The tools that a society uses to create and maintain itself are as central to human life as a hive is to bee life. Though the hive is not part of any individual bee, it is part of the colony, both shaped by and shaping the lives of its inhabitants.

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.

A revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new tools. It happens when society adopts new behaviors

If it’s a revolution it can’t be predictable. And if it’s predictable it can’t be a revolution.

[C]ollaborative production is simple: no one person can take credit for what gets created, and the project could not come into being without the participation of many.

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 never participate.

Think about spam filters; if email didnt come from someone that someone you know knows, thats an important signal, and one we could embed in the environment; we just dont. I just want the world to be filtered through my social graph.