“Tragedy of the Commons: while each person can agree that all would benefit from common restraint, the incentives of the individuals are… — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“The basic capabilities of tools like Flickr reverse the old order of group activity, transforming 'gather, then share' into 'share, then gather'.” — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
We use the word 'organization' to mean both the state of being organized and the groups that do the organizing. — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“Mass amateurization of publishing makes mass amateurization of filtering a forced move.” — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“[F]or any group determined to maintain a set of communal standards some mechanism of enforcement must exist.” — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“Because Wikipedia is a process, not a product, it replaces guarantees offered by institutions with probabilities supported by process.” — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“Tools that provide simple ways of creating groups lead to new groups, [...] and not just more groups but more kinds of groups.” — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“The low cost of aggregating information also allowed the formalization of sharing [...].” — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“For the last hundred years the big organizational question has been whether any given task was best taken on by the state,… — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“Information sharing produces shared awareness among the participants, and collaborative production relies on shared creation, but collective action creates shared responsibility, by… — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“[B]ecause the minimum costs of being an organization in the first place are relatively high, certain activities may have some value but… — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“An organization will tend to grow only when the advantages that can be gotten from directing the work of additional employees are… — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
“[R]elying on nonfinancial motivations may actually make systems more tolerant of variable participation.” — Clay Shirky Copy Share Image
To have a discussion about the plusses and minuses of various forms of group action, though, is going to require discussing the current tools… — Clay Shirky Copy Share
“Mass amateurization of publishing makes mass amateurization of filtering a forced move.” — Clay Shirky Copy Share
“Information sharing produces shared awareness among the participants, and collaborative production relies on shared creation, but collective action creates shared responsibility, by tying the… — Clay Shirky Copy Share
More interesting than thinking about what's possible in 10 years is thinking what's possible now but that no one has built. — Clay Shirky Copy Share
“Digital networks are increasing the fluidity of all media. The old choice between one-way public media (like books and movies) and two-way private media… — Clay Shirky Copy Share
Even with the sacred printing press, we got erotic novels 150 years before we got scientific journals. — Clay Shirky Copy Share
Tools get socially interesting after they're no longer technologically interesting. — Clay Shirky Copy Share
Carpooling is important for urban density, air pollution and other reasons, but carpooling is not the kind of thing that actually changes the energy… — Clay Shirky Copy Share
If what you're doing is valuable for people, they will find a way to pay you to keep doing it. — Clay Shirky Copy Share
Multi-taskers often think they are like gym rats, bulking up their ability to juggle tasks, when in fact they are like alcoholics, degrading their… — Clay Shirky Copy Share
Civic participants don't aim to make life better merely for members of the group. They want to improve even the lives of people who… — Clay Shirky Copy Share
I would not hesitate to say I was addicted to the Internet in the first two years. It can be addictive, and things not… — Clay Shirky Copy Share
Bureaucracies temporarily suspend the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In a bureaucracy, it's easier to make a process more complex than to make it simpler,… — Clay Shirky Copy Share
The more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are for any individual to disagree with. More media always means more arguing. — Clay Shirky Copy Share