Category - Clay Shirky

Discover the thoughtful Quotes of Clay Shirky, a philosopher and author. Our collection of his most impactful quotes reflects his deep understanding of language, philosophy, and history. Motivational Quotes of Clay Shirky
Whether seeking thought-provoking reflections or academic wisdom, Clay Shirkys words offer a rich source of intellectual inspiration. #ClayShirky Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

The tools that a society uses to create and maintain itself are as central to human life as a hive is to bee life. Though the hive is not part of any individual bee, it is part of the colony, both shaped by and shaping the lives of its inhabitants.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

Our social life is literally primal, in the sense that chimpanzees and gorillas, our closest relatives among the primates, are also social.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

There is a giant gulf between doing something and doing nothing. And someone who makes a lolcat and uploads it – even if only to crack their friends up – has already crossed that chasm to doing something. That’s the sea change, and you can see it even with the cute cats.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

The whole, ‘Is the Internet a good thing or a bad thing’? We’re done with that. It’s just a thing. How to maximise its civic value, its public good – that’s the really big challenge.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

The difference between what all the people can do individually and the global consumption of nonrenewable resources is huge. The tension is… what will it take to get people to act in concert? There isn’t any additive solution to the problem. It will be both governmental and social because that’s the scale of the problem.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

The web’s democratic in one way and distinctly undemocratic in another way. And I think a lot of the confusion about the political ramifications have to do with that one word having so many meanings. So, it’s democratic in that it quite literally delivers power to the people; it, it essentially opens up participation in the public’s mind.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

I am not somebody who believes everyone is equally talented; talent remains unequally distributed.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

One of the problems with any kind of talking about the media landscape is that we’ve just been through an unusually stable period in which, for fifty years, English language media was centered in three cities – London, New York, and Los Angeles – around a very stable group of people working in a relatively stable set of media.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

When I say ‘publishing is the new literacy,’ I don’t mean there’s no role for curation, for improving material, for editing material, for fact-checking material. I mean literally, the act of putting something out in public used to be reserved in the same way.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

Algorithms don’t do a good job of detecting their own flaws.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

I removed ‘cyberspace’ from my vernacular. The idea, which I grew up with, of going into a place separate from the real world, is something my students just don’t recognise.

– Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky

More interesting than thinking about what’s possible in 10 years is thinking what’s possible now but that no one has built.

– Clay Shirky

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