The Unfounded Future of Blogjects

Blogjects, at their core, are entities of raw information, and nothing more. Julian Bleecker, in her article, “Why Things Matter”, tries to portray the future of blogjects in a manner that is entirely unsupported. Bleecker speaks of the future of blogjects as “first-class citizens” who “participate in the exchange of ideas,” as a member of our social web. This statement is so blatantly farfetched that I expected the article to elaborate on some clear reasoning as to why this conclusion was drawn. However, I was surprised to find that the only backing for this assumption was given in the form of several poorly chosen examples that fail to truly pertain to Bleecker’s original thesis. Furthermore, some of her later statements went so far as to contradict her original ideas entirely.

Bleecker originally speaks of the future of blogjects in a way that is undeniably characteristic of human thought. By presenting them as “first-class citizens” and emphasizing the use of “thought”, she makes it appear as though these blogjects will be able to make conscious decisions representative of a human. Through this, they would be able to converse with people on a deeper level, as much more than a collection of raw data. She speaks of a transition from passive to assertive behavior. Her first and primary example of this is the Pigeon that Blogs. The Pigeon that Blogs is a perfect example of a blogject being a collector of raw material that is then presented to the world for our own interpretation and discussion…how does this even remotely pertain to Bleecker’s perception of the future of blogjects? Sure, the results of the Pigeon that Blogs can potentially be used as an instrument for change, but that in no way relates to the pigeons blog’s having characteristics of thought. They are still just providers of raw data, left to the open interpretation of the public.

As she further elaborates on the details of how these future blogjects will operate, she makes the statement that “Blogjects have no truck with the syntax of human thought.” This is a bold and direct contradiction of her original statements. As I quote from the beginning of her article in reference to the characteristics of blogjects, “Blogjects become first-class a-list producers of conversations in the same way that human bloggers do.” Yet this is simply not true if you disregard the fundamental aspect of thought!

In closing, I believe that Blogjects can play a highly beneficial role in our society’s acquisition of knowledge. However, I find this to be fundamentally true only for cases in which the blogjects sole purpose is to provide raw data left for open interpretation, as is currently the primary case. The issue of blogjects operating as producers and agents on the same level that humans do is currently so entirely shaky, contradictory, and unfounded that I see little relevance in discussing the specifics of its implementation. Bleecker’s article furthered my assumptions in its inability to present a conclusive argument surrounding the fundamental characteristics of future blogjects.