Clay Shirky Groups Quotations

Civic participants don't aim to make life better merely for members of the group. They want to improve even the lives of people who never participate...

Society is not just the product of its individual members; it is also the product of its constituent groups.

To have a discussion about the plusses and minuses of various forms of group action, though, is going to require discussing the current tools and services as they exist, rather than discussing their caricatures or simply wishing that they would disappear.

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