Clay Shirky, previously featured here for his book Here Comes Everybody, has provoked a lot of interest through another proposition. Adapted from a conference talk related to Web 2.0, Shirky knit together a surprising combination of elements identified in the title:

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus

His first contention is that television sitcoms served the same sociological midwifery role during the American post-WWII ‘leisure age’ as gin during the Industrial Revolution. First it might help to understand just what gin had to do with anything. (more…)