[B]ecause the minimum costs of being an organization in the first place are relatively high, certain activities may have some value but not enough to make them worth pursuing in any organized way. New social tools are altering this equation by lowering the costs of coordinating group action.

Clay Shirky
Some Similar Quotes
  1. The soul is healed by being with children. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  2. Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue). - Jess C. Scott

  3. Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public. - Cornel West

  4. I suppose it’s not a social norm, and not a manly thing to do – to feel, discuss feelings. So that’s what I’m giving the finger to. Social norms and stuff…what good are social norms, really? I think all they do is project a limited... - Jess C. Scott

  5. Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future - and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people. - Albert Camus

More Quotes By Clay Shirky
  1. When we change the way we communicate, we change society

  2. Tragedy of the Commons: while each person can agree that all would benefit from common restraint, the incentives of the individuals are arrayed against that outcome.

  3. The centrality of group effort to human life means that anything that changes the way groups function will have profound ramifications for everything from commerce and government to media and religion.

  4. [N]ew technology enables new kinds of group-forming.

  5. Unlike sharing, where the group is mainly an aggregate of participants, cooperating creates group identity.

Related Topics