Influenced Identities, the Virtues of Piracy, and Spontaneous Order

Three Questions

  1. According to Goldsmith, a stable identity does not exist because our experiences with other people and ideas influence our identity. Why does he consider it important that his writing reflects "this state of ever-shifting identity and subjectivity" (84)?
  2. Cory Doctorow says he'd rather create "literature that people care about enough to steal" than invest his time and effort into creating material that nobody values (qtd. in Goldsmith 137). Excluding the possibility of people crediting him for his work, why would Doctorow prefer piracy to indifference?
  3. How does web design relate to the concept of spontaneous order in fields such as economics and science?

Response

"How does web design relate to the concept of spontaneous order?"

While reading Molly Holzschlag's web article "Thinking Outside the Grid," I could relate her topic of planned vs. spontaneous design to concepts of spontaneous order in fields such as economics and science. In her article, Holzschlag uses city layouts as a metaphor for grid design on the web. According to Holzschlag, Tucson's city layout fits a "precise plan," while London's layout is "seemingly spontaneous in its design." Tucson's planned design represents grid-based web design, while London's spontaneous layout more accurately represents web designers who break out of "the rigid confines of grid layouts."

On one hand, a grid-based design's predictability increases its aesthetic appeal and facilitates navigation. But the design's rigidity also limits growth and adaptation. On the other hand, the complexity and unpredictability of spontaneous layouts complicate navigation but allow the city to grow and change without being stifled by rigid boundaries.

This metaphor parallels a concept called "spontaneous order" that occurs in both science and economics. In science, the concept of spontaneous order describes how complex, orderly systems like evolution and language can develop over time without any guidance. And economists like Adam Smith and F.A. Hayek used the term "spontaneous order" to refer to why the free market generates the most efficient, ordered economy: individuals allocate their resources more efficiently than any central government because the latter design cannot adjust to the massive amount of constantly changing information in the market. Holzschlag even echoes this concept:

"We’re not limited to a planned city; we can create unique designs and have them work well. As a combined force, the empowered veteran and today’s spontaneous youth inspire a provocative notion that the way the web looks today is nothing like the way it’s going to look tomorrow."

Web design like CSS might work better because it does not limit the scope and adaptability of online information as much as would more rigid grid-based designs. Flexible designs create more efficient layouts for both websites and economies because they allow those systems to adapt to new information.

References

Goldsmith, Kenneth. Uncreative Writing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Print.

Holzschlag, Molly E. "Thinking Outside the Grid." A List Apart Magazine. 19 December 2005. Web. Accessed 13 February 2012.