Chaos theory

Some folks found class today chaotic. Is this bad? I'm asking as a guideline for future discussions. Is it preferable not to have discussion the whole period, but have some kind of centralizing wrap up? Alternatively, is it ok to have some classes where there are lots of different views out there, but we should aim at some kinds of synthesis? Something else? The feedback from ya'll's blogs is helpful. I can use it--we can use it--to figure out how to proceed.

Related options: I think it makes sense for folks to think and blog about what sort of steps would be helpful for moving the discussion forward. Of course, we are continuing to read the book and that will help. But there are other things as well:

--producing a list of exact issues
--determining different stakeholders
--considering possible solutions

I was thinking that people would benefit from knowing more history of the internet (there are one or two histories in the resource list; my article on electronic reserve, "From Technocracy to Technoculture," considers some of the history of the internet)." This would help because of the way that the terms public and private are used in class does not correspond to the meaning of public and private in US law (or in the Andrejevich book which uses the terms in accordance with their use in law). I posted a link to Harvard's Berkman Center a few hours ago. There you can find information about efforts on the part of companies and government to till with questions of privacy and intrusion.