Tajchman Response: Twittering for a Utopian Society

Trey draws an interesting parallel between cell communication and Twitter. In many ways, Twitter does seem to mimic cell behavior in that it allows individuals to communicate with informational neighbors. Messages can propagate and spread quickly in Twitter, much as important cell communications might.

There are also, however, some distinct differences. For one, cells operate collectively to form organs, which have very specific motives. Twitter communities, on the other hand, do not form specialized communities in the way cells do. Instead, they are made up of diverse members, and if you follow “ties” within twitter from user to user to user, you’ll quickly find that personal interests vary greatly.

This diversity is both an aid and a hindrance to decision-making. The cells in a liver share a common set of goals like detoxification and biochemical production. While you could pick out a group of connected Twitter users who share common goals, once you start looking at their neighbors, and those neighbors’ neighbors, the diversity of interests quickly expands, to likely include opposing goals.

The concept of ad hoc decision-making communities is nothing new to society. Under anarchism, decision-making communities still form, and attempt to maximize their own power. The generally accepted downside of anarchy is that it leads to disorder and a breakdown of social contracts. Twitter is similarly headless; and suffers the same disorderly behavior in decision-making. It is an excellent tool for spreading information, but like other disorganized systems, is inefficient at making decisions.

As a big believer in “net roots”, I think an online community like Twitter could be enhanced a great deal toward societal decision-making (which is one of the key roles of government). Other sites like Facebook and even Digg have formats much more conducive to augmenting government, but more on that topic another time.