Re: [xml-dev] Semantic web?

>
>  [Andrew said] 
> I think there is a real possiblity that the Sem-Web will focus more on 
> what we can *define* rather than what is important. Many of the most 
> important aspects of life are intriguingly intangible and are likely 
> to be resistant to a culturally narrow standardization. Therefore 
> there is a prospect of a distortion of meaning (and therefore 
> potentially of thinking) perhaps unparalleled in the history of Mankind.  

The good news about standards is that they allow our data to mesh and 
work together .... the bad news is that they filter out divergencies. 
 It's a never ending battle to seek the right balance.   Personally I 
feel that people using the same term to refer to the same thing is going 
to be seen as a positive force in the history of mankind; but if this is 
combined with the idea that we can only use terms made up by our 
standards bodies, then that has the potential to get us into an 
unparalled rut .   Hopefully that will not happen.

We're probably gonna get flamed for leaving www-comments in the cc .... 
but hey, this needs to be discussed by the WG and integrated into the 
RDF specifications.  At the moment it looks like the balance is shfting 
the wrong way.  

Seth Russell
http://radio.weblogs.com/0113759/