An Introduction to Connective Knowledge ~ Stephen's Web

An Introduction to Connective Knowledge ~ Stephen's Web: "Various writers (for example Shirkey) write and speak as though the power law were an artifact of nature, something that develops of its own accord. And because it is natural, and because such systems produce knowledge (we will return to this point), it is argued that it would be a mistake to interfere with the network structure. This argument is remarkably similar to the argument posed by the beneficiaries of a similar inequality in financial markets. The rich get richer, benefiting from an inequal allocation of resources, but efforts to change this constitute 'intereference' in a 'natural phenomenon', the invisible hand of the marketplace, intelligently allocating resources and determining priorities."

This is a great article, and I picked out this extract because - perhaps serendipitously, perhaps not - it connects (pun inevitable) Learning & Change with Learning Technologies. In L & C we see two schools (Chicago& Marx) contesting economic history; here we see the possibility that narrative agendas can drive interpretations of something as "concrete" as a computer network. (I like the idea of a concrete network)