How To Agree?
Paul Graham just wrote a wonderful overview of how to disagree. Go read it. I’ll wait.
My guess is this was spurred by a mildly controversial post he did a few days earlier called You Weren’t Meant To Have A Boss which was widely commented on.
I don’t disagree with Paul. In fact I whole-heartedly agree with him.
And that’s my problem. Paul didn’t tell me “How To Agree”. As he points out:
The web is turning writing into a conversation. Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do — in comment threads, on forums, and in their own blog posts.
Many who respond to something disagree with it. That’s to be expected. Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing. And when you agree there’s less to say. You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications. When you disagree you’re entering territory he may not have explored.
This post is an attempt to “agree and say something” but it is, frankly, work.
What I’d love to have is a way of saying “+1” or “I agree” or “count me in” or “what he said” or what have you.
I do this right now in subtle and ineffective ways. I bookmark a link on Delicious or Twitter it or send it via email to people who might care that I agree. But it sure would be nice to have a centralized place where we could all saying “I Agree” and just link with (or without comment) to stuff we think is correct and of value.
My short-term solution to this problem is to create a Delicious tag called “I Agree” that I’ll try to use for stuff I find that I just agree with. I say “try” because it’s damn hard to introduce new behaviours — even self-imposed ones — so no promises.