Put This in the "I Wish I Had Said That" Category

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame opines on the nature of blogging in an interview with The Atlantic:

More seriously, I find that there are a lot of very interesting and well-informed people on the Internet, but that they tend to be drowned out by the obnoxious trolls. That breakdown in civility -- or even in serious debate, since trolls never really debate, they just shout -- is a more serious threat than "cocooning." With cocooning you avoid people who disagree with you; with trolling you notice them but write them off as unserious. The latter, I think, is more dangerous to democracy.

I wonder if the very nature of the medium is part of what causes good people to throw up their hands at the futility of it all.

It will evolve, I am sure into something else. Whether it will be better not is yet to be known.