The rise of the virtual exchange of pros and cons
If someone is making a “statement” (positive or negative) about a specific thing this contextual relationship between the “thing”, the “statement” and if it is “pros” or “cons” can be captured and saved. This information can then be later easily used to combine “statements” about specific “things” and create by this dynamically a “virtual exchange of pros and cons”. The value of the virtual exchange of pros and cons is very clear and it is nicely demonstrated on the site opposingviews.com :
We call this a “virtual” exchange of pros and cons because it is not necessarily a given that each pros and cons were provided originally in direct relationship/context to each other. The logic that puts specific “pros” and “cons” left and right together on one page is also not necessarily transparent. This missing or disputable transparency is leaving room for hidden intentions or stupid errors behind each and every page that displays a virtual exchange of pros and cons. Why is this important to be recognized?
The real world effects of information put into the wrong context was just recently clearly demonstrated:
“What made a six-year-old article about a bankruptcy filing by United Airlines reappear on Wall Street traders’ screens on Monday as if it were fresh news, prompting a sell-off that erased $1 billion in the company’s market value in a matter of minutes?”
Source: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/a-stock-killer-fueled-by-algorithm-after-algorithm/
The real world effect of potential errors in the context of a virtual exchange of pros and cons on Amazon would be probably limited.
But would that be also true for possible errors (intended or not) in the virtual exchanges of pros and cons during the ongoing US presidential election campaign (see below Google Labs “In Quotes” as an example)?
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September 25th, 2008 at 9:38 am and is filed under Interesting Links, Issues explained. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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