Karakuri Babble is a daily column by the editors of i360.com, usually on topics tangentially related to anime and cosplay.

In the past we have endorsed many things; in the future we shall support many others.

If you follow the ongoing demise of the publishing industry, you've probably seen this fantastic piece by Clay Shirky.

Tattoo it on your eyelids, gentlemen. These are interesting times.

That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify.

It's a plea for context, really, and we are all about context. Eventually we'll look back at the world we've built, and marvel that things were ever any different -- but not for a long time yet. Right now the reverse applies: we have no idea how to get there from here.

See also: "Humor is about the only defense advertisers have against the commercial-skipping fast-forward button on the DVR." It's a war out there.

words from chris, 2009-04-15 01:06:41, los angeles