Prior to the internet, the last technology that had any real effect on the way people sat down and talked together was the table

For most of modern life, our strong talents and desires for group effort have been filtered through relatively rigid institutional structures because of the complexity of managing groups. We haven't had all the groups we've wanted, we've simply had the groups we could afford. The old limits of what unmanaged and unpaid groups can do are no longer in operation.

What you need for a participatory system to work: "a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain."

Collaboration is not an absolute good.

We are in a world where most American citizens over the age of 12 share things with each other online.

When you make the claim that something on the Internet is going to be good for democracy, you often [hear], 'Are you talking about the thing with the singing cats?'

To have a discussion about the plusses and minuses of various forms of group action, though, is going to require discussing the current tools and services as they exist, rather than discussing their caricatures or simply wishing that they would disappear.