{"id":225,"date":"2021-01-14T19:17:31","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T19:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/?p=225"},"modified":"2021-01-19T11:45:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T11:45:11","slug":"obscurity-is-an-issue-we-all-have-to-deal-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2021\/01\/14\/obscurity-is-an-issue-we-all-have-to-deal-with\/","title":{"rendered":"Obscurity is an issue we all have to deal with"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s been almost two decades since Tim O’Reilly wrote \u201cObscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.\u201d That article<\/a> mainly dealt with issues of copyright and similar intellectual property laws \u2013 and one point where his observations and the observations I aim to make here seem to agree is the view (i.e. perspective, opinion, etc.) that the legal framework may not matter as much as the attention (and similar behaviors) of end users, consumers, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been thinking about this general topic for several weeks now, and perhaps you may find it surprising to hear that my thought processes along these lines began by thinking long, hard and deep about the marketing concept referred to as \u201cunique selling proposition\u201d. I aim to actually argue that people should not aim to be individuals as much as they should view themselves as members of communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Tim O’Reilly’s quote above says is that authors and other creative artists cannot exist in isolation \u2013 their existence crucially depends on interactions with communities of people who are willing to interact with and thereby support their work. Fans, consumers, target audiences, \u2026 \u2013 whatever you want to call these people, marketplaces, ideas \u2013 the community of engaged participation matters a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being an individual, being unique, separated, censored, cut off or even ostracized may be the worst thing that could happen to an author, a creative artist or even anyone at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do not solve any social or societal problems by removing an individual from our community. A death penalty does not solve anything as much as it creates a new problem: it turns us into murderers. One death does not cancel out another death. Instead: Each and every individual murder adds up \u2013 the cumulative total only grows into a larger number, a bigger problem, … — more<\/em> death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s imagine how there are about 8 billion people on Earth. In some ways, we already are a global community, and in other ways we aren’t. Each and every person alive is breathing as we speak. Yet each of our own spoken language is a little bit different than the speaking of others. This may be due to our voice, our accent, our dialect, \u2026 it may be due to a wide variety of reasons. Indeed, I think it’s quite reasonable to expect that for each and every one of us, there are more people we cannot understand at all than there are people we can understand, be understood by, communicate with sufficiently to have a sense of mutual understanding with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no reason for individuals to take pride in splendid isolation from one another. We ought not to celebrate our unique individuality as much as we should stand in awe, wonder and amazement if and whenever we feel we are able to come to a common understanding, to reach agreement, to collaborate and help each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So please: Do not lose sight of your fellow participants in each and every one of our common and shared experiences!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been almost two decades since Tim O’Reilly wrote \u201cObscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.\u201d That article mainly dealt with issues of copyright and similar intellectual property laws \u2013 and one point where … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[313],"tags":[247,168,222,275,223,752,21,725,749,349,54,253,750,751],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w79D-3D","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/07\/23\/anti-dis-establishment-arian-ism-antidisintermediation\/","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":0},"title":"Anti-Dis-Establishment-Arian-Ism + AntiDisInterMediaTion","author":"nmw","date":"July 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In this post, I plan to give you a small insight into some of the marketing \/ branding ideas I developed for this blog. One of the BIG IDEA moments behind \u201eremediary\u201c is simply that antidisintermediation is nothing other than remediation (and as that is in a rather oblique way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":84,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2017\/06\/02\/why-the-scientific-method-and-open-source-are-some-of-the-best-things-since-sunlight\/","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":1},"title":"Why the Scientific Method and Open Source are Some of the Best Things Since Sunlight","author":"nmw","date":"June 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"About 100 years ago, some guy named Louis Brandeis apparently said something like: Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Mr. Brandeis was speaking metaphorically (his statement was made in the context of a book titled \u201cOther People's Money and How the Bankers Use it\u201d). There are in fact other phenomena which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "impost"","block_context":{"text":"impost","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/org\/org-impost\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":206,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2020\/02\/27\/patronizing-patrons-outside-your-own-community-vs-being-a-patron-inside-your-own-community\/","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":2},"title":"Patronizing Patrons Outside Your Own Community vs. Being a Patron Inside Your Own Community","author":"nmw","date":"February 27, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my good friends (the kind that actually try to push back on the kinds of things I often say) has been hammering away for some time at my attitude \u2013 sort of calling it patronizing. I beg to differ. But before I address that, let me note something\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":95,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2017\/06\/20\/wordpress-search-engine-optimization\/","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":3},"title":"WordPress Search Engine Optimization","author":"nmw","date":"June 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I asked MA.TT a question \u2013 of course it's complicated, but it definitely has something to do with the three-letter-acronym (TLA) called SEO: http:\/\/wordpress.tv\/2017\/06\/19\/interview-and-qanda-with-matt-mullenweg As I indicated in my question, this has nothing to do with Google and\/or similar proprietary (\u201csecret\u201d) algorithms. I was talking about WordPress as a search\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "impost"","block_context":{"text":"impost","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/org\/org-impost\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":54,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/12\/18\/the-rationality-of-literacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":225,"position":4},"title":"The Rationality of Literacy","author":"nmw","date":"December 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the past couple months, I have worked on developing a mission statement for one of my overarching goals \u2013 something like a \u201elife goal\u201c. Initial attempts were quite abstract, and I was greatly helped by the very considerate feedback of friends. 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Are you even aware that Google ever cleansed the web?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "impost"","block_context":{"text":"impost","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/org\/org-impost\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}