Comments on: The social meaning of the power law http://thememorybank.co.uk/2010/02/01/the-social-meaning-of-the-power-law/ A New Commonwealth — Ver 5.0 Wed, 09 May 2012 08:52:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: mez http://thememorybank.co.uk/2010/02/01/the-social-meaning-of-the-power-law/comment-page-1/#comment-10202 mez Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:21:50 +0000 http://thememorybank.co.uk/?p=1220#comment-10202 "...we should not celebrate the inventions of great men"... + how bout those pesky women? [+ this isn't suggested through a flippant or rad_fem filter: i'm highlighting it in order 2 add another (evidently neglected) angle. power_law distributions, indeed.] “…we should not celebrate the inventions of great men”… + how bout those pesky women?

[+ this isn't suggested through a flippant or rad_fem filter: i'm highlighting it in order 2 add another (evidently neglected) angle. power_law distributions, indeed.]

]]> By: keith http://thememorybank.co.uk/2010/02/01/the-social-meaning-of-the-power-law/comment-page-1/#comment-9560 keith Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:05:50 +0000 http://thememorybank.co.uk/?p=1220#comment-9560 Thanks for the great leads, Jose. Glad you like it. The paper was trashed by a journal reviewer, must have been someone from STS studies. Maybe it's because I have lived in Paris for 12 years, but I get to groove on Durkheim more and more, especially his first and last books. I am acutely conscious of how social networking sites, Web 2.0, have made me concretely aware of the sociology of the internet in ways that were unthinkable five years ago. I suppose the nearest equivalent in my experience was when I applied statistical theory to a winning method for betting on the horses. The money in my hand was touchy-feely enough then. What interests me, as in the <em>Studying world society as a vocation</em> essay, is the use of numbers to envisage human unity within an emergent world society. I just reviewed a French book called <em>Africa Billionaire </em>which makes much play with the projection that Africans will be 1 in 4 of the human population in 2050. Durkheim's sociological project still has legs, but for global society, not nations. Thanks for the great leads, Jose. Glad you like it. The paper was trashed by a journal reviewer, must have been someone from STS studies. Maybe it’s because I have lived in Paris for 12 years, but I get to groove on Durkheim more and more, especially his first and last books. I am acutely conscious of how social networking sites, Web 2.0, have made me concretely aware of the sociology of the internet in ways that were unthinkable five years ago. I suppose the nearest equivalent in my experience was when I applied statistical theory to a winning method for betting on the horses. The money in my hand was touchy-feely enough then. What interests me, as in the Studying world society as a vocation essay, is the use of numbers to envisage human unity within an emergent world society. I just reviewed a French book called Africa Billionaire which makes much play with the projection that Africans will be 1 in 4 of the human population in 2050. Durkheim’s sociological project still has legs, but for global society, not nations.

]]> By: Jose http://thememorybank.co.uk/2010/02/01/the-social-meaning-of-the-power-law/comment-page-1/#comment-9544 Jose Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:02:54 +0000 http://thememorybank.co.uk/?p=1220#comment-9544 Hi Keith this is a very nice article!! And I think, although not exactly how, it could be connected with two other Parisian books. Just these days (here we are in summer holidays) I am reading Alain Desrosieres’ The Politics of Large Numbers and he nicely follows some connections between the history of statistics and the emergence of social abstractions (and Durkheim's society). And, second, as far as I understood it, I think Boltanski&Chiapello’s new spirit tried to explain how network thinking produces new and different social connections (although: this was written before the new science of networks). I would say that what is perhaps happening (for instance with social networks sites) now is something similar to what happened with XIX century statistical categories, they are turning from weird abstractions to something we can feel and almost touch. All the best. Hi Keith this is a very nice article!! And I think, although not exactly how, it could be connected with two other Parisian books. Just these days (here we are in summer holidays) I am reading Alain Desrosieres’ The Politics of Large Numbers and he nicely follows some connections between the history of statistics and the emergence of social abstractions (and Durkheim’s society). And, second, as far as I understood it, I think Boltanski&Chiapello’s new spirit tried to explain how network thinking produces new and different social connections (although: this was written before the new science of networks). I would say that what is perhaps happening (for instance with social networks sites) now is something similar to what happened with XIX century statistical categories, they are turning from weird abstractions to something we can feel and almost touch. All the best.

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