I am fascinated by the current explorations concerning social media and how community formation and spontaneity are enabled. I find a great deal to digest, and much thoughtful analysis in the recent threads. Although it is not material to the clarification of weak and strong ties as a false dichotomy, this one passage brought me up short: " ...what is destroying our opportunities for individuality and creativity, subverting us from realizing our human potential is not that we are tweeting about trivialities, but that the governance of our planet has been taken away from us." The hyperbole is appealing, but I wonder if there is something more important here. When, if ever, have "we" possessed the governance of our planet? Indeed, what can it possibly mean to give ontological standing to the notion of planetary governance and suggest that it has ever existed? I ask this because is it perhaps more the case that we have before us the opportunity to gain something, not that we ever lost it. - Dennis -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michel Bauwens <https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/2011-February/000401.html> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 07:01 To: p2p-foundation Subject: [P2P-F] weak vs strong ties as wrong dilemma -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens