This human touch is essential for maintaining the integrity of our information ecosystem. It serves not only as a filter for quality but also as a signal for meaningful and trustworthy content amidst the overwhelming noise generated by AI systems. —Joan Westenberg 2024-01-10

We need manual, not automatic, for sense-making I wrote in 2012 and confirmed that manual sensemaking was essential in 2023 — The process of seeking out information sources, making sense of them through some actions, and then sharing with others to confirm or accelerate our knowledge are interlinked activities from which knowledge — often slowly — emerges.

The deluge of artificially-generated ‘content’ is growing into a tidal wave. Skill erosion is a clear danger — If you don’t use it, you will lose it. Automate what was once a skill-developed process and those skills will decline.

Westenberg raises a good point about the democratizing nature of individual blogs.

The personal website is the ultimate sovereign territory online, enabling creators to share content on their own terms. These sites export their ideas to the digital public square while filtering outbound information to cultivate wisdom and perspective. They are living, extensible documents evolving over time based on the site owner’s journey.

Places like this blog are still our sovereign territory. It is the core of my Seek > Sense > Share practice. As Robin Good said, “Curation is about making sense of a topic/issue/event/person/product etc. for a specific audience.” We need more curators.

More on the idea of — observation > narration > curation. Curation starts with observation, which requires curiosity.